Baroness May of Maidenhead
Member of the House of Lords · Conservative · United Kingdom
“First, I worry that the Bill is removing yet further the powers of the Office of Rail and Road to hold the railways and Great British Railways to account. I remember when Tom Winsor was the Rail Regulator, and a rather determined Rail Regulator he was too, but after him, things got a little mushy.”
“Not only will that cost the taxpayer money, completely unnecessarily; it is as if somebody in the Department for Transport—maybe the Minister, maybe a civil servant, or perhaps a special adviser—has suggested, “Actually if we’re going to make a change, people need to see there’s a change, so let’s repaint all the trains”.”
“My third concern is this. Last week, the new Member of Parliament for Makerfield, who it is widely assumed will soon be our Prime Minister, made a speech in which he applauded and spoke up for the interests of place, of locality, of that sense of belonging to an area, of local identity.”
“That ability is going to be wiped away by this Bill and by the creation of Great British Railways. It is an issue I argued with Keith Williams when he was producing his report, and I recognise that on this side of the House, our hands are not entirely clean in relation to the concept of Great British Railways, albeit with differences from…”
“I did so not just as shadow Secretary of State for Transport for a period, but also because a lot of my constituents were commuters and the train service mattered to them. But I had the advantage of dealing with those issues in an era of privatisation. I remember British Rail.”
“My Lords, first, I declare my interest as a member of the GWR stakeholder advisory board, ably and knowledgeably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester. I add my voice to the Minister’s remarks on the 21st anniversary of those terrible attacks on our transport system.”
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“That is happening in Poland and in other countries to which Ukrainian refugees are fleeing. This issue has been raised with me by two non-governmental organisations that work globally on tackling modern slavery: Walk Free and the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery. It is a sad reflection on human nature that at the very point where these women and children are fleeing Ukraine for their safety in order to find refuge elsewhere, the criminal gangs have moved in to make money from the trafficking of what they consider to be yet another commodity—human beings. These gangs are attempting to make money out of this human distress and vulnerability. The human traffickers moved in within a day or so of refugees starting to come across the borders.”
“As I look around the Chamber, I am sure that there are going to be many speeches on a number of matters relating to the war in Ukraine: security and defence matters, military matters, sanctions and refugees. Indeed, such references have been made in the two opening speeches. I want to focus on one issue on which light has not been shone so far and where I have a particular interest. I say to the Minister that this matter is primarily for the Home Office, but I hope that he and the other Ministers on the Front Bench will be able to take these messages to the Home Secretary and ensure that they are taken on board and that action is taken. The issue I want to raise is that of the trafficking of Ukrainian people, particularly unaccompanied Ukrainian child refugees, at the border areas.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for his speech and, as I said earlier, I thank everybody from across this House for the unity we are showing in the face of the heinous further invasion of Ukraine by Russia. There is a very clear message from this House and this country: Putin has brought war to mainland Europe; he has invaded a sovereign, independent country; and he is killing innocent men, women and children whose only wish is to live in freedom and free from Russian aggression. There should also be a clear message from this House that those responsible for initiating and prosecuting this war will be held accountable for their war crimes.”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement this afternoon. This House and this country are united in our defence of democracy and our support for the Ukrainian people. Vladimir Putin has initiated war in mainland Europe. The response must be unequivocal and absolutely clear, so will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government are putting in place every possible economic sanction so that Russia feels absolutely the cold wind of isolation and the Russian people understand that Vladimir Putin has brought their state to a pariah state?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and also the UK’s unwavering support for Ukrainian sovereignty at this gravest of times, which shows we can never take our eyes off Russia. But does my right hon. Friend share my concern that while the focus today is rightly on protecting Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity, what lies behind this is a wider worldwide trend of authoritarian states trying to impose their way of thinking on others, and that the battle in which we now must now engage is nothing more nor less than the defence of democracy itself?”
