Thirlwall Inquiry Terms of Reference
David Davis Excerpts(1 month ago)
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David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
This is my third debate on the general issue of Lucy Letby, and I remind the House of what I have said before: justice must never be sacrificed for institutional self-preservation. We are awaiting the publication of the Thirlwall inquiry’s findings into the deaths at the Countess of Chester. When the inquiry was established, it was tasked with examining three areas: the experiences at the Countess of Chester and the parents named in the indictment; the conduct of the hospital’s staff with regard to Lucy Letby; and the effectiveness of NHS management and culture in safeguarding babies, and recommendations for reform if relevant.
Every question stems from the assumption that Lucy Letby is guilty beyond doubt. Since her trial and conviction, a growing body of distinguished scientific opinion has challenged the supposed evidence on which they rest. Prominent experts—heads of royal societies and royal colleges, and leading voices in medicine, statistics and forensics—have raised concerns about Miss Letby’s convictions. They have come forward in extraordinary numbers, calling for the inquiry’s scope to be revised. If the case against Miss Letby is straightforward, why have so many people with nothing to gain, but their reputations to lose, publicly challenged it?
At the outset of the inquiry, I warned the chair that by failing to broaden its terms of reference to examine credible alternative hypotheses, we risk protecting a conclusion rather than conducting a forensic search for the truth. The Post Office Horizon scandal highlighted the institutional instinct to find a convenient scapegoat. Innocent people paid the price, while the institution sought to protect itself. If the Thirlwall inquiry asks too narrow a set of questions, systemic NHS failures will go unexamined. More innocent children will die, more innocent parents will be put through agony, and another hospital will find another scapegoat—that is the consequence of getting this wrong.
So what should the inquiry’s terms of reference include? There are at least three lines of inquiry that deserve examination. Each is supported by substantial evidence. Each almost certainly contributed to what happened. Each risks being overlooked. The first is the staffing crises: this was a neonatal unit stretched beyond its limits and operating under relentless pressure. The second is poor clinical management: the unit was repeatedly tasked with caring for babies requiring the highest level of specialist capacity—capacity it did not have. The third is environmental risks: there were serious contamination problems within the hospital.
Two damning reviews of NHS maternity services more generally have now been published. The Ockenden report exposed failures at Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust that mirror those at the Countess of Chester: infections, overcrowding, under-resourcing, sustained pressure and overstretched staff—different hospitals, but strikingly similar failures. Baroness Amos has also published her final report on NHS maternity and neonatal services. Its conclusions echo with remarkable consistency the concerns raised about the Countess of Chester. Baroness Amos concluded:
“the maternity and neonatal system is not set up to deliver consistently safe, high-quality and compassionate care... It is fragmented, overly complex and too slow to…improve.”
She highlighted “unsafe and unacceptable” hospital buildings, “excessive workload pressures” and staff who felt
“ignored… when they raised concerns about whether they could provide a safe or joined-up service”.
She also highlighted “dangerous clinical environments”, senior leaders who “were not accountable” and, of course, staff who were
“fearful of being blamed when things went wrong”.
If the Thirlwall inquiry was unwilling to heed the growing concerns of experts, it cannot dismiss the conclusions of two Government reviews.
As far back as 2004, senior neonatal staff at the Countess of Chester were warning management of a
“staffing crisis which...shows no signs of abating”,
highlighting that the unit was operating 30% to 40% below the staffing levels recommended by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine. They described stress that “exceeded tolerable levels”, reinforcing that such conditions
“could increase the risk of unintentional professional negligence”.
But how did management respond? To cut costs they abolished the advanced neonatal nurse practitioners, the most highly trained specialists in their field, upon whom the entire safe working of the unit depended. One of the nurses let go later described it as “the decimation of the Nursing and Midwifery service”,
adding that
“eight registered nurses...were replaced with nursery nurses...unqualified staff are replacing qualified staff”.
She described a trust blighted by
“inefficient managers...managers to manage managers, people to tick boxes...inefficient computer programmes”,
all
“at the expense of the registered nurse/midwife”.
