Sir Jeremy Hunt
MP for Godalming and Ash · Conservative · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I speak today as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for financial markets and services. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which states that I accept speaking engagements from financial services companies.”
“Chief executives of banks made very ill-judged decisions to continue paying themselves large bonuses at a time when the rest of the country was suffering, and the country suffered a longer and deeper recession at that time as a result of our exposure to the financial services sector, which was much greater than that of our peers.”
“We are in a much, much better state than we were in 2008.” But I do think that it has gone slightly too far in the other direction. Sometimes we can over-correct.”
“What further action will the Government take to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises and scale-ups, which has been a particular issue in the period since the financial crisis?”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her role in helping to salvage Barings. I did not know that before. She is absolutely right to raise that issue. I do not say this in a party political way, because my party pretty much supported it at the time, but there is no doubt that, in the run-up to the financial crisis, regulation was not as tight as it n…”
“To their credit, this Government have built on those reforms with the Leeds reforms, the Pension Schemes Act 2026 and the forthcoming Financial Services and Markets Bill, all of which are extremely welcome. But, as the hon. Member for Buckingham and Bletchley said, our competitors are not standing still.”
The complete record
Every one of 7,495 lines we hold for Sir Jeremy Hunt, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 40 of 150.
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and agree with what he says. Of course, if the police decide to bring forward criminal prosecutions, that would have the support of the Government, but the police must make that decision independently. If a family feel that an injustice has been done, who can they go to if they feel that ranks are being closed? I think we have made progress on that question, but we need to reflect very carefully on whether it is enough progress.”
“My hon. Friend is right to ask that question. The best parallel is the Hillsborough process, which was also led by Bishop Jones. A similar report was published that put documents into the public arena, essentially enabling people to understand truthfully what happened. On the basis of that, inquests were reopened, criminal prosecutions happened and so on. We are at that stage of the process. I hope that the transparency and thoroughness of the report will give families hope that they are at last being listened to.”
“My reason for saying that all these things need to see the sunlight of transparency much sooner is frankly that if they had come to light sooner and if proper attention had been given to this in 2001—we all know that Mid Staffs started in 2005—how many other lessons and tragedies throughout the health service could have been avoided? That is why I think it would be the wrong reaction today to say that we are getting there on patient safety and that transparency problems are solved: there is a lot further to go.”
“First, I again pay tribute to the role that the right hon. Gentleman played. One of the most difficult things for any Minister is knowing when to accept advice, which is what we do most of the time, and when to overrule it. His instincts have been proved absolutely right. It is not an easy thing to do, and it causes all sorts of feathers to be ruffled, but he stuck to his guns, and rightly so. Bishop James Jones, who is a truly remarkable public servant, talked in the Hillsborough panel report about the “patronising disposition of unaccountable power”. That is what we have to be incredibly on guard against. The right hon. Gentleman is right: at the heart is the problem that we did not listen to families early enough and we did not listen to whistleblowers inside the NHS early enough.”
“I think everyone in the House would share my right hon. Friend’s sentiments, but we have to let the law take its course, and we have to make sure that justice is done, because it has been denied for too long.”
“I am happy to do that. All the families who think they had a relative affected have been part of the panel process, and they were all invited for a briefing by Bishop Jones this morning in Portsmouth. We will provide ongoing support and counselling if necessary through the Department of Health and Social Care, which was a specific request of Bishop Jones. We are also conscious that when people read the news, they may suddenly decide that they or a loved one were affected by this. We have set up a helpline so that people can contact us and we can help them to trace whether they too have been affected.”
“Absolutely. I commend my hon. Friend for his work and for being one of the colleagues in this place who have thought and talked about the importance of getting the right safety culture in the NHS. The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch matters because in situations such as this, it could have been called in, done a totally independent investigation, got to the truth of what was happening quickly and prevented a recurrence of the problem. That is one of a number of things that we need to think about.”
“There can be no justice unless the truth is put on the table. That is the crucial first step, and now justice must proceed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his campaign for Mrs McKenzie. Perhaps the best words I can use are these of the panel in the report: “Yes, we have listened and yes, you, the families, were right. Your concerns are shown to be valid.””
“Yes, I will absolutely do that. I ought to say that I know my hon. Friend met many families and relatives during his time as a Minister in my Department, and he always dealt with those cases with a huge amount of compassion. The facts of the matter are, according to the report, that 650-plus people had their lives shortened, but we are in touch with only about 100 families, so we are expecting more people to come forward.”
“I think actions speak louder than words. Such an approach is what Bishop Jones requested on this occasion, and we have done that. We obviously need to think through some process issues, because when a Minister wants to report to the House, they need to be a little bit informed as to what they are talking about. However, I think we have found a way to do that with this report and with the Francis report, so I think it is a good template.”
“We do have to ask those questions, and we have to be able to respond to the concerns of my hon. Friend and his constituents about how we can be absolutely certain there will not be a closing of ranks. My experience, however, is that doctors are very quick to want to remove those of their number who are letting the profession down because this damages everyone’s reputation. There are some very difficult questions for the GMC and for the NMC. Because their processes took so long, I do not think they can put their hand on their heart and say that they have kept patients safe during that period.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we have a regulatory landscape that is very complex, does not achieve the results we want, and forces regulators to spend time doing things they do not want to do and does not give them enough time for things they do want to do. Obviously, because of the parliamentary arithmetic, if we are able to get parliamentary consensus on such a change, that would speed forward the legislation.”