“May I commend my right hon. Friend and the Government for the robust stance they have taken alongside our American and European allies in the face of Russia’s threats against Ukraine? President Putin wants to weaken NATO and the western alliance, but does my right hon. Friend agree that any further action by the Russians to invade Ukrainian territory can only strengthen the determination of the UK, NATO and the western alliance to defend the rights of sovereign states and to defend democracy?”
“The independent medicines and medical devices safety review was absolutely clear about the damage done by the three medical devices and medicines that it considered: Primodos, mesh—not only vaginal mesh—and sodium valproate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell—”
“As others have said, it is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) on having secured this important debate. We are here for a significant reason, which is, frankly, to hold the Government’s feet to the fire and press them on why they have not made more progress on this issue. As others have said, it was debated some months ago in the Chamber of the House of Commons, and the cross-party support for Government action was absolutely clear, as the presence here shows, yet we have had to come back to ask the Government why they are not making more progress.”
“It is important that these recommendations be followed up on. My final thought is about levelling up—a term that some of us in politics like to use at the moment. The victims of these three issues need to have their lives levelled up with those of people who did not suffer as a result of this. Above all, NHS treatment given to women needs to be levelled up with that given to men, to ensure that women are not just patted on the head and told to go away.”
“The Treasury often thinks these things are just about funding and monetary compensation, but people who have suffered as a result of these issues need other sorts of support given to them—for example, support for children with special educational needs. Redress is wider than monetary compensation, which is often what Government think about. Recommendation 9 is to set up a taskforce. The patient reference group is a good idea but, as the hon. Member for Blaydon said, where now? The taskforce would have the job of gripping this issue and pressing down on the accelerator for action. I ask the Minister: who in Government is gripping this issue and pressing the accelerator for action? As I am sure she will gather, most of us here think that nobody is doing that, and that the issue is being allowed to drift.”
“I do not want a patient safety commissioner to be taken over by the Department of Health and Social Care. It has to be somebody who can be independent and can genuinely give patients a voice. On the recommendation to establish a redress agency, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead is right that under its terms of reference, the Cumberlege review was not able to look at compensation for individuals, but it was asked to look at wider redress measures, and it proposed the redress agency—a proposal that, sadly, the Government have not been willing to accept. I know the Treasury will have heard the proposal as, “Ding, ding, ding! Pounds!”—I have dealt with the Treasury, and we all know what happens—but the agency would have a wider remit than that.”
“Go away, dear,” professionals should say, “Let’s look into this and find out exactly what happened, and whether we made a mistake.” I come to three of the specific recommendations, one of which is to appoint a patient safety commissioner. Reference has already been made to this, and it is good that the Government have accepted the recommendation, although they needed a bit of a nudge in the House of Lords to do so. What concerns me is the need to ensure that this patient safety commissioner is not in hock to the Department of Health and Social Care. My right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell spoke about the NHS. Yes, these are the actions of the NHS, but behind it lies the Department of Health and Social Care, which consistently resisted properly looking into these issues over a significant period.”
“You’re a woman.” I am afraid that that was the attitude taken on some of these issues—and it was not just that: it was a female doctor, Isabel Gal—a woman who had survived Auschwitz—who first identified the problems with Primodos, but she was dismissed and ignored, and sadly her career was damaged as a result. She eventually left the medical profession. What comes through in the report is that there is an attitude of not being willing to listen to women’s voices, and of not accepting it when women say, “Actually, what you have done to me is causing me extreme pain and difficulty.” Instead of saying, “You know what? I do this, and I get it right.”
“I have constituents who just wanted an apology. They just wanted to know that somebody had accepted that something had gone wrong, and to be shown that it would not be allowed to happen again. Instead, the NHS spends significant sums of money trying to defend itself in court cases when there is a better solution. That is slightly aside from the main point I want to make about the Cumberlege review, but it shows that the NHS’s attitude is to defend itself, rather than accept that mistakes were made. I want to pick up on a point made by the three Members who have spoken. Sadly, when we look at the three issues that the Cumberlege review considered, we see a patronising attitude towards women—a pat-you-on-the-head attitude. “There, there. This is the sort of thing you can expect. You’re in pain? Oh well.”
