Land Registry

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I will be as brief as I can, speaking in this debate as the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee—the successor to the Public Administration Select Committee, which considered the question of open data in the previous Parliament and produced a report on the matter.

What is the Land Registry? It is a part of our critical national infrastructure. It is an absolutely fundamental function of any civilised state. It is how disputes are resolved. In the most war-torn parts of the world, there is a land registry in every country—even for every town. It has been in the lexicon of military doctrine since the days of empire that when a town is taken, the land registry is taken first so that the disputes that arise between different factions and families after control has been taken can be resolved. The first building that the Black Watch took in Basra when the British Army went into southern Iraq was the land registry. That is how fundamental a land registry is to any civilised state.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend and I share different views on the European Union, but I wonder whether he remembers the chaos that ensued when the former East Germany was unified with West Germany. There was no proper land registry for East Germany, making it difficult to ascertain who owned many houses in places such as Potsdam.

[Mr Jenkin]

That is exactly the point. The former communist state had destroyed the old records to create a new order.

I have no objection in principle to privatisation, which has been a successful means of transforming large parts of the former public sector. Even the Labour party would have absolutely no intention of returning large parts of what is now in the private sector to the public sector.

Transforming the Land Registry into a modern, digitally-based service is crucial for making it more efficient and responsive to user needs. So far the digital transformation has been extremely slow. I have three main concerns about the present proposal. I hasten to add that I am speaking on my own behalf; this is not an agreed statement by my Committee. The Land Registry must continue to operate as an essential public service, the future owner of a privatised Land Registry must be committed to providing long-term stability, and the final deal, if there is one, must fulfil the Government’s own stated objectives for the use of open data.

In a submission to the Government’s consultation, I recommended that the quality of service provided to the public by the Land Registry must be prioritised above realising capital gains or transferring risk from the Government’s balance sheet. The primary concern must be to ensure that an accurate record of land use and ownership is maintained in public hands. The Land Registry’s core services should be protected from any real-terms price increases, and their quality must not suffer as a result of any transfer of operations to the private sector. The Land Registry is, and will remain, part of our critical national infrastructure. Its protection is crucial, and any public-private model or privatisation model must put in place safeguards to prevent the service being disrupted in the event of bankruptcy or commercial failure of any kind.

Our report in 2014 was based on evidence from leading figures in the world of data management and statistics, as well as from Ministers. Although the Committee did not look in detail at the privatisation of the Land Registry, we did look into the future use of the Government’s major datasets, of which the Land Registry is one. The final report made several recommendations for the use of Government data. In particular, we stressed the need to ensure that datasets are easy to access, easy to read and free to use.

On the specific subject of the Land Registry, the Committee concluded:

“A radical new approach is needed to the funding of Government open data. Charging for some data may occasionally be appropriate, but this should become the exception rather than the rule. A modest part of the cost to the public of statutory registrations should be earmarked for ensuring that the resultant data . . . can become open data.”

Data held by the Land Registry are one such example. If this model is adopted by the Government, they must not allow a new privatised entity to expect to make money from the selling of those data. The expectation must be that the data will be freely available.

In public policy terms, it is important to understand the value of open data to the economy as a whole. Research commissioned by the Open Data Institute found that public sector open data will provide more economic value every year, equivalent to as much as 0.5% of GDP, than data that users have to pay for. For example, we all use the Postcode Address File. That has been privatised, but what makes it of such value to us is that we can get on a website and get it free. How outrageous it would be if we had to pay for that.

Unfortunately, when the Royal Mail was sold, we transferred those data to the private sector and now big businesses have to pay to use those data. The result is that new forms of open source data will be created, which will gradually take over from the Postcode Address File. By transferring those data into the private sector as we have, we have undermined their value and created a cost to the productive sector of the economy for accessing them. In our conclusions, we stated that the sale of the Postcode Address File was the wrong decision. We concluded that such an asset should have been kept in public ownership, where it would be a national asset, free for businesses and individuals to use for the benefit of the wider economy.

If the Land Registry is privatised, the land register itself—the actual data—must stay in public ownership. It is crucial that the Government preserve for themselves a substantial degree of policy flexibility with regard to any agreement made with a privatised organisation, and if they decide that the public interest is best served by a change in data policy, they must remain free to effect this and to do so without excessive cost.

