Redfern Inquiry

Debate between Chris Huhne and Jamie Reed

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

I totally agree with both the right hon. Gentleman’s points. The key principle introduced in the Human Tissue Act 2004 was consent ahead of time. The legal situation before that allowed researchers to access human tissue without consent if they had made reasonable efforts to obtain it. That was a fundamental change, and I entirely agree that it was important for us as a society to move with the times and reflect the key family sensitivities involved. I also agree entirely with his point about the nuclear industry. Openness is usually the best disinfectant, and transparency is thoroughly desirable.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for advance sight of his statement, to the shadow Secretary of State for her warm wards and to the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), for instigating the report in the first instance. I declare two interests, as both a former Sellafield worker and the grandson of Thompson Reed, one of the trade union officials mentioned in the report.

I hope that there will now be a dialogue between the affected families and the Government on the subject of restitution. The nuclear industry and Sellafield are extremely popularly supported in my part of the world, not least by me. One telling point in the report is the constant churn and change that the West Cumberland hospital and NHS management structures have experienced, which may have led to less than ideal practices. Will the Secretary of State commit to working with me and those in my community, with a view to seeing how we can fund the hospital outside the routine, ordinary funding systems that exist for other hospitals, given the unique nature of the work undertaken at Sellafield?

[Chris Huhne]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. As he knows, I am very committed to continued employment in the nuclear industry and the importance of his area to it, and I visited Sellafield shortly after I became Secretary of State. We very much want to maintain that dialogue. I am keen to take up any issues of concern to his constituents and employees in the industry about their health care or anything else. He can rely on my support on that.

The funding streams are obviously an issue for the Department of Health, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman would want us to go down the route of allying particular health funding streams to their causes—that, for instance, road accident matters should be funded by the Department for Transport or that nuclear health streams should be funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. However, he can be assured of my support in ensuring that the care available is outstanding.