“The first is that the natural reaction of the NHS and the medical establishment was—and, I fear, continues to be—to defend themselves, rather than to admit to mistakes, ensure that those who suffered were given the support they needed, and take action to ensure that those mistakes could not happen again. That is still happening. I spoke to a constituent earlier this week who had an operation a number of years ago, and is still having operations to correct problems that arose from a mistake made in that operation. My constituent Hugh Whitfield, a former consultant surgeon who runs Independent Medical Negligence Resolution, spoke to me before Christmas about the large sum of money the NHS spends on litigation and on trying to defend cases in court, when a better system would be to just accept that mistakes were made.”
“Every week that goes by is a further rejection, because the report was very clear: action needs to be taken. I was pleased to set up the report, and I commissioned it largely out of the concern I had about Primodos, which had been raised with me by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), but also by our former colleague Seema Kennedy, who took up this issue as well. The aim of the review was not just to get to the truth, but to identify what needed to be done to redress the problems that had occurred, to provide support to those who had suffered, and to ensure that it could not happen again. There are two glaring aspects to these issues.”
“I am so sorry; that must have changed after my time. My right hon. Friend set out very clearly how people’s lives have changed. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) has just done that as well. Lives have been not just changed, but significantly damaged. People have suffered physically, mentally, socially and, in many cases, economically. As well as suffering the direct impact of what was done to them and, in the case of Primodos, to the babies born with defects as a result of their mothers taking it, they suffered constant rejection by the state—by the NHS and the Government, the very bodies that should have been there to protect and support them. The longer it takes the Government to fully implement the recommendations of the Cumberlege report, the more rejection these people suffer.”
“I want to press the Minister. I apologise about that, but she will recognise from the debate that there is real concern about this. I have concerns about NHS Resolution and the way it operates. There are systems elsewhere, in countries such as Australia and Canada, where, at a very early stage, an independent medical expert, who is completely separate from the institution where the negligence has taken place, is brought in, and there is much more of a sense of no-fault compensation and of not needing to go to litigation. NHS Resolution gets involved in litigation, and it can take many years before that is resolved.”
“The covid regulations imposed significant restrictions on the freedoms of members of the public. They had a right to expect their Prime Minister to have read the rules, to understand the meaning of the rules—and, indeed, those around them him to have done so, too—and to set an example in following those rules. What the Gray report does show is that No. 10 Downing Street was not observing the regulations they had imposed on members of the public, so either my right hon. Friend had not read the rules, or did not understand what they meant—and others around him—or they did not think the rules applied to No. 10. Which was it?”
“I refer the House to my entry the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Many of my constituents work in the aviation sector. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement about plan B restrictions, but I note that he made no reference to the tests that are still required for people who come into England. If we are going to learn to live with covid, we need to facilitate travel, so will he take this opportunity to announce that when plan B restrictions are removed next week the Government will also make it clear that there will be no test requirements for anybody who enters England and is fully vaccinated?”
“I commend my right hon. Friend for resisting calls from the Labour party and others for more restrictions before Christmas, and also for the changes that he has announced today. Omicron is less serious than previous variants. We will see new variants appear in future, and the likelihood is that they will continue to be less serious. It is not in the national interest to partially or wholly shut down sectors of our economy every time we see a new variant. Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to inform the House whether and how the Government will change their approach when new variants arise?”
“I am very interested in what the right hon. Lady is saying. If we are to stop modern slavery, we must ensure that we catch the perpetrators, which requires victims to be able to come forward with evidence. She is outlining certain elements of the Bill that she fears will restrict victims’ ability to come forward, and I am concerned that the public order disqualification threshold and the time period on slavery and trafficking information notices will also have that effect. Does she share my concerns about those aspects and hope that the Minister will address them specifically today?”
“The early indications of omicron are that it is more transmissible, but that it potentially leads to less serious illness than other variants. I understand that that would be the normal progress of a virus. Variants will continue to appear year after year. When will the Government accept that learning to live with covid, which we all have to do, means that we will most certainly have an annual vaccine and that we cannot respond to new variants by stopping and starting sectors of our economy, which leads to businesses going under and jobs being lost?”
