Welsh minister blasts UK Government's 'tissue of lies'

I write in reply to your letter of yesterday's date. As a direct result of it, this is a final request for you to adhere to the normal conventions surrounding the publication of independent reports and end your attempts to subvert the process. If you do not, we will have to consider commissioning and publishing our own independent study by the OECD in a way which does not risk contamination by the overt politicisation of the process for which you are directly responsible.

The assertion in your letter that you feel you have a right to quote selectively from an unpublished report in the lead up to the General Election is truly shocking - it flies in the face of every principle of the proper conduct of public life. Your failure to clearly and openly set out such an intention at the time when the study was commissioned will appear to some to be deliberate and deceptive.

The NHS in Wales will not be the victim of any Conservative party ploy to drag its reputation through the mud for entirely partisan political purposes.

At a time when the four home nations of the UK need to be working closely together to address the threat of Ebola, your willingness to put the interests of your party above those of the public is especially reprehensible. By the time your letter, marked Official-Sensitive, arrived at my office, it had already been handed to one of your backbench MPs and to the London media. That was grossly discourteous and demeaning of the office you are privileged to hold. As it has already been used to augment the tissue of lies which are told on behalf of your party, you will not be surprised that I have decided that this letter too will be available for publication.