Bernard Jenkin MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jul 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  May I refer the Secretary of State to Question 20 on the Order Paper? Can she explain when the A120 to Harwich will finally be upgraded? Is she aware that a community of some 20,000 people is served by this dreadful road, and that we dread another winter of subsidence and potholes as the existing road collapses, which is long past its renewal date? Given that this road is vital for growth in the east of England, as it serves the Harwich port and the freeport as well as this deprived community, when will we see some plans to upgrade it?

• 8 Jul 2026 · Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to succeed the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) who opened the debate—a very timely debate it is, too. I particularly commend the point that the former Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak, made about this being a whole-of-nation approach, because we are preparing for war. We might actually be at war in some senses, because Russia is knowingly saying that it is conducting a war against NATO, and we are certainly subject to a hybrid war against our national infrastructure—hacking our hospitals, closing down Jaguar Land Rover and harassing our shipping. This is a very low level of war, but we have certainly been under attack from the way that Russia rations gas to western Europe as a weapon. Turning energy into a weapon, turning food into a weapon—Russia is doing the lot, and the writing is on the wall. The Government still have not woken up to the fact that the head of NATO, and even the Prime Minister at Munich, has said that we have to be ready to fight a war—a shooting, kinetic war—against Russia by 2030. There is no sign in the implementation of policy that the Government understand the urgency of that. There are plenty of people in Government who get the urgency of this, and I met some of them with Lord Robertson earlier this week to be briefed on national resilience, but there is a deep reluctance in the Government to recognise that to mobilise for war is not about the armed forces and a few branches of Government. Armies may fight battles, but nations fight wars. If the whole nation is not galvanised to do what is necessary, to be ready for what is going to happen, and to make the sacrifices and suffer the pain of diverting resources to less popular things than the popular things that Governments tend to spend their money on, we are not ready for war.

• 6 Jul 2026 · Patient Safety Review · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman. Recommendation 1 in the Dash review says that the new National Quality Board should “avoid unfunded mandates being imposed on the system without due consideration”. Public inquiries have certainly made well meaning but unaffordable recommendations—I think of the Francis inquiry recommendation on blanket standards for minimum staffing—but it is wrong to see safety as a cost in opposition to other benefits. The cost of safety failures is astronomic, with NHS clinical negligence costing £3.6 billion a year, despite all the public inquiries. Effective safety management is about the cost-effective management of risk, not risk elimination at any cost. If the air accidents investigation branch did not balance costs with effective risk management, aeroplanes would not fly. Can the Minister therefore point out which of HSSIB’s recommendations have been too expensive to implement? If not, where is the justification for abolishing HSSIB? Neither the NQB nor the CQC should control investigations. The AAIB cannot be prevented from making independent recommendations by the Civil Aviation Authority, the Transport Secretary or airlines themselves. Why should the NQB, which will be subject to political direction, be allowed to decide what safety recommendations should be made and what should be investigated, as Dash recommends? On page 31, Dash incorrectly states: “HSSIB was not able to retain the maternity programme because the Health and Care Act 2022 does not make provision for maternity investigations under HSSIB.” Why have the Government accepted that assertion as true? It is wrong in fact and law. The new statutory HSSIB did not take on maternity and newborn safety investigations, because they were commenced without the safe space protections, so their evidence is available for legal proceedings. That is not how HSSIB operates. Since 2023, HSSIB has been conducting its own maternity investigations. Indeed, when the Amos review was established, it took on the relevant investigations from HSSIB and then relied on HSSIB for assistance with them. With sufficient resources, HSSIB could conduct all maternity investigations much more effectively than the maternity and newborn safety investigations programme. Amos reported that MNSI investigations are not trusted by families, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) was saying, and are not consistent or effective in identifying learning or providing accountability. Amos also says that families should have access to an independent investigation if they lose confidence in the local investigations. Without HSSIB, who will provide those independent investigations? Finding 6 accuses HSSIB of having “expanded” its “scope of work beyond the original remit…For example, HSSIB was originally established, along the lines of safety investigatory bodies in other industries, to look at specific cases or incidents of severe harm, but it has since broadened its work into making more systemic recommendations.” That is what Dash says. It is complete nonsense. HSSIB is exactly equivalent to the AAIB, the marine accident investigation branch and RAIB, and was, like them, set up to conduct systemic investigations. That is why they are such effective bodies. The Health and Care Act 2022 does not limit HSSIB investigations to individual incidents. There is no reference whatsoever to “severe harm”, as Dash puts it, in the 2022 Act. It was always intended by Parliament that HSSIB should make systemic recommendations arising from the investigation of specific incidents or groups of incidents. I can say that with authority because it was my Select Committee that recommended HSSIB in the first place, and I also chaired the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee on the draft legislation, so how can Ministers give any authority to the Dash review, which claimed that HSSIB has expanded its remit, when it has done no such thing? Recommendation 3 proposes: “Most investigations into safety incidents should continue to be managed within provider organisations”. This really is the fundamental flaw in Dash. Recent maternity investigations conducted by trusts have highlighted the deficiency of provider-led investigations, as Ockenden and Amos have pointed out. Do the Government accept that investigations by provider organisations are inherently conflicted? Just ask the clinicians, patients, families and patient safety organisations what they think about trusts marking their own homework. None of them has confidence, because providers are keen to protect themselves from litigation and reputational damage. How can Ministers accept the Dash recommendation that we should rely on investigations conducted by provider organisations?

• 6 Jul 2026 · Patient Safety Review · Hansard source

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  I 100% agree with my right hon. Friend. He will note that I will pick up on those points during my remarks. I come back to the questions that I want to put to the Secretary of State. First, if HSSIB’s investigations are intended to continue unaffected by the transfer to the CQC, why bother with the expense of the transfer? Are Ministers simply using Dash as the pretext for what people in the Department or elsewhere in the NHS would like to have? HSSIB was deliberately started very small, but the intention was that over time it would take over more investigations in health and replace the need for wasteful, lengthy, inexpert ad hoc public inquiries. Over the years, inquiries have proved to be a chaotic means of investigation, assembling expertise from scratch, which is then lost after the inquiry, and failing to command public confidence or to fix the system. That is why, after the 1999 Paddington rail crash, the Ladbroke Grove inquiry in 2001 established the rail accident investigation branch. Since then, despite many fatal rail accidents, there has been no public inquiry into a rail crash—nor has the public felt the need to demand one—and rail safety has improved. Given that HSSIB is expert, full time, and can conduct much cheaper and quicker investigations than public inquiries, how can Ministers accept the Dash recommendation to abolish it? Why not consider expanding HSSIB to avoid the need for so many costly public inquiries? Dash complains about there being far too many recommendations—yes, there are—but, as Dash itself enumerates, it is the 30 public inquiries that, in its language, have “cluttered” the “landscape” with some 1,400 recommendations over recent years. HSSIB is therefore not the source of those recommendations. In HSSIB’s first 34 months of operation, it has produced only 56 recommendations. How can Ministers use that reason to justify HSSIB’s abolition? Dash refers more than once to “quality (including safety) of care”. That elides quality of care with safety. In any other safety-critical industry, safety is seen as a distinct, separate and overriding priority. It is telling that in the report, the words “including safety” are added merely in parentheses, as though safety is ancillary to quality, but that becomes justification for rationalisation while actually compromising safety. Safety system management is intrinsic to safety and public confidence in other safety-critical activities, such as aviation, but this is alien to NHS culture. I therefore ask the Minister again: without HSSIB, which independent body will promote a coherent understanding of safety system management in health, and who is to hold the NHS and Government to account for safety failures?