“I say to the Minister once again: it is very simple. If the Government wish to maintain parity of esteem between physical and mental health and ensure that people with mental health problems are given the services and care that they need, they must put uncertainty to one side, accept the amendments and make it clear that physical and mental health will be treated with parity of esteem in our national health service.”
“I am particularly concerned about the impact on young people; I am sure that Members across the House are seeing young people in their constituencies whose mental health may have been suffering anyway, but has suffered even more as a result of the pandemic. More people now require mental health services. The Government talk a lot about dealing with the backlog that is a result of the pandemic, but it is only ever spoken about with reference to surgery or operations. The great danger is that in their focus on dealing with that backlog, which we all accept is necessary, the Government will push the issue of mental health services to one side. The amendments stand in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker), in my name and in the names of Members across the House—there is cross-party concern.”
“It was there because of the need to accept, as Members across the House do, that for too long mental health has not been given the attention that it deserves. People who were suffering with mental health problems were not getting the services that they need. It will take time to ensure that we can provide for all, but sadly the issue has been exacerbated by the pandemic. In March 2021, there were 26% more referrals for mental health services than in March 2019, before the pandemic. The Centre for Mental Health reckons that 10 million additional people will need mental health care as a result of the pandemic.”
“I rise to speak in support of amendments 93 to 98, whose purpose is very simple. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 established parity of esteem between physical and mental health in their treatment in the national health service. The Bill is silent on the issue. I know that Ministers have given assurances, in a variety of ways, that it is not the Government’s intention to move away from that parity of esteem, but if that is the case, the answer is simple: accept the amendments. The Government do not even have to write them; they have been written for them. There would then be absolutely no doubt about the continued commitment to ensuring parity of esteem between physical and mental health. Mental health was clearly in the long-term plan for the national health service that I was pleased to see introduced.”
“Members of this House, aided and abetted by the Government under cover of reform of the process, effectively to clear his name was misplaced, ill-judged and just plain wrong.”
“I hope that this will be the last opportunity for this House to do the right thing and accept the report of the Committee on Standards on Owen Paterson. I trust that no Member of this House is thinking of doing anything other than supporting the motion that has been moved by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. Passing this motion will be a step in the right direction, but it will not undo the damage that has been done by the vote of 3 November. Let us be clear: this is not a party political issue. Damage has been done to all Members of Parliament and to Parliament as a whole. I read the report of the Committee on Standards into Owen Paterson. I believe that the conclusion was clear and fair: Owen Paterson broke the rules on paid advocacy. The attempt by right hon. and hon.”
“The first is about ensuring that no company or individual can gain an unfair advantage by paying a Member of Parliament to advocate on their behalf. That is a matter for the code of conduct of Members of this House and the rules of this House. The second is an issue of the service that MPs give to their constituents, and that is a matter for their electorate. Damage has been done to this House. We can start to repair that damage by accepting the report of the Committee on Standards, and I urge every Member of this House to support that motion.”
“I do not think that they quite reflect the motion that the Opposition are putting to the House tomorrow, but they do suggest a clarification and a tightening up of the rules on MPs’ outside interests. It would be a mistake to think that, because someone broke the rules, the rules were wrong. The rule on paid advocacy is a long-standing one. The problem came because there was an attempt to effectively let off a then Member of the House, and that flew in the face of the rules on paid advocacy and in the face of the processes established by this House. It has also been suggested, as a result of what happened on 3 November, that there are questions about the role of MPs. We should not conflate or confuse those two issues.”
“I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I take no interventions. I wish to make my limited points. In this place, we set rules for people through the laws that we pass. We expect people to obey those rules. We also set rules for our own behaviour as Members of Parliament and we have a right to expect each and every one of us to obey those rules. Sometimes mistakes will be made inadvertently, but the process of independent investigation and a Committee set up by this House with lay members should be able to differentiate those cases and to deal with them. It has been suggested that, as a result of what happened on 3 November, the rules need to change. I do hope that the Government will be looking urgently and seriously at the 2018 proposals from the Committee on Standards in Public Life.”