“I think we have made progress when it comes to whistleblowing because every trust now has a “freedom to speak up” guardian—an independent person inside the trust whom clinicians can contact if they have patient safety concerns. That is a big step forward, which was recommended by Robert Francis. Where I am less clear that we have solved the problem is in relation to having someone for families to go to if they think that everyone is closing ranks, and we now need to reflect on that.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that matter. The nurse concerned, Anita Tubbritt, talks in the report about her concerns and the pressure that she was put under, and it was a brave thing to do. When the hon. Lady reads the report, she will see that nurse auxiliaries and others who were not professionally trained clinicians also came forward with concerns and were also worried about the impact that doing so would have on their own career. That is what we have got to stop because, in whatever part of the UK, getting a culture in which people can speak openly about patient safety issues is absolutely essential.”
“I think that that is actually an excellent point, and we should definitely look at it. Big hospitals have clear lines of accountability—boards, chief executives—but those often do not exist in community hospitals and there is no one who can say they are the boss of that trust, so we should look at that.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I do not want to jump to a conclusion about any changes to the draft Bill. However, we should definitely reflect on any legislative changes that might be needed as a result of this report, and that Bill could be a very powerful vehicle for doing so.”
“That is the big question we have to answer for both the House and the British people. However, I would say to the hon. Lady that I am confident that, where there is unsafe practice, it is surfaced much more quickly now in the NHS than it has been in the past. I am less confident about whether we have removed the bureaucratic obstacles that mean the processes of doing such investigations are not delayed inordinately so that the broader lessons that need to be learned can be learned.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his championing of the GIRFT programme, which is incredibly powerful and successful. He will have noticed that we announced last week that we are expanding it into a national clinical information programme, which will cover more than 70% of consultants. What is disturbing in this case, though, if I may say so, is that the data was really around mortality, and we have actually had that data for this whole period. There is really nothing to stop anyone looking at data, and we can see a spike in the mortality rates in this hospital between 1997 and 2001. They go down dramatically in 2001, when the practices around opiates were changed. That is why we have to ask ourselves the very difficult question about why no one looked at that data or, if they did, why no one did anything about it.”
“Absolutely. One of the big lessons from this report is that we have to look at systemic issues as much as at the practice of an individual doctor or nurse.”
“Of course that is an issue that we will look into. I would just say, in the interests of transparency, that the Department of Health has been on the same journey as the whole of the rest of the NHS with respect to patient safety issues.”
“The legal independence of the CQC, and its ability to act as the nation’s whistleblower-in-chief, is one of the big, important reforms of recent years, and I think that will give the public confidence. However, I do not think that that is the entire answer, and I still think there is an issue about who families go to when they think they are being ignored by the establishment.”
“That is absolutely my priority, and my hon. Friend worked very closely with me on that when he was my Parliamentary Private Secretary. Changing culture is a long, long process, but I think we can start through some of the things we do in this House. Reacting afresh to this report, and not just saying, “We’ve done what we need to do, because we had Mid Staffs and Morecambe Bay,” is a very important next step.”
“We will, of course, look at that. That was why I said in my statement that there were failures by the Department of Health—the specific incident needs to be looked at—and also as the steward of the system in which so many other things went wrong.”
“I can confirm that, from next April, all hospital deaths will be examined by an independent doctor—this is the medical examiner process. We are expanding the learning from deaths programme to primary care. That is exactly where we want to go.”
“Perhaps I can help the hon. Lady by pointing out that tier 2 visa cap is specifically for higher-paid workers. We do need to think about social care workers, but a lot of them are lower paid. That is why we are putting together a 10-year workforce plan for the health and social care sectors, both of which are very important. We will make sure that that goes hand in glove with the NHS plan that we announced yesterday.”
“Let me tell the hon. Gentleman what we have been doing in the past five years: we have 14,300 more nurses, 10,100 more doctors, and over 40,000 more clinicians across different specialties. He will be very relieved to know that, on top of that, we are promising 50% more than his party did at the last election.”
“The life sciences sector is critical to the UK economy, which is why we support it with a £1 billion annual grant through the National Institute for Health Research.”
“I am happy to do that. The life sciences industry is critical to Scotland, and Scotland’s role is critical to the UK. We all remember Dolly the sheep being pioneered in Edinburgh University, and last week’s announcement of a new centre in Renfrewshire is another good example of the great things happening in Scotland.”
“My hon. Friend is very knowledgeable about that area. We have announced the creation of a set of digital innovation hubs, and perhaps we can broaden those to turn them into the hubs that he thinks would be a good idea.”
“That is exactly what we have been doing, but we need Vertex to be reasonable regarding the price that it offers the NHS. We need to pay fair prices. We have heard that it will be coming back with a new offer next week—we hope it is a reasonable one—but we urge Vertex to waive commercial confidentiality so that we can all see, in the interests of transparency, the kind of prices it is trying to charge the NHS.”
