Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 March 2022
This has been an interesting debate, with some informed and constructive contributions. I thank Anas Sarwar for the way in which he moved the motion, and I thank Katy Clark, Christine Grahame and Jamie Greene, who all brought different dimensions to the debate with their contributions.
I have a fear of heights—I am always worried that my glasses will fall off and I will be stranded—but nothing has scared me witless more in life than the wellbeing of my children. That sentiment will be shared by every single parent in the chamber. From the minute that a child becomes part of someone’s life, there is a contract that they will never forget.
As a child, we expect that we will see our parents pass—that is part of the contract of life—but we would never expect to have to deal with the loss of our own child. If people want to know what that grief looks like, they need only look at television pictures of parents in Ukraine. Fathers are having to send their children away while they go back to fight, and as mothers try to flee, their child is shot dead before them on the street—the grief is writ large. Although it does not make it any easier, they understand that the situation is due to the boot of a reckless dictator. There will be parents here who, off camera, feel exactly that grief when a child is knocked down by a car, or when a child dies of an incurable illness. However, when a child dies, and the institution of the healthcare system seems predisposed to deny us the knowledge of why it happened, that is totally unacceptable.
What worries me in part is that we have moved to a compensation culture, in which accountability is transferred and becomes “Here’s money instead.” In 2007, when I first spoke in a health debate in the chamber, the NHS paid out £18.93 million in compensation. The compensation figure for last year was revealed yesterday—it is £61.59 million.
Constituents have come to me about the death of a child or a parent, and they did not understand, or could not accept, the sequence of events that led to that loss. They have gone through a process that I can only describe as a massaging and managing of their issue, at the end of which they were told, “Of course, you can apply for compensation.” In tears, they did, eventually, but that did not answer the fundamental questions. They want to know why it happened, and they very often ask, “Is this going to happen to somebody else?” It seems to me that the transfer to a compensation culture involves an avoidance of both accountability and the determination to ensure that it will not happen again.
Back in 2019, I first raised the issue of Milly Main with the First Minister. That came on the back of an understanding that our NHS maintenance backlog was some £900 million at that point. We then asked what health inspections had been taking place and learned that the number had declined from 38 to just 14 in that year. I do not know whether that situation has now been reversed. There was, I think, an acceptance by Jeane Freeman that public confidence had been shaken, but as the months went on and the questions continued to be asked, there was a surfeit of embraces, clutching and condolences. We heard the phrase “My heart goes out to”, but there was no material advance on the fundamental questions of what happened, what was being done about it and why we did not know.
I applaud Anas Sarwar’s tenacity in pushing the issue. He and I have relied on brave souls telling us things that people did not want us to know. It is only because we found out those things that we have been able to drive the whole argument forward.
Let me be absolutely clear: I think that we should be supporting and encouraging Anas Sarwar’s bill. This is 2022, and we have to get to a point at which we do not simply say to people, “Look, rather than pursuing this, here’s some cash. You won’t actually ever find out what’s happening and we’re not ever really going to tell you. In fact, there is an institutional willingness to club together to try and hide behind a screen.” That must end. That is why I support Milly’s law, and I commend Anas Sarwar for his efforts to bring forward a bill.
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