Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Gummer and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Gentleman raises a completely just point. The whole purpose behind our apprenticeship programme is to give opportunities to people who would not otherwise have them. That is why the 3 million target that we have across the economy is so important. The public sector will contribute a significant proportion of that, and I am responsible for the civil service component. We are doing very well on the civil service apprenticeship numbers. Two weeks ago, we launched a set of standards that will apply to some of the civil service apprenticeships. I hope that, in time, we will be able to fulfil exactly the aspiration that we both have in ensuring that that helps social mobility.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Electoral Commission’s finding on the number of people unable to vote if Government plans to trial the use of identification in polling stations were rolled out nationally.

Clinical Negligence Claims

Debate between Ben Gummer and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ben Gummer)]

This is a fascinating matter, which deserves a great deal of debate. We could discuss this interesting subject for many hours. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) for condensing a complicated issue into a 15-minute, eloquent explanation of the problems that face us.

In addition to the reading that my right hon. and learned Friend has already done, I point him in the direction of the MBRRACE-UK—Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK—report into the quality of investigations into stillbirths and neonatal injuries and deaths in the NHS, which was published at the end of last year. Although it charts a significant improvement in the reduction of stillbirths and neonatal deaths over the past 20 years due to the advancement of science, it draws one very depressing conclusion, which is that the quality of investigations has not improved since the 1990s.

I admit immediately that there is not yet any clear, scientifically proved correlation between that and the fact that litigation costs have increased, but I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will accept my initial submission, which is that there is not the evidence for one of his claims, that somehow the increase in litigation automatically leads to an improvement in investigation and, therefore, to an improvement in patient safety. I therefore suggest that one of the statements that he made in his very careful speech is not a full reflection of the truth that we are seeking to uncover.

My right hon. and learned Friend said that we should aim to achieve proper justice and proper compensation for the claimant, and that that is the endpoint of litigation —but it is only a partial endpoint. The first thing that we are trying to achieve is an understanding of what went wrong to ensure that that is immediately transmitted back into the service, so that we prevent such a clinical catastrophe from happening to another individual or family. That is exactly where the existing system does not work, because it militates against learning early in the litigation process. In many instances, it provides a definitive account only at the point of judgment. That is what we are seeking to change through our proposed reform.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) on securing the debate. I also declare that I am a non-practising door tenant at Civitas Law in Cardiff.

I accept the Minister’s point about the quality of investigation. Will he also agree that access to justice is itself crucial, particularly given that the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, recently said that access to justice is now “unaffordable to most” and available only to the very richest?

[Ben Gummer]

I will turn to access to justice. I do not entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s interpretation of the judge’s words.

In our proposed reforms, I intend to change the balance for the NHS Litigation Authority and for claimant lawyers to ensure that we get to a single version of the truth as early in the process as possible. I accept in its entirety my right hon. and learned Friend’s interpretation of the NHSLA’s performance in past years. I do so on the basis that many claimants have been immensely frustrated—as have the clinicians involved—by the length of time that trusts and the LA have had to respond to claims, the length of time it often takes to reach a resolution and the fact that there is often too much defence, delay and prevarication. At the same time, I have full confidence in the NHSLA’s current management, because I have seen a real determination to get to grips with the problems it inherited and change the authority into something far more fit for purpose.

I accept my right hon. and learned Friend’s contention that we need to change what happens with the NHSLA, but I posit that the existing costs regime encourages some claimant lawyers to stack costs in the early stage of a claim process rather than get to what we need to do: to establish a version of the truth agreed between all parties. I am not arguing that that is a deliberate and malicious intention, but that is how the system is constructed at the moment. Therefore, in attempting to reform how costs are settled between the NHSLA and claimants, we want to incentivise learning right at the beginning of the process, to ensure that it is as rapid as possible and that, if claimants have a fair claim, they receive justice and compensation as quickly as possible. Our interests are therefore entirely aligned.

That is why I say to claimant lawyers—I have said this privately to them on several occasions—that this is a genuine consultation. We are seeking to find out how best to reform a system that we all accept is not right. I therefore warn them against peremptory lobbying of Members of Parliament about a scheme that has not yet been determined. This is a genuine consultation, in which we will accept all their views, but they cannot—I hope they will not—proceed on a basis that could lay them open to accusations of pleading for special interests rather than trying to contribute to the consultation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Gummer and Nick Thomas-Symonds

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

My hon. Friend makes her point extremely well. A seven-day NHS will operate only if it works across all areas of care. That is why the local integration of care and health services is part of our wider vision for the NHS. I urge her to look, when it is published, at Professor Sir Bruce Keogh’s report on urgent and emergency care, which envisages precisely the sort of joined-up care that will ensure people receive the correct attention at the correct level and do not therefore go to hospital when they can be dealt with in primary care settings.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

On the Friday before last, a Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and talked out my private Member’s Bill, the Off-patent Drugs Bill, which would have provided a mechanism for improved clinical outcomes by making repurposed drugs more consistently available across the country. The Minister for Community and Social Care said that the Government would consider an alternative pathway. What is that pathway and when will it be implemented?

[Ben Gummer]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences is fully committed to the ambition expressed in the hon. Gentleman’s Bill. My hon. Friend feels that the mechanisms do not work, but has set up a working party to ensure that that ambition can be taken forward. I know that he would welcome full engagement with the hon. Gentleman to make sure that that happens.