“Will he agree with that and set out what the Government’s immediate plans are for that work?”
“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. May I first echo the remarks made by my right hon. Friend about the appalling attack in Liverpool? The thoughts of everybody in the House are with the people of Liverpool. I congratulate the UK presidency on the significant commitments made at COP26, notably by Governments on deforestation and methane but also by individual businesses on their work to achieve net zero. I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees that there is much more to be done—he said it in his statement. With the COP presidency, the UK has a critical role over the next year in ensuring that the commitments made are delivered on and in bringing the intransigent countries—notably, China, Russia and India—back round the table to raise their sights on what they are willing to achieve.”
“We need to ensure that young people’s education provides them with what they need to be able to take up the green jobs of the future.”
“To deliver the green economy of the future, we will have to ensure that we have the green skills of the future, which means that the issue involves not just the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy but the Department for Education. It is about ensuring that at every stage in our education system we prepare people for the jobs of the future and ensure that they have green skills. There were a lot of references to skills in the financial statement, but I did not hear any specific reference to green skills, which are very important. Young people are hugely enthusiastic about saving the planet, as I know from when I raised the seventh green flag for St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Maidenhead recently.”
“I support the desire for a green industrial revolution, but that brings me to my second point: the green industrial revolution is about not just providing support to businesses, to different sectors and to initiatives such as hydrogen. Those moves are important, though, and I welcome the fact that the Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) has introduced the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill and is finding a way to ensure that the RAB—regulated asset base—financing model will work for new nuclear in future.”
“Friend has introduced new fiscal rules, but I may have misheard or misunderstood: I think he said that the new fiscal rules will be met in the third year of every forecast period, but the forecast period rolls forward every year, which suggests to me that we will never reach the fiscal rules and they will just be rolled forward every year. As the Chairman of the Treasury Committee said, it is not the case that previous Governments have not been guilty of changing the date at which the fiscal rules were going to be met, but it seems to me that, unless I have misunderstood, it is baked in that they never necessarily need to be met. The answer to the issue of the balance of increased public spending versus growth is, of course, to increase the growth rate of the economy.”
“As I said, yes, we are bouncing back well, but our economy will be smaller for a number of reasons, some of which are specific to the UK, and the predicted rate of growth is below that which would normally be seen as an acceptable growth trend rate. I am interested by the fact that the Government appear to think that they can sustain a situation wherein public spending increases by, as I think my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said, 3.8% a year, but the economy grows at less than half that rate. I welcome the fact that my right hon.”
“Increased taxes will have both direct and indirect impacts on individuals, as will increased costs in other areas. We must never forget, as the Labour party so often does, that people are hit by increased taxes on business, because those increased costs often cannot be absorbed and are passed through to consumers—to members of the public. I welcome the significant cut in the universal credit taper rate announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. It is true to say that it is something that Conservative Governments have been working for, but previous cuts have been rather less dramatic than the one he announced today. What he has done is extremely good news. Let me focus briefly on three particular issues in the Budget and spending review, the first of which is the forecast for the future growth of the economy.”
“Friend, I have always been optimistic about what can be achieved by the talents, hard work and initiative of the British people and what they can do to build a brighter future for themselves, their families and the country. But the brighter future will not be built simply by telling people that it will be there: a new economy needs sure foundations and optimism needs to be backed by practical delivery. As we know, there are headwinds that mean that however optimistic people are for the future, many are finding it difficult to manage today. As the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) said, there is a debate to be had about what is going to happen to inflation and whether higher inflation is here to stay or just temporary. Of course, that will have an impact on interest rates.”
“Friend announced, the national living wage has increased to £9.50, thereby putting, as he said, just over £1,000 into the pockets of some of the lowest paid. It is also good news for public sector workers that the pay freeze is going to be lifted. It is good news that the Chancellor has felt able to announce, albeit over a number of days publicly rather than to the House today, increased spending on issues such as infrastructure, the NHS and science. I agree with my right hon. Friend that we must today start to build the new economy post covid and that we are on the verge of what could be an economy fit for the new age of optimism. Like my right hon.”