I am deeply concerned that the future owner of a privatised Land Registry must be committed to long-term stability and continuity. That depends on the character of the operator, if there is to be a private sector operator. The operator should understand that it may derive profit only from some kind of long-term yield for a long-term contract with the Government and be prepared to invest in the organisation to achieve this aim. An investor with a more venture capital-style approach, aiming to make a capital gain out of the development of the business and then on-sale, would be a completely inappropriate form of ownership.

[Mrs Moon]

Given all that the hon. Gentleman has said about the importance of the integrity of the Land Registry, why is it not appropriate to build that flexibility for entrepreneurship into the current Land Registry so that it can make the profit that is necessary for the investment and modernisation that are needed? Why do we have to take this risk?

[Mr Jenkin]

I shall come to that. It is a perfectly reasonable question.

The type of owner of the infrastructure might be like the banks automated clearing system, which is a company that is owned by the banks. It is just an operating company that the banks fund in order to provide them with a service. That is much more the kind of privatisation that I would find acceptable, rather than a company called Land Registry plc, with its own board of directors thinking about how to develop its business. It is a service and there is a function that it needs to provide.

The final proposal should include a full assessment of what has happened in other countries where such a service has been transferred to the private sector. Additionally, in any privatisation plan the Office for National Statistics should have the power to take over the collation and publication of Land Registry data, effectively getting a daily feed from all new records and publishing them free online. If the Government decide to proceed with some kind of privatisation of the operations, in two years’ time I expect to be calling the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and UK Government Investments, which is overseeing the process, to discuss with my Committee what effect this movement has had on the publication of open data.

Finally, in answer to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), I hope the Government will explore alternative means of doing that by keeping the Land Registry in the public sector. Let us face it: it is only silly Treasury rules that prevent very cheap public money from being put into this with public sector involvement, but keeping it in public ownership, in order to develop the customer-responsive and properly capitalised system that we want. My mind is open, provided the data remain in public hands. My mind is open, provided the arrangement is stable, but I would not rule out transferring the service to some mutual or some existing consortium of banks or insurance companies or even keeping it in the public sector.

Dietary Advice and Childhood Obesity Strategy

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I find it very hard to believe that the hon. Gentleman is in Brussels. [Interruption.] Order. Given that I have granted the hon. Gentleman’s application for an urgent question, it is a considerable discourtesy for him not to be here at once. He should have been in the Chamber. This must not happen again. The hon. Gentleman is a very serious and conscientious parliamentarian. If you put a question in, man—be here. Let us hear it. I am sorry to be annoyed, but I am annoyed, because the House’s interests are involved. This is not just about the hon. Gentleman; it is about all the other Members who have bothered to be here on time and about the interests of the House. The Minister was here well in time, which is good, and the shadow Minister has toddled in—the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) beetled into the Chamber just in time. Let us hear from the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin).

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I accept your admonition with good grace.

NHS: Learning from Mistakes

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I contrast the tone of the hon. Lady’s response with that of the shadow Health Secretary. Although I by no means agree with everything she said, she does make some important points.

It is not the case that we have delayed the medical examiners scheme. In the previous Parliament, we had pilots so that we could understand exactly how the examiners would work. That is relevant to the hon. Lady’s other point about audit, with which I completely agree. One thing that medical examiners will be able to do is to look for unexpected or unexplained patterns in deaths. Obviously, the vast majority of deaths are routine, predictable and expected, but those examiners will be able, looking at audit tools, to identify where there are things to worry about, which is why this is an important next step.

With respect to whistleblowers, I will reflect on what the hon. Lady says. We are trying to eliminate the need for things ever to get to the point where someone has to become a whistleblower. We want to ensure that people are supported to speak out about mistakes they have seen or made and concerns that they have, and that they are confident that they will be listened to. We are publishing a table today about the quality of the reporting culture. Much of the raw data that allow us to rank trusts on the quality of reporting data come from the NHS staff survey, which asks staff how valued they think they are, and how safe and easy it is to raise concerns. That is why this is a big step forward.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for taking forward so many of the recommendations that were made a year ago in the Public Administration Committee’s report on investigating clinical incidents in the NHS. I particularly thank him for implementing the creation of a safe space, which has been a controversial and difficult subject because some people think that this is about hiding stuff, when in fact it is about getting people to speak much more openly and freely. Will he say something about how that will be implemented without primary legislation?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He and I have talked many times and thought very hard about how we can learn lessons from the air industry. He is one of the people who came to me first to say that if we want to set up an equivalent to the air accidents investigation branch, we need to give people in the healthcare world the same legal protections that others have when they are speaking to that branch, and that is at heart of the statement that I have made to the House today.

