Junior Doctors: Industrial Action Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Tom Brake
Main Page: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)Department Debates - View all Tom Brake's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Junior Doctors: Industrial Action
Tom Brake Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
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.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
A junior doctor at St Helier hospital states that
“this contract is unfair, unsafe, uncosted, unevidenced, ineffective, unassessed for impact and risk, and unnecessary.”
With doctors depressed and demoralised, and with the revelation in David Laws’s book that the NHS required £15 billion to £16 billion, does the Minister agree that the failure to resolve this dispute is putting a huge amount of unnecessary pressure on the NHS, and that the Government and the BMA must settle?
Ben Gummer
This is what the Liberal Democrats have come to: quoting the books of their own losing candidates—a very odd situation. I think it sad for the right hon. Gentleman to come to this House not having read Sir David Dalton’s letter, which refutes every single one of the points he quoted at the beginning of his question. The fact is that the contract will be fairer and safer—better for patients and better for doctors.