If management’s response was to bury the problem, what does that tell us about the state of the Countess of Chester by 2015? A system repeatedly warned to be unsafe cannot merely be treated as the backdrop to the events of 2015 to 2016—it is at least part of the explanation.
By 2012 the hospital was recruiting newly qualified nurses, often straight from university. One of them was Lucy Letby. During the years Lucy Letby is alleged to have committed her crimes—specifically 2015 to 2016—the neonatal unit was still functioning under dangerous pressure. Notably, one nurse working on the unit during this period recalled:
“2015 and 2016 were horrendously busy... They were probably the worst years I can remember in more than twenty years... Everybody was absolutely stretched to the limit... You were expected to look after the maximum number that you could—sometimes over the number that you should.”
The inquiry ought to ask, if concerns had been raised for over a decade, to what extent did those unresolved staffing failures contribute to the tragedies that followed? Were those failures addressed before responsibility was placed on Letby?
There are three levels of care in neonatal units, depending on the complexity of care that a unit is equipped to provide. Appropriate grading of a neonatal unit is fundamental to patient safety. Level 1 units accept babies with low care needs. Level 3 units accept babies needing the highest level of medical care. The Countess of Chester was a level 3 unit throughout the early 2000s, but in 2005 it was downgraded to level 2, an admittance that the unit could not handle level 3 babies.
But the unit continued to operate under immense strain, worsened by management’s decision to get rid of its hugely experienced advanced neonatal nurse practitioners. Years later, when Lucy Letby started at the Countess in 2012, conditions remained poor. There was little space, cots and incubators were stored in corridors, and mothers struggled to find somewhere to breastfeed their babies. Susan Gilby, the hospital’s chief executive between 2018 and 2022, later described the unit as “dark, dingy and cramped”, providing a “less than ideal” environment to work in. Remember, this was a level 2 neonatal unit tasked with providing short-term intensive care for fragile babies.
Indeed, the deficiencies were so serious that the trust launched a £3 million public fundraising campaign to pay for a new neonatal unit because the necessary capital funding was not available through the NHS. This was an acknowledgment that the unit was not fit for purpose. The inquiry ought to ask: was the unit being asked to deliver a level of care that it was not capable of providing?
Staff at the time certainly thought so. One nurse warned the unit manager,
“something awful is going to happen here...we can’t carry on like this”.
In late 2015, one consultant said the unit was so busy that it was running out of vital equipment, adding:
“This is now our normal working pattern and it is not safe. Things are...at breaking point. When things snap, the casualties will either be children’s lives or the...health of our staff.”
The spike in baby deaths was that breaking point.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report from November 2016 confirmed that the unit was
“non-compliant on nurse and medical staffing levels”
when assessed against service standards for a level 2 unit. It ought to have been downgraded further, to a level 1. Indeed, it is often claimed that babies on the unit stopped dying as soon as Letby was removed from the ward. That assertion ignores perhaps the most critical fact. In July 2016, when Letby was removed from the ward, the neonatal unit was finally downgraded to a level 1.
In that moment, the risk profile changed. Fewer of the sickest babies were admitted at the Countess. The 2016 Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report is clear that since the redesignation from level 2 to level 1, the pressure
“has reduced and the unit is operating more in line with BAPM staffing standards. The consultants also reported that in the two months since the change infants have been sick but recovered as expected.”
The report highlighted deficiencies in staffing levels, leadership and communication, but, in the trial, it was not shown to the jury—they knew nothing of it. In July 2016, the unit was downgraded and Lucy Letby left the ward. It is irrational to assume that one of those two events was entirely responsible for the sharp reduction in deaths without testing the other event properly. The inquiry must examine both changes to determine which made the difference.