The point about safe space is very, very important. This is not about people getting off scot free if they make a terrible mistake. There is no extra protection here for anyone who breaks the law, commits gross negligence or does something utterly irresponsible. Patients still have those protections. What they gain is the comfort that we will get to the truth and learn from mistakes much more quickly. Every single patient and bereaved family says that the most important thing is not money, but making sure that the system learns from what went wrong. We will ensure that we construct the safe space concept, and I do not rule out extending that beyond the investigations of the healthcare safety investigation branch.

End of Life Care

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I hardly feel worthy of catching your eye today, Mr Deputy Speaker, having not been in my place for a question earlier today. I apologise to you and to Mr Speaker for that. I was, in fact, preparing for this debate, as Chairman of my Select Committee. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), the Chair of the Health Select Committee, for her report and for securing time to debate end-of-life care on the Floor of the House.

I shall wantonly use this opportunity to promote one of the reports produced by my Select Committee, the then Public Administration Select Committee. I am not just talking about the report on dying with dignity, which followed a report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. That report underlines why my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes is absolutely on the right track in making her investigations.

We have urged the Government to recognise the shortcomings that exist in many of our health institutions. People are not recognised to be dying when they are dying, their symptoms are not addressed, and there is poor symptom control. People have watched loved ones dying in pain because of ineffective symptom management. As has been mentioned today, there has been poor communication. Professionals have failed to engage in open conversations with patients and family members. There have been inadequate out-of-hours services, and people have suffered because of difficulties in gaining access to palliative care out of hours. There has been poor care planning, and delays in diagnosis. And so it goes on.

What strikes me about so many of the accounts that we have heard this afternoon is the lack of learning, the sense of helplessness, the sense that this is just what happens in our health system. That is what drove my Committee, at the end of the last Parliament, to produce the report entitled “Investigating clinical incidents in the NHS”. Imagine what it would be like if we had an NHS in which, whenever something went wrong, there was a proper and open investigation, followed by learning from what had occurred—without blame—to prevent a repetition. So often, in debates such as this, we hear about the same things occurring again and again.

Our report revealed that

“there are 12,000 avoidable hospital deaths every year. More than 10,000 serious incidents are reported”

to the NHS, in England alone,

“out of a total of 1.4 million mostly low-harm or no-harm incidents annually. There were 338 recorded “never events” (such as wrong site surgery) during 2013-14”,

and there were 174,872 written complaints. The then latest estimate of clinical negligence liabilities on the NHS balance sheet was £26.1 billion. If we could get just 10% of that right, we would save millions of pounds. If we could avoid 10% of those incidents, we would save the NHS huge amounts of money.

We looked into the way in which other safety-critical industries dealt with safety management and incident investigation. The most notable is aviation, but similar considerations apply to marine accidents, accidents in the North sea oil industry, and the work of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, which was set up after the Paddington rail crash. I learned a great deal when I was shadow Secretary of State for Transport at the time of that rail crash. For instance, I observed how hopeless it was that the safety regulator of the railway, the Health and Safety Executive, was responsible for investigating its own failings in the event of a rail accident.

The Committee concluded that what was needed was an independent clinical investigation service that would investigate untoward incidents in the health sector. It would have to have three key elements. First, it must provide a “safe space” in which clinicians, NHS managers, patients and patients’ families could discuss things without fear of recrimination or reprisals. Such a service does not currently exist in the health service. No one dares speak for fear of getting the blame. In aviation, it is quite normal for pilots to report each other and report themselves without fear or favour, because that safe space exists.

Secondly, the service

“must be independent of providers, commissioners and regulators”.

There is no such independent investigative capacity in the NHS. We have a higgledy-piggledy arrangement for investigating clinical incidents. It might be local, it might involve a regulator, but it ends up with the Secretary of State coming to the Dispatch Box and calling for a public inquiry. That is when we really know that it has all gone wrong. The Francis report was very much a jumping-off point for us.

The third requirement is that any such clinical incidents investigation service should have the power to publish reports and to disseminate its recommendations and learning. This should not be about blaming people; it should be about learning. I am very pleased that the Government accepted our recommendations and that they have set up an expert advisory group. The group has been holding discussions for many months on how to implement the proposals.

I am sad to say, however, that three things are still lacking from the Government’s proposals for what they are going to call the health safety investigation branch, which will operate in a clinical incident investigation capacity. The Government’s refusal to contemplate primary legislation on this matter means that there will be no safe space. Their refusal to create new public sector bodies outside the framework of the NHS will mean that the health safety improvement branch will be domiciled within NHS Improvement, which is one of the regulators from which it needs to be independent. And the Government’s refusal to contemplate primary legislation means, of course, that there will be no primary legislation.