“We have great teaching hospitals in Yorkshire and we have introduced five new medical schools. When we do the new workforce plan later this year, who knows? We may need more.”
“Of course I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. I recognise that this is one of the things that we are not good at at the moment. We have fantastic research, with amazing new drugs developed in this country, but our uptake can be painfully slow, and that is of course something that we want to put right.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that issue. She is introducing a debate on it in Westminster Hall on Thursday. I have met a number of families who have suffered very badly as a result of ME, and we would all like better research, so I hope that her campaign is successful.”
“I know that the thoughts of the whole House are with the families affected by the terrible atrocity a year ago. Personal health budgets have a transformative effect on people with very complex health needs, and we plan for 50,000 to 100,000 more people to benefit from them by 2021.”
“Absolutely, and not just to North West Norfolk, but to the whole country. We are currently consulting on giving a right to personal health budgets to people with the most complex health needs. That would be about 350,000 people and would include anyone with a continuing NHS need combined with a mental health need, a learning disability, autism or PTSD. Obviously, it would be hugely significant if we were able to proceed with that.”
“Absolutely, and technology will have a big role, because this year we intend all NHS patients to be able to access their health records through an app. That will be extremely empowering, but my hon. Friend is right that giving people with long-term conditions control over their health and care destiny is a potentially huge leap forward.”
“I congratulate the last Labour Government on introducing direct payments, which were the first step in this process. The hon. Lady talks about cuts in social care, which I acknowledge, but, with respect to her, she never talks about the reason, which was that in 2008 we had the worst financial crisis in our peacetime history, and we had to take measures. It is as a result of creating 3.2 million jobs since then that funding for social care is now going up.”
“This is a huge challenge in all parts of the United Kingdom. In England, about 22% of bed days are occupied by people who have been in hospital for more than three weeks, and probably less than 20% of those people should be in hospital. We are taking urgent steps to rectify that, because it is very, very bad for the patients involved.”
“I hope it will have a positive impact. We are asking NHS trusts to get their proposals in during July. We are also delighted that there is a new medical school in Canterbury and we hope that this will be the start of a transformation of NHS services.”
“I think it will be brilliant not just for patients at Torbay Hospital but for patients living in Newton Abbot and Torquay. My understanding is that this project is on track, and my hon. Friend should be very proud, because he campaigned hard.”
“I visited the hospital not too long ago and was able to see for myself some of the estate issues the hon. Lady talks about. I can assure her that need is a fundamental criterion when we look at allocating capital funding.”
“When something goes tragically wrong in healthcare, the best apology to grieving families is to guarantee that no one will experience the same heartache again. Last week I accepted the recommendations of the Williams review of gross negligence manslaughter, and we announced a new national clinical improvement programme to provide NHS consultants with confidential data on their clinical outcomes. From next April independent medical examiners will examine every hospital death, and the learning from deaths programme will be extended to primary care.”
“The hon. Lady has highlighted what is potentially an extremely serious issue. Obviously the FOI is a matter for NHS England, but let me reassure her that the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay)—the hospitals Minister—met the chief executive of the NHS Counter Fraud Authority this morning.”
“I thought that the report made powerful reading, and I know that my hon. Friend was associated with it. Yesterday the Prime Minister was straightforward about the fact that, if we are to preserve our NHS and make it one of the best systems in the world, the burden of taxation will need to increase, and she was willing to listen to the views of colleagues about the most appropriate way in which that should be done.”
“No, that is not correct. Yesterday we made very clear our support for the social care system and our recognition that reform of the NHS must go hand in glove with the social care system, and we said there would be a new financial settlement for the social care system. It is also time that the Labour party took some responsibility for the financial crisis that made all these cuts necessary.”
“May I gently remind the hon. Lady that it was this Conservative Government who introduced the national living wage, and we did that on the basis of transforming the economy, championing policies that were by and large opposed every step of the way by the Scottish National party?”
“As I say, there are compelling arguments in favour of hypothecated taxes, but there are also strong reasons why we have to be cautious—namely, the fact that tax revenues go up and down, year on year, while the NHS needs stable funding. Important arguments and discussions need to happen between now and the Budget, when the Chancellor will make that decision.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his private Member’s Bill. Palliative care is something that we do well in the UK—thanks, a lot, to the brilliant hospice movement—but we can do a lot better. I know that this will be an important part of the NHS plan.”
“That is the Government’s commitment to our NHS, and I commend this statement to the House.”
“Similarly, we know that capital funding is critical for building the NHS services of the future and, again, we will consider proposals from the NHS for a multi-year capital plan to support the transformation plans outlined in the long-term plan. Given the national economic situation, yesterday’s announcement is bold and ambitious. For the first time, national leaders of the NHS will develop a plan for the next decade that is clinically led, that listens to the views of patients and the public and that is backed by five years of core funding. We want to give the NHS the space, the certainty and the funds to deliver a comprehensive long-term plan to transform health and care and to ensure that our children and grandchildren benefit from the same groundbreaking health service in the next 70 years as we all have done in the first 70.”