During 2015 and 2016, when the neonatal mortality rates spiked, the hospital faced infection control problems. One nurse described the unit as her “worst nightmare”. Pseudomonas aeruginosa had colonised taps in the nurseries of the neonatal unit. Pseudomonas forms a biofilm—a layer that allows the bacteria to spread within a water system—and can kill newborns. In 2012, at Belfast’s Royal Jubilee maternity hospital, three premature babies died from it. In an effort to mitigate the risks of Pseudomonas, the Countess of Chester installed filters on the taps, but the filters kept falling off. Another of the babies Letby is said to have murdered was found to have Stenotrophomonas maltophilia in their breathing tube—a bug responsible for some of the deaths at Glasgow’s scandal-hit Queen Elizabeth University hospital.
Of the 17 babies Lucy Letby is said to have murdered or attempted to murder, at least 14 babies either had an infection or were suspected to have an infection. Professor Shoo Lee’s panel identified that 10 infants were receiving antibiotics, and court proceedings identified another three. The fact that at least 13 babies were treated with antibiotics suggests that the clinicians considered infection to be a real possibility in these cases. On top of that, MRSA, C. difficile and MSSA were detected across the trust; it is not known whether they were present in the neonatal intensive care unit.
While giving evidence at her own trial, Miss Letby told jurors that the neonatal unit had problems with “raw sewage” coming from sinks. That was not an invention in the hopes of abdicating responsibility; contemporaneous messages between staff show that these concerns were raised at the time. Remember: this was a neonatal intensive care unit. One nurse suggested that an infection on the unit could be to blame. Letby agreed, describing sewage coming from the sink and overflowing toilets. She added:
“The unit needs properly assessing, I don’t think the equipment gets cleaned properly…we haven’t got the space, facilities…to maintain hygiene.”
Those messages predate any criminal investigation, and the hospital’s plumber confirmed under oath that human waste was backing up into handwashing basins. On top of the other microbiological concerns, human waste contains E. coli—another hazard to vulnerable new-born babies. Professor David Livermore, a professor of medical microbiology, is right to say:
“Infection was such an obvious cause of a spike in deaths. What investigation did they do [into this?] I’m yet to see any clarity on this.”
Even the parents themselves had initially assumed that if something had gone wrong, it was likely because of the hospital’s failings. One mother giving evidence against Lucy Letby during her trial admitted that
“I thought, the hospital’s old, it’s not very nice. It was dirty, and I thought it was along the lines of medical negligence. It never entered my mind that there was somebody intentionally harming babies”.
That is the hospital we are talking about—old, not very nice, dirty—and it does not look as though the medical management of the hospital did anything to mitigate the risk arising from those problems. A mother of three triplets who moved to Liverpool Women’s Hospital said she
“noticed a different level of cleanliness compared to the Countess”
as there were “clear hygiene protocols” at Liverpool, where, she said:
“We were told to wash our hands before entering the Unit and then again before entering the room”,
which was not the case at the Countess of Chester.
One father of a baby born at the Countess of Chester in May 2016 described the unit as “chaotic” and “failing”. He described an atmosphere of tension where
“it wouldn’t take much more”
for the unit “to blow up.” His daughter had had a difficult delivery and could not breathe at birth. He and his wife discovered three years later that she had been the sickest baby on the unit for over 24 hours. Not a single doctor spoke to them about this, while nurses repeatedly told them that their baby was “fine”. Against that backdrop, he recalls that Lucy Letby stood out as the only staff member who took time to explain his baby’s condition. The hospital itself later told him that Lucy had “saved” his daughter’s life and had gone
“above and beyond the call of duty.”
He stated bluntly that the jury in Miss Letby’s trial was not given the full picture—the systemic problems, lack of communication and overall disorder.
History judges institutions not by how confidently they defend themselves, but by whether they had the courage to confront uncomfortable truths. The Thirlwall inquiry now faces that test. An inquiry that refuses to ask difficult questions is not fearless—it is formulaic. An inquiry that overlooks credible evidence is not comprehensive—it is compromised. A major failure of the trial was that the jury was not shown evidence from authoritative sources such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health that offered a credible alternative explanation for the spike in deaths. The inquiry must not replicate that failure, and it must not lend its authority to what may be a major miscarriage of justice. It owes the parents who lost their babies, and future parents of future babies at risk, the absolute truth. It must follow the evidence and fear no conclusion.
