Maternity Safety Strategy

Will Quince Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Through the hon. Lady, I express my thanks to Jack and Sarah for bravely telling their story this morning in the media, which was incredibly moving and touched a lot of hearts. With respect to allowing inquests into full-term stillbirths, our objective is to move as quickly as any legislative vehicle allows. If I am able to work closely with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) to do that, that is exactly what I want to do.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and congratulate him on it. Does he agree that the vast majority of grieving parents, if not all, not only want to know why, but want to know that their child’s life, however short, will have had meaning by ensuring that we learn lessons from them not as a statistic, but as a baby? That is why the independent investigation unit is so important. We must learn the lessons not just in one trust, but across the whole NHS and spread that learning to ensure that as few people as possible go through this emotional personal tragedy.

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As he knows, because he has spoken so movingly on this subject many times, there is absolutely nothing we can do to make up for the searing loss of losing a loved one—a baby. It is the worst thing any parent can go through. We can at least give them the commitment that we will learn. If we are honest, we do not do so at the moment, because we sometimes wait 10 years for a court case to be settled, and even then it is not always clear to me that the lessons of what happened are properly learned around the system. This statement is an attempt to change that.