Hospital Mortality Rates

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

As I said in my statement, in nine of these 14 trusts, the chief executive or chair has been either replaced or moved on. However, the most important thing that we are doing is setting up a transparent failure regime, so that when problems arise they will be made public, so the system will never know something that the public do not, and so that Ministers will be required to take action to sort out failing hospitals. That is what is happening under this Government, but I am afraid that it did not happen when the right hon. Lady’s party was in power.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The Keogh report, which must be welcomed, followed the Francis report. Despite my continuous attempts to have a full public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, successive Labour Secretaries of State refused. Can my right hon. Friend find out from the Department or in any other way how that happened? Will he be good enough to publish his findings, because the root of the real trouble is that they were not prepared to have an inquiry and it was a cover-up?

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend knows that the Labour party refused 81 requests for a public inquiry into what happened at Mid Staffs—I repeat: 81 requests. He also knows that if it was not for that public inquiry, we would not be here now. That is the biggest lesson to learn about the benefits of a public inquiry, and that is why transparency matters. I hope he is also pleased that we will be having a debate on the Francis report in Government time later this year.