If facts are left unexamined, lessons are left unlearned. The inquiry should heed the warnings of Ockenden and Amos, and the countless voices emerging in Miss Letby’s defence. Structural failure, institutional failure, and medical incompetence or even malevolence—every one of those explanations must be dragged into the light, and the unvarnished truth exposed.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Wes Streeting
I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for raising this issue. I do not want to pre-empt the Amos investigation. I think there is an issue with the presence of consultants and other staff who are meant to be on-call and available, and we need to address that. The purpose of the investigation is to produce a strong evidence base and then a clear set of actions to provide much-needed clarity in an area that has been drowning in recommendations and needs clear direction. I would be surprised if the issue of appropriate staffing were not mentioned by Baroness Amos.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
Good managers are crucial to fixing our NHS, which is why the Government are backing managers and leaders with targeted investment. We will introduce professional standards for managers, establish a leadership college and implement mechanisms to prevent unsuitable individuals from holding senior NHS posts. Our workforce plan will set out how we will professionalise managers and leaders, equipping them with the skills, tools and operating frameworks to deliver lasting improvements across the NHS.
David Davis
Following on directly from the Secretary of State’s comments to my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale), last month two national health service trusts in my constituency were found to be among the worst in England, one of them actually the worst. NHS England will now be brought in to turn those trusts around. However, the former chief executive of those trusts, who was responsible for overseeing their decline and was terminated in that job, has been promoted as the NHS turnaround manager for Yorkshire. Supposedly, he will be the man to correct the problem he created. That is by no means the first time that people have been found failing upwards in the national health service. What steps are the Secretary of State and the Minister taking to prevent NHS leaders who have failed in one role from being moved to a different post within the NHS?
Karin Smyth
I thank the right hon. Member for his question. I know he has raised it previously with the Leader of the House, and a similar issue has been raised with me by many hon. Members in his local geography. He knows that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on individual cases, but further to my comments about the importance of supporting good managers, we do not want people failing upwards as we have had in the past. I confirm that the planned disbarring system will prevent unsuitable NHS leaders who cover up poor performance or silence whistleblowers from taking up other leadership roles in the NHS and moving around the system.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Wes Streeting
I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that reassurance. It was appalling that the previous Government not only cancelled lots of the deprivation-linked funding put in place by the Labour Government but threw all that progress into reverse. That is not the approach that this Government will take. We will have funding based on need, not pork barrel politics. I can assure my hon. Friend that his constituents in Stoke-on-Trent will benefit from our sincere commitment to tackling health inequalities.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
Wes Streeting
I can certainly give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that we are looking right across NHS estates to make sure we are making best use of them, particularly in the context of neighbourhood health. I have heard the case he has made about how neighbourhood health services could be provided on that site. I hope commissioners have heard the case, but if not I will make sure that they do and that he gets the relevant meetings he needs.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Wes Streeting
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. As I said during the general election campaign—it was quoted regularly by the SNP—all roads lead to Westminster. Down that road from Westminster is a record increase in funding for the Scottish Government through the Barnett formula. I know the Scottish Government published their own NHS recovery plan just before Christmas, and I look forward to reading it, although I know some have expressed concerns about the lack of detail in the plans to drive down waiting times. The Scottish people can therefore compare and contrast with the ambition of our elective reform plan, which was announced by the Prime Minister yesterday, and then decide at the next Scottish elections who they trust to govern: the SNP with its rotten record, or a Labour Government who will get on and deliver.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
The Secretary of State knows that I wrote to him before Christmas about the planned ward closures and degradation of services at Goole and district general hospital. Doing so will take beds, facilities and employees away from the national health service, which will do nothing but undermine his real attempts to reduce waiting lists and all the plans he announced yesterday. Will he look at the trust-level decision systems that lead to such catastrophic decisions that will undermine every aspect of NHS strategy and all that he is trying to do?