“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. First, I commend my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the good news in the Budget. It is indeed good news that the economy is growing faster than was predicted and it is good news that we are bouncing back from the pandemic not just faster than predicted but faster than other countries in the G7, with the OBR confirming the 6.5% growth that the International Monetary Fund and OECD predicted. It is good news that unemployment is lower than the very dire predictions that we heard at the beginning of the pandemic, largely owing to the action that the Government have taken. It is good news that, as my right hon.”
“People want to see more going into the NHS, but they want it to be spent properly with value for money, so it is important that the Government do not lose sight of that. As a Conservative, I believe in low taxes, fiscal prudence, and sound management of the economy. I look forward to our being able to be in a position to deliver that at the same time as we are delivering that green economy for the future and that optimistic future that the Chancellor referred to in his speech.”
“Crucially, the long-term plan had commitments on areas such as mental health, prevention and workforce planning. Those commitments need to be met if we are to put the NHS on a sustainable footing for the future. For example, the young person whose mental health needs are identified and provided for at an early stage is the person who will not then turn up at A&E in a crisis situation, costing the NHS more. Another important aspect in the long-term plan is that it was matched with measures and metrics that the Treasury was going to be able to use to ensure that money was spent effectively and wisely. As we know, the NHS does not always spend the money as well and as effectively as it could.”
“I recognise the increased money going to local authorities, but there are local authorities that feel they will be hit with significant costs with the new social care provisions. This is about not just the costs over the next couple of years before the levy money comes into social care, but those authorities that are in areas where the provision of care is more costly than in other parts of the country and where they have a very high proportion of self-funders. That includes both Wokingham Borough Council and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. My main and final point is that in the necessary bid to deal with the backlog in the NHS—obviously more funding has been announced in relation to that—we do not lose sight of the long-term plan.”
“The hon. Lady has always spoken passionately on these issues in this House, but I think she has overlooked the fact that the Chancellor announced a significant number of green jobs—several hundred thousand of them—for the future. Investment is going in from the Government, but the point I am making is that it is not just about the investment that the Government are putting directly into these areas; it is also about ensuring that our whole Government, on a cross-Government basis, understand the importance of this issue. That includes education. I had a positive meeting with the Secretary of State for Education earlier this week on that and other issues. So it is a cross-Government exercise and it needs to be understood as such. My third and final point is on a different issue, which is about the NHS and social care spending.”
“If, from what I and others have said, you get the impression that he was just a hard-working workaholic, I can say that James was great fun. Evenings with Cathy and James were evenings of fun and laughter. He was also a loving family man. I remember when he was first diagnosed with his lung cancer and he was stepping down from the Government. His first thought to me was about the impact it would have on Cathy and the family. He was a loving family man, he was out there in his constituency and he gave dedicated public service to this country. The Government are the poorer for his loss, this Parliament is the poorer for his loss and our country is the poorer for his loss.”
“He cared about people and he cared about the work he was doing, and that came through in all the decisions he made and in the way in which he reached out across this House to ensure those decisions were the right ones. James was an outstanding Minister, but he was also a very good constituency MP. Very often if you try to contact a Minister on a Friday, they are in their office. More often than not, James was in his constituency. He understood that all of us are here because our constituents have placed us here, and anybody who is fortunate enough to become a Government Minister is only there because their constituents have placed them there. We should never forget that that is the basis of our being here and of our responsibilities. James was a true friend.”
“I had the enormous privilege of working with James Brokenshire in government, first for six years in the Home Office and then in his roles as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and as Communities Secretary. James was a remarkable man, an outstanding Minister, a great constituency Member of Parliament and a true friend. Words have been used by others such as “diligent” and “hard-working,” and he was both of those. As a Minister, he was assiduous in dealing with the briefs he read, thoughtful in his consideration of the issues and careful in his decision making, which is what you want from a Government Minister. He gave his time and effort because he understood the importance of the decisions he was making.”