National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation

Sarah Dyke Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

My hon. Friend is right to point to the importance of the Hillsborough law, because it will enable greater accountability and justice across society, as well as being crucial for future maternity investigations. That is why one of the commitments I made last week following Donna Ockenden’s report was to apply the duty of candour, which the Hillsborough law will enable, to all future maternity investigations, so that never again can we have a situation where senior clinical leaders choose not to participate and choose to avoid accountability.

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

A retired paediatrician and constituent told me recently that after giving 50 years’ service to the children of the NHS, she was devastated by the treatment of mothers and babies and loyal staff, whose concerns are routinely ignored, as when Yeovil’s specialist baby unit was recently closed without notice. While I welcome the Government’s commitment to a new maternity commissioner, will the Secretary of State set out how the commissioner will intervene in a trust like Somerset, rather than simply reporting on failures after harm has been caused?

[James Murray]

In the coming two weeks, I will be meeting the national taskforce, which I chair, to establish the scope and role of the new national maternity commissioner. I want to make sure that that is agreed with the taskforce. The taskforce will produce the action plan, which the commissioner will help to implement. I want to ensure that this is all done with the same principles in mind.

The hon. Lady also raised an important point about not only mothers being ignored, which they are far too often, but staff being ignored. A few Members have made that point today, and it bears repeating. We know that 9,000 staff contributed to Baroness Amos’s report, which underlines the fact that they want a better maternity service, too.