Wes Streeting
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for writing to me before Christmas. I recognise the pressures that have been placed on NHS commissioners in recent years and the pressure that that has put on service configurations. I tend to support the devolution of decision making, with decisions about service reconfigurations taken closer to the communities they serve. I recognise also that commissioners do not always get it right, which is why engagement with Members of Parliament and other democratically elected representatives is important. Ministerial oversight is important, too. We will look seriously at the issues he raises and talk to NHS leaders, and I know he will be doing the same. This Government are determined to give NHS leaders the tools to do the job, so that we can get the right care in the right place at the right time, with a better experience for patients and better value for taxpayers.
Mental Health Treatment and Support
David Davis Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
As we have heard from colleagues from all parts of the Chamber, we are in a mental health crisis. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly endemic. I pay tribute to the work of our offices, including my own team, who regularly deal with critical cases of mental ill health, including suicide calls, for which we have had to put on special training. That was happening before the pandemic too, and we need to recognise that.
Recent figures show that seven out of 10 secondary school children are expressing mental health distress. That should worry us. It has already been mentioned, but we know that there are risk factors and risk conditions that can contribute to the onset of a mental health problem. I will speak about the importance of early intervention a little later.
Oldham has the 37th highest prevalence of mental health disorders in the country. That puts it in the highest 20% in the UK; for reference, the Prime Minister’s constituency is in the lowest 6%. On the other side of the coin to this higher prevalence is our reduced funding. Research from the Children’s Commissioner found that child and adolescent mental health services in Oldham received over £100 less in spending per child from the Government than those on the Isle of Wight. Similarly, in 2019 The Guardian reported that London had nearly double the number of psychiatrists in the north of England. As I have mentioned, it is true that things have got worse since the pandemic, but that is not just a consequence of the pandemic.
I want to focus on what needs to happen, because we need a serious plan, and I am not from the Minister’s speech that the Government recognise that. The Opposition want to recruit thousands of new mental health professionals, which will go some way to addressing the lack of parity of esteem between mental and physical health services. That needs to be reflected in the Government’s NHS workforce plan. We have waited ages for the Government to produce that and it makes the partygate report look quite prompt. As the Government sit on their hands and fail to produce a plan, the crisis continues to get worse. That is why we will commit to the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce in history. We must also look at the metrics we use. For example, we would guarantee treatment within a month. That would make such a big difference to all those people stuck on what feel like endless waiting lists in Oldham, Saddleworth and across the country.
Finally, I am pleased to see our party committing to a paradigm shift from the medical to the social model of health, focusing on prevention in communities as well as treatment. The Leader of the Opposition has committed himself to that in Labour’s health mission, and we have also pledged that there will be a mental health hub in every community. We will go further than that: our commitment to addressing the rampant health inequalities across our country includes tackling the inequity in mental health. As we develop national policy from education to transport and finance, we will consider the impacts on health and health inequalities, including mental health. This is the difference a Labour Government will make. The next Labour Government have a plan that is both radical and credible, and for my constituency and for our country, it is long overdue.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be well aware, because you have chaired many of the debates, that there has been a campaign in this House for over a year to stop SLAPPs—strategic lawsuits against public participation—which are used by very rich men to oppress free speech in this country. Just in the last hour or so, the High Court has ruled one of those SLAPPs cases out of order: the case of Mr Mohamed Amersi against the ex-Member of this House Charlotte Leslie has been struck down. In my view, that is a great victory for free speech. Because it is so important, I give notice that I will be raising the matter on the Adjournment.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. It of course needs no comment from the Chair, except to say that I think the whole House will agree with him that this is a good judgment and an important step forward. I do indeed recall chairing many debates on the matter, and I am sure the whole House will look forward to his raising it on the Adjournment. We will recommence the debate with Danny Kruger.
