Ockenden Report

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Let me first thank my hon. Friend for her approach and her role in helping to make the report happen, and for the way in which she has worked with me, and with Ministers in my Department, on this most important of issues. She is right to talk about the importance of culture, especially given that, as the report makes clear, the voices of women were not heard time and again. I want to reassure her that we will implement all the report’s recommendations, but, more broadly, that women’s voices will be at the heart of the upcoming women’s health strategy.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Today is an important day for maternity safety, and we rightly pay tribute to the families directly affected, so many of whom have given evidence to the Ockenden review.

James Titcombe, who lost his baby son Joshua during the Morecambe Bay maternity scandal, has said that one of the most harmful experiences for the Morecambe Bay families was

“seeing influential people in the maternity world diminish… the…findings”

of the investigation report. I join James Titcombe in saying that we must not allow that to happen with this report. I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that the bereaved families are allowed a process of truth, reconciliation and healing, rather than any denial of the truth of what took place.

[Sajid Javid]

I agree with the hon. Lady, and she is right to raise the importance of the Morecambe Bay investigation. That report, which I believe was completed in 2015, contained 44 recommendations. Eighteen recommendations that were specifically for the trust have been implemented, and the 26 for the wider NHS are in the course of being implemented.