Junior Doctors’ Contract Negotiations
Debate between Crispin Blunt and Ben Gummer(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
I wonder whether the Minister can help me. The messaging I have heard from the BMA is that the dispute is nothing to do with pay. We have heard the issue described as a “nut” by the shadow Secretary of State, yet it has led to a national strike for the first time in 40 years and we face industrial action again. What is going on here?
Ben Gummer
That is a question I am increasingly asking of those in the BMA’s leadership. They have agreed with Sir David Dalton that the remaining issue is about pay. Having said for several months that it was not about pay, they have now, in the end, come clean and said that it is about pay. That is what we are dealing with: pay rates for plain time and for Saturdays, where they wish for preferred rates over nurses and other “Agenda for Change” staff.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Crispin Blunt and Ben Gummer(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. I advise the Minister, for next month the answers should be a bit shorter. They are just a bit too long.
Ben Gummer
I thank the Minister for that careful reply. He will be aware of the Justice Committee’s recommendation that contracts should follow the offender through the criminal justice system, rather than attach themselves to the various institutions through which he or she might pass. What progress has the Department made in considering those proposals?
Mr Blunt
My hon. Friend will have realised, given the number of pilots we are conducting—I am sorry, Mr Speaker, that the list was too long for me to deliver satisfactorily—that we are testing the different elements of the system to identify the best and most effective way to deliver payment by results. I hope that, in the end, we can deliver the offender-centric process on which my hon. Friend relies, once we have identified which part of the system makes offenders best respond to effective rehabilitation measures.