Oral Answers
David Davis Excerpts(3 years, 3 months ago)
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Neil O’Brien
We have increased real-terms spending on general practice by over a fifth since 2016, and as a result there are now 10% more appointments happening every month. We are grateful to GPs for that. We have more doctors and clinicians, but we want to keep going, and I am happy to discuss this with anyone who has useful ideas to keep us powering forward.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Yesterday, when the Prime Minister met business, the huge value of the NHS database was highlighted. Unfortunately, the previous occasions on which the NHS has tried to open its database have been unmitigated disasters. Will the Secretary of State give an undertaking to stick closely to the recommendations of the Goldacre report so that we can deliver the database while protecting the privacy of patients?
Steve Barclay
It is a huge opportunity. My right hon. Friend and I have discussed this matter outside the Chamber, and I met Ben Goldacre in the summer to discuss his fantastic work in the context of covid. It is absolutely right that, given the potential of artificial intelligence, there are huge opportunities in relation to health inequalities and allowing us to better target provision. I think my right hon. Friend would agree that we should do that through the prism of patient consent. One thing that we are trying to build into the NHS app is the ability to better empower the patient to decide what they wish to sign up to and what they would like their data shared with.
Public Health
David Davis Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman asks a fair question. I will answer precisely that question in just a moment.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
We know that the vaccines are only 33% effective at reducing omicron infection. We know that the reduction of infectiousness falls dramatically—to zero after 12 weeks, in the case of AstraZeneca. What does the Secretary of State view as better for protecting people from infection: daily lateral flow tests or vaccination?
Sajid Javid
I think both have a role to play. In the NHS and in social care, there is very frequent testing—lateral flow testing, in the case of the NHS, and often PCR testing—but I think vaccination has a role to play. At this point in time, many people still have two doses; that is rapidly changing. When they have a third dose or their booster dose, that gives them an even higher degree of protection.
Covid-19 Update
David Davis Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
Of course everyone should follow the rules—no one is above the rules. The hon. Lady refers to the exchange that took place earlier in Prime Minister’s questions; the Prime Minister set out the Government’s position in that exchange.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Where is the evidence that vaccine passports actually work? France introduced them in the summer and now has more cases than it had in the March peak. Austria, Greece and the German states that have used them are in the same position, with more cases. Vaccinated people can still catch and transmit the disease, and there is a sizeable chance that passports will introduce a false sense of security, giving exactly the reverse result to the one the Secretary of State intends, so why is he using them?
Sajid Javid
When we set out plan B for the autumn and winter in respect of the challenges we would face, whether from covid or flu, we set out in that plan how and why we thought vaccine passports could help in certain circumstances. Also, it is not straightforward to compare different countries. Different countries have taken a whole host of different measures at different points in time—for example, there can be huge differences in vaccination rates or in respect of other measures that may or may not be in place—so I caution my right hon. Friend in comparing, for example, France with the UK.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Davis Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Maria Caulfield
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that cancer has remained an absolute priority for the NHS during the pandemic, as it will continue to be. The funding that has been awarded to deal with long-term electives includes funding for cancer referrals. Some amazing work is being done by our cancer alliances, which are looking to deal with the urgent backlog that has developed during the pandemic.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend has raised this issue with me before, but he is right to raise it again, because proper use of data is important to the future of the NHS. He may have noted our announcement yesterday that we are merging NHS Digital and NHSX with NHS England, which will enable us to do a much better job with data. I will of course look carefully at that report, and I should be happy to meet him to discuss it further.
Coronavirus Act 2020 (Review of Temporary Provisions) (No. 3)
David Davis Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
I understand my right hon. Friend’s concerns and, rightly, many people across the House share those concerns. He will know that when the original Bill was brought to Parliament, the Government said, rightly, that any measures would be kept in place only for as long as necessary and that they would have to be proportionate. Even before coming to the House today with the recommendation to expire seven of the non-devolved provisions in the Act, 13 have already expired. He also pointed to alternative ways that some of these measures, if necessary, could be taken, and that is a very valuable suggestion. For example, I believe that in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is before Parliament now, my colleagues are looking at some of the provisions on courts and keeping the remote working of courts going. So there are possible alternatives and he is right to draw attention to that.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The Secretary of State was not originally responsible for this. The issue that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) raises was first raised on 23 March 2020 when we were first putting the Coronavirus Act into law. The point made at the time was that the Act is not necessary, because it replicates many other pieces of legislation, and that the Act alone allows the Government to act without recourse to the House, which is not true of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 or the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. That is why it is wrong: because it does not have to come back to the House every time it takes away another piece of British freedom.
