Cabinet minister David TC Davies has accused Sir Keir’s top advisor of helping to cover up the dire performance of the Labour-run NHS in Wales.
Mr Davies, the Welsh Secretary, claims Sue Gray “dragged her heels” as he tried to uncover just how bad the service was performing in Wales.
He told the Sun on Sunday that he had several meetings with the former top civil servant, who recently departed Whitehall after a stint with responsibilities for policy on the Union.
During the meetings, he says he had “problems” as she was “not very keen at all on the UK Statistics Authority being able to demand comparable statistics from the Welsh Labour government as well as from the UK government”.
He added: “We need to be able to see what’s going on across the whole of the UK so we can learn from each other.”
However a Labour source has labelled the allegation “desperate stuff from the Tories”.
“The facts are Sue Gray signed the first deal between the UK government and the devolved administrations to agree data should be shared to improve outcomes across the UK.”
The accusation against Sue Gray – who rose to national prominence while investigating Boris Johnson over Partygate before defecting to a political role in the Labour Party – comes as Health Secretary Steve Barclay was forced to write to his counterparts in Wales and Scotland to bail them out of their respective waiting list crises.
Mr Barclay has offered to allow Welsh and Scottish patients to access services in England, where the long-term sick wait significantly less time to be seen.
The Health Secretary has said he is concerned at the “variation in performance across the NHS services”.
According to statistics, despite a population one-tenth of that in England, Scotland has 21,600 people waiting 78 weeks or more for appointments compared to 7,177 south of Hadrian’s Wall.
Rishi Sunak’s five main priorities include reducing NHS waiting lists, with a 94 percent drop from the 124,811 patients waiting over 78 weeks in England in September 2021.
In Wales, 73,000 patients are waiting over 77 weeks, despite a 3 million population.
Mr Barclay generously said he would be “open to considering any request from you for patients waiting lengthy periods for treatment in Scotland and Wales to be able to choose from alternate providers in England”.
“This will help to ensure we are joined up when it comes to cutting waiting lists — one of the Government’s top five priorities — and will allow us to better work together to improve performance and get patients seen more quickly.”
Meetings will be set up in Edinburgh and Cardiff to discuss the costs of the scheme.
Sir Keir Starmer previously said that Welsh-run Labour is a “blueprint for what Labour can do across the UK”.
