Falkland Islands Referendum

Debate between Guy Opperman and Neil Carmichael

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I totally agree. The way in which we look after the Falkland Islands has got better and better, under the previous Government and now under this one. The organisation that the hon. Gentleman mentions does a great job.

It is right to make it clear that the United Kingdom wants nothing more than peace, trade and prosperity with Argentina and the other south American countries. There are so many problems in this world, and it is surely wrong that we are in any way falling out over these islands. While we in this House stand four-square behind the residents of the Falkland Islands and their overwhelming vote in favour of self-determination, we must try to reach out to the Argentine and other south American peoples and stress that this is a matter entirely for the islanders.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I welcome the overwhelming majority vote in favour of the Falklands remaining a British overseas territory. I suggest to my hon. Friend that that vote was in a way a reaffirmation of our position in Antarctica, and that it further underlines the importance and the peaceful nature of our activities in there.

[Guy Opperman]

Indeed, the 1959 Antarctic treaty froze all sovereignty claims there. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, whose private Member’s Bill, the Antarctic Bill, has passed through the House and is now law.

Many Argentines continue to work in the United Kingdom, and many British people work in Argentina. They are able to get along in a positive way. Perhaps the wisest words spoken in the past two weeks were those of one of the international electoral observers, who said:

“The Falkland Islanders are citizens and they have the right to express themselves.”

Those were the words not of a local, but of Senor Jaime Trobo, the Uruguayan electoral observer.

I suggest that now is a good time to evaluate from where the right to self-determination originates. The principle is set out unequivocally in article 1.2 of the charter of the United Nations, which states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is

“To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Guy Opperman and Neil Carmichael

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I totally endorse that point and such defendants are punished accordingly, particularly in the punitive elements of costs when they are assessed. There are punitive factors that my hon. and learned Friend as a judge would know one is able to impose in a civil court whereby—[Interruption.] I accept that he is not a civil judge—it shows. There is an ability to punish the offending NHS institution or doctor, but the fair point that has been raised and must be addressed is that the powers that would exist to a civil judge, were my hon. and learned Friend to be one, would arise quite far down the track in civil litigation and not at the outset. I come back to the legitimate and fair point that we should address this issue to NHS trusts and particularly to two types of individual, including, first, to chief executives. Regrettably, there are examples of a failure of leadership by chief executives because, clearly, they are mindful of their budgets and they do not like the idea of a culture of openness in which mistakes are admitted. In those circumstances, whether implicitly or directly, efforts are made to suppress litigation against NHS trusts.

The second group of individuals who should be involved is doctors and consultants. Because theirs is such a hierarchical profession, instead of having a culture of openness in which mistakes are readily admitted, there is, sadly, from time to time—I have professional experience of this—a failure to admit mistakes. As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East will sadly and tragically have discovered—and I have been involved in several such meetings—there is a post-operative debrief within the health service.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

This is not really my field, but I know from my constituents that a large number of them who have experienced difficulties in the NHS are extraordinarily concerned about the lack of transparency and the weight of expertise against them, because they are not, of course, particularly skilled in that area. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is one of the big problems we need to address, as I hope we are doing in the Bill?

[Guy Opperman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I will not deal with it in any great detail—I mean no disrespect to him—because I wish to go back to the point I was making. We must have a system within the medical profession that allows its members to start to accept that it is perfectly understandable that mistakes are made, because they are human beings, and that there is insurance to cover such matters when they take place. With the best will in the world, that should be accepted. That recognition, however, does not exist to the degree that it should.