Sajid Javid
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) makes an important point. He will understand that now that the Act is in place, it is important that the Government act promptly and quickly at any time when we can retire, expire or in some cases suspend measures in it; that there is regular scrutiny of the process; and that I and other Ministers come to the House whenever we can to expire its provisions or, if they are to continue, to justify them.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will, of course, obey your strictures on time.
I welcome what the Secretary of State has done in not continuing with some of the most offensive and egregious provisions in the Act, particularly the one enabling almost indefinite detention. I have looked very carefully at the provisions that are being continued, and all the very unwelcome powers are not being continued. Although there remain some unwelcome powers with which I might quibble and although, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said, there are other ways of delivering some of them, the most offensive ones have been removed, which I welcome. I therefore will not seek to divide the House. If others were to do so, I will not oppose the renewal of these provisions.
It is worth saying, because many people outside the House do not understand this point, that it is not the Coronavirus Act 2020 but the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 that has been used to deliver the lockdown measures and the other measures that people have found so very difficult. The 1984 Act remains in place and gives Ministers all the powers they would want to be able to lock down the country again—I hope that is never needed, but they have the powers if they need them. I do not think that Act comes with sufficient scrutiny, which is why I strongly support the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) to reform it by better combining the necessary powers with the necessary parliamentary scrutiny.
On parliamentary scrutiny, I welcome what I detected was an improvement in the tone from the Opposition. I welcome what the shadow Secretary of State said; there was an increasing recognition that scrutiny and challenge to government is necessary. When some of my colleagues and I were challenging and opposing some of the Government measures that predate my right hon. Friend’s accession to the post of Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, it felt like a lonely occupation. We were not joined by the shadow Secretary of State or by many of his colleagues, so I am pleased that he is becoming more enamoured of the concept of scrutiny, which is very welcome for the Opposition.
Mr Davis
May I ask my right hon. Friend to hesitate in his laudatory comments about the Opposition Front Benchers? One problem we have is that we cannot amend the provisions. The deal they did not strike back on 23 March 2020, and that they should have, was that this should have been an amendable measure. We could then have put everything right.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I agree with every word of what the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) said. She made the point that we took the Bill through the House in one day and it was in fact unnecessary because the power was already replicated in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. That was not just my opinion on 23 March—it was also reiterated by the Speaker’s Counsel, who actually wrote the Civil Contingencies Act, so that makes the point in terms.
Some improvements have been made in the proposal before us today, and that is good. However, as the hon. Lady said, we had forced quarantine, effectively house arrest, for the whole population; schools shuttered; cancelled elections; lone doctors being allowed to section people, an astonishing removal of civil liberties; families being unable to hold the hands of their loved ones; dog walkers in Derbyshire being embarrassed; and people being stopped because they had coffee on a walk in the park. This is not the sort of thing that is policing by consent in the United Kingdom. As she said, of 292 cases brought by the police, not one stood up—not one. That is an astonishing statistic, and we should remind ourselves every day this Act is in place that that is the case.
The other point, which the hon. Lady did not make much of but I think is important, is that of accountability. The point of bringing the Government back here—any Government, by the way, not just this Government—is to improve decision making; to make them make the right decisions. We have just had an astonishingly thorough report from two Select Committees that has pointed out that the Government have made mistake after mistake after mistake—mistakes that cost thousands of lives. The one that leaps out at me is the treatment of care homes, but that was only one part of it: there was also the triaging system. All of it led to thousands of lives being lost. Those mistakes might not have been made if the Government had to justify every element of their strategy throughout these past 575 days. What I said back on 23 March—that this was an unnecessary Bill—I believe still today. I agree that the way to do this is to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.