I think the Minister understands these matters very well, but I have to say to him that if, having accepted our report, the Government go ahead and create the health safety investigation branch of the NHS on this basis, they will not be implementing our findings, which they say they have accepted. It is sad that we are going to lose the opportunity to do this, and I very much hope that the Government will continue to think about introducing at least a draft Bill that would enable us to work in the longer term towards the primary legislation that we need in order to set this up. That would transform lives, and the NHS, in a way that nothing else could do.

Junior Doctors Contracts

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The trouble with commissions is that they tend to take rather a long time to come up with their conclusions, and we need to sort out these problems now. That is why the Chancellor promised an extra £3.8 billion for the NHS next year, and why we said that we want 5,000 more GPs working in general practice, which will help out-of-hours services. We have a five-year plan that the NHS has the funding to implement, and that will transform out-of-hospital services. I hope that those developments will address the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his patience and resolution in bringing this matter to a conclusion. Does he share the real sadness that so many of us feel that these wonderful young people who come into the health service to be doctors with such high ideals are caught up in this terribly debilitating and damaging dispute? I ask him to reinforce his efforts to engage and speak directly with junior doctors and the medical profession as a whole and not allow the disruptive behaviour of the British Medical Association to destroy the relationship that we need to have with our doctors.

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right. There was absolutely no reason to have this dispute, because the things that we are trying to sort out—seven-day care and safer care for patients—are what every doctor wants to happen. Indeed, they choose medicine as a profession from the highest of ethical motives, and we want to support them. I share his sadness that it has come to this, but given that the counter-party in the situation is not willing to budge, we have to take action to remove uncertainty and to do the right for patients and for doctors. I will certainly continue to engage. The new commission headed up by Professor Dame Sue Bailey will also look at wider issues of morale, which will make a big difference.

NHS Reform

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As part of what I said in my statement, we are looking at how we train doctors. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) talked about creating a learning culture, and the big change that we need to make is creating a culture in which people feel supported to speak out about any concerns or anything on which they think they can see a way of doing something better. They must not feel that that could threaten their career prospects. We do not have that culture in the NHS at the moment, but we need it if the NHS is to be the world’s largest learning organisation, as I argued in a speech this morning. I think staff are up for it, but it is a big change.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for his extraordinarily embracing response to the Public Administration Select Committee report on clinical incident investigation. We started less than a year ago with the germ of an idea, and it has turned into what amounts to a radical reform of safety investigation in the health service. That is a tribute to him and to the Committee’s witnesses, but it is a tribute to the health service itself that it has embraced the idea, which is a big change that I believe will be transformative.

May I pick up on the Secretary of State’s reluctance to provide special legislation for the immunity of those giving evidence to the new patient investigation body? Will he keep an open mind on the subject? If he wants that body to be truly independent and to have a special status, he should remember that the marine accident investigation branch and the air accidents investigation branch have specific legislation to provide for such immunity. Public interest disclosure protection must not be challenged by freedom of information requests, given that freedom of information has been extended into areas where we never imagined it would go. We have to be specific in legislation that that cannot happen in this instance.

[Mr Speaker]

Too long—I hope the answer will be somewhat briefer.

Maternity Services (Morecambe Bay)

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

No one has done more than the right hon. Lady to try to improve the standard for complaints, with the excellent work she did with Professor Tricia Hart. We are in the process of implementing her recommendations, but as the right hon. Lady knows, with the fifth largest organisation in the world, it is one thing to make a commitment in this place, but another to make it happen on the ground. There is definitely much work to do.

I also agree with the right hon. Lady’s comments about James Titcombe. This is a man who gave up his job working in the nuclear industry to come down to London and work in the CQC so that he could actively be part of the culture change that he wanted to see in the NHS. I do not think anyone could have done more than that. It is truly remarkable.

As the right hon. Lady has mentioned Wales, let me say that we have put 20 trusts into special measures in England and it is inconceivable that there will not be trusts with similar problems in Wales. I urge her to encourage the Labour party in Wales to look at introducing a special measures regime and a chief inspector of hospitals in Wales, because that has had such a powerful effect on improving standards of care in England.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and Dr Bill Kirkup for his excellent report. Let me reassure him and the House that the Public Administration Committee is also preoccupied with the failings of the parliamentary and health service ombudsman in the conduct of these cases. I, too, have met James Titcombe on many occasions and have been extremely impressed by his extraordinary commitment to making sure that he is heard so that so many others can be heard.

