Junior Doctors: Industrial Action

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. For clarification, I must emphasise that there is no concept of giving way in respect of a statement. Although this might resemble a debate to those who are attending our proceedings from beyond the confines of the Chamber, it is a statement with a response. There are no interventions.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

She is new to her job.

[Mr Speaker]

We are always grateful to the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) for whatever counsel he might wish to proffer, even if it is done from a sedentary position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for what she did alongside many colleagues working in A&E departments over many years, but to call this an imposition is a mischaracterisation given what actually happened. The contract was not only agreed, but recommended and supported by the leaders of the BMA. Before she was elected, we had many discussions in the House about whether negotiations were possible and what I should do, and there were a range of different views. In the end, I listened—just as she has asked me to today—and sat down and negotiated a deal that was supported by the BMA’s leaders. That is why it is so incomprehensible that those same leaders—the people who represent her and her profession—have now called the most extreme strike in NHS history.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I put it to my right hon. Friend that the choice for junior doctors or doctors in training is whether they have the old contract or the agreed contract. I have not yet had a letter from any of my doctors saying that they think the old contract is better for them, for the health service or for patients. May I therefore recommend that they sign up willingly to the new contract, that they start discussions with the BMA, and through the royal colleges, on what should happen in a few years’ time when the contract itself comes up for review and that they work to improve the non-contractual situation, which my right hon. Friend has provided a good lead on?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. In May, the BMA leadership, with whom we were having a very open discussion, had satisfied themselves that on the concerns many junior doctors have about their working conditions, many of which I accept are wholly legitimate, we had done pretty much everything we could inside a contract and the work that needed to be done was on the extra-contractual things. I am talking about the way the training system works when people are being rotated to a different hospital every six months, the fact that some people were being sent to a different city from their partner and how bad that was for family life, and all sorts of other things that need to be sorted out. Ironically, since the introduction of the working time directive, things have got a lot worse for many people, although we do not want to go back to the excessive hours of before. Those were the things we were patiently working through, and the way that is done is through dialogue, not confrontation, which is why this action is such a step backwards.