Junior Doctors: Industrial Action Debate
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Peter Heaton-Jones
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Junior Doctors: Industrial Action
Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Ben Gummer
I have had this discussion with the hon. Gentleman before, and he is wrong. The Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration carefully considered this issue, and its proposals for Saturday pay for junior doctors were improved on by the Government unilaterally. We made a better offer than that in the review body’s independent report, which studied other comparable professions. This comes back to a question for the hon. Gentleman: will he really turn down better terms for junior doctors, in both term and number, than those for Agenda for Change unions? If so, that is a very sad thing for the Labour party.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the most important people in this are the patients? They should be at the forefront of our mind, and it is for their sake that this wholly unnecessary escalation of action must come to an end.
Ben Gummer
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend, which is why it would be helpful to have an unequivocal condemnation of the strike from the Labour party, which would send a message from this House that the withdrawal of emergency care is wrong.