May I also point out that the report reeks of the confusion that exists between CQC and the PHSO about what their respective responsibilities are? If we are talking about accountability, what we need is an organisation that is accountable for investigating clinical incidents in the NHS, whether they are down to particular local problems or broader systemic problems—by which we mean not that that is an excuse for what goes wrong; rather, it is so those systemic problems can be put right. I therefore very much welcome what my right hon. Friend has mooted will be the task of Sir Mike Durkin: to look at how that capacity can be developed, in the same manner, perhaps, as the air accidents investigation branch of the Department for Transport.

[Mr Hunt]

Dr Mike Durkin will be delighted that he has been promoted and given a knighthood for his wonderful work on patient safety, but it has not happened yet, even though he certainly deserves it. I thank my hon. Friend for his understanding of the complexity of these issues and the importance of the need for culture change. The work of his Committee has not been to scratch around the surface; it has tried to think hard about the solution. He is absolutely right that we need to end regulatory confusion. We now have a strong CQC, which is doing incredible inspections and is trusted across the system. However, we need a system in which people can get independent external advice quickly, which is why he was right to alert me to the potential of an air accidents investigation branch equivalent. I hope that is something that could be helpful for the ombudsman as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Poulter]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be pleased that, as part of our winter pressures funding, Dudley received £3.5 million to support the hospital during a difficult winter period. There are now 69 more doctors and 324 more nurses, of whom 29 are extra midwives, working in the area than in 2010.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

12. What discussions he has had with (a) the Haven project in Colchester and (b) NHS bodies in north Essex on the need for continuing funding for support for people with moderate to severe personality disorder.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

My right hon. and noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for quality responded in February 2014 to correspondence from the client chair of the Haven project about its funding. As I said a few minutes ago, decisions on NHS funding are a matter for local commissioners, but I will invite North East Essex clinical commissioning group to meet to discuss the issue in more detail.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for taking such a close interest in the matter, and for the visit paid by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). Although I understand the huge cost pressures on the CCG, may I invite my right hon. Friend to study the Enable East report, which made a different recommendation on how the unit should be treated? It would be sad to close the leading example among 11 Department of Health pilots, when all the other 10 are being kept open as the lessons learned are so valuable.

[Norman Lamb]

I am very much aware of the work that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) have done on this. It is interesting that all the other 10 pilots have continued. They are part of NHS trusts. This is the only one run by a voluntary sector organisation. It is an incredibly valuable service. I was struck by the extent to which people said how much they had reduced their hospital in-patient admissions as a result of the incredibly impressive preventive work that this service provides, and I want to look into it further.

Francis Report: Update and Response

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for his statement and thank Sir Robert Francis for his excellent report, which, as the Secretary of State knows, goes to the heart of the Public Administration Committee’s inquiry into clinical incident investigation. It comes as no surprise that we still have severe problems in the NHS. Perhaps the “freedom to speak up” guardian role needs to provide complete legal protection for people speaking up, immunity from freedom of information requests so that the information and the names cannot be exposed maliciously, and the capacity to investigate what is reported to them on a completely independent basis. We look forward to his giving evidence to our Committee.

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his interest in the issue of culture change, including at his local hospital, which I visited last week and where I was pleased to see a change in culture happening, despite some very severe problems. It is excellent that PASC is doing this inquiry, and his suggestions sound very worth while. We will consider them as part of our consultation—in fact I would encourage his Committee to submit them formally, to ensure that we give meaning to these “freedom to speak up” guardians.

NHS Major Incidents

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Declaring a major incident is the decision of the local hospital trusts, and that is right. But it is important that, before they make that decision, they should take proper account of the impact on the rest of the local health economy. That is what every responsible hospital wants to happen, and that applies to the hon. Gentleman’s area as well as everywhere else.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Following the declaration of a major incident at the accident and emergency unit of Colchester hospital, we now await the Care Quality Commission report into that incident, which will be published very shortly. We want the report to tell the truth, but it is harder to tell the truth in a political atmosphere where there are people who want to gloat over these challenges to get votes.

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have spoken to the chief executive of the hospital, and I must say that she and her staff are doing a good job in turning around a very difficult situation. What they want is support. We have issued sensible guidance that tells hospitals that if they declare a major incident, they must take account of the impact on the rest of their local health economy. A responsible Opposition would support such guidance, and not to try to turn it into a political football.