Church of England (Women Bishops)

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bradshaw]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. New Zealand, Australia, the United States, Canada and South Africa all have women bishops, and they have systems that are without any legislative alternative for episcopal oversight; they have voluntary pastoral care. From what I hear, that works well and people are perfectly happy with it, and the women bishops themselves deal with it very sensitively.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Would it help the right hon. Gentleman’s argument if I pointed out that the Church of Scotland, which is also the established Church, and which has no bishops or hierarchy, has no problems whatsoever of discrimination against women? It has had women ministers for many years, and indeed a woman Moderator of its General Assembly, without any adverse effects.

[Mr Bradshaw]

Yes, indeed, and I commend the Church of Scotland for that. Of course, the Scottish Episcopal Church, which is the sister Church of the Anglican Church, legislated for women bishops about 10 years ago. I do not think that it has appointed any yet, but that is already possible and the heavens have not fallen in north of the border.

When the Minister and the hon. Member for Banbury respond to the debate, I hope that they feel they can comment on the various suggestions for legislative solutions that we have collectively received. I also hope that the hon. Member for Banbury can reassure us that the bishops have an acceptable plan that will work, and work quickly. In the crisis meeting that was held between the bishops and Members of this House and the other place the day after the Synod vote, I was struck by the total unanimity from MPs and peers on the view that the vote had been a disaster for the Church, that the matter had to be resolved quickly and that, if it was not, Parliament would act.

Mr William Fittall, secretary-general of the General Synod, has said:

“Unless the Church of England can show very quickly it’s capable of sorting itself out, we shall be into a major constitutional crisis in Church-State relations, the outcome of which cannot be predicted with any confidence.”

Some people might relish such a prospect. I and, I believe, most Members of this House and most members of the Church of England do not. That is why together we must find an urgent solution to this damaging impasse.

Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It is unlikely; the indications from the Court are that a level of reform of that kind would be sufficient to satisfy it that we had conformed to the judgment. That is one reason we have put that option in the Bill for consideration. A number of people have suggested more minor changes, but we do not believe that those would be sufficient to satisfy the Court. One can never say never about anything, but our expectation and belief is that that option would end this matter for the foreseeable future.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

What sanctions are available to the European Court of Human Rights to apply against the UK Government if they are judged not to have complied with the judgment sent down?

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I did not expect to be attacked by my own side for my former profession. I agree that we all need to accept that when we make mistakes we should own up to them, and that goes for politicians, too.

In fairness, I should speak to the amendments. Surely the point is that there should be a statutory duty of candour in the health service, and that is what is missing. If it needs any encouragement, I know of three separate reports that deal with it: the Levinson and Gallagher report, “Disclosing Harmful Medical Errors to Patients”; the Robins report in the Law Society Gazette; and “Why do patients complain?”, from the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. All three reports, and reports from across the world—there is good evidence in Australia and New Zealand—show that where there is openness and admission of blame, the amount of litigation subsequently goes down, rather than up. For nine out of every 10 clients I saw as a professional barrister practising on clinical negligence, the first two questions they asked were: “Why did they not apologise?”; and “What will be done to ensure that it does not happen to anyone else?” Nine out of 10 clients would fully understand that no doctor gets up in the morning and makes a mistake deliberately. They understand that it is because they are making clinical errors under intense pressure. In that respect, those are the things that need to be addressed by the Health Secretary, rather than in the Bill.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Guy Opperman]

I will, but for the last time.

[Mrs Laing]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the difference between mistakes made by his profession, which is also my profession—I speak to him with sympathy—and those made by the medical profession is that in the case of the latter the consequences can be truly tragic and cannot be put right? Therefore, there must be some mechanism that is open, understandable and available to the public as a whole to try to help when something goes tragically wrong and affects a person’s life.

[Guy Opperman]

With respect, there are ways forward on those issues, not least the idea of a joint report to be completed by a defendant and the claimant together. It would be easy for the Health Secretary to address that by ordering individual chief executives, particularly in relation to cerebral palsy cases, to provide an independent expert’s report assessing the birth. If that happened, litigation would go down, as would the funding to the taxpayer, and we would have speedier and better resolution of these issues. I regret to say that those sorts of things have been said by a number of Members in both Houses in the past and no one has addressed it. However, I stress that that is a matter for the Health Secretary, rather than one that arises out of the Bill.

I am conscious of the time and want to address the other points that have been made; I apologise that I did not do this on Second Reading, but clearly I could not be present in the House at the time. I accept entirely the points made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East about the fear of the loss of legal aid, and I will address individual children’s cases, in particular, in a moment. The fear of the loss of legal aid is not something that is new to the legal profession, or in relation to negligence or the practice of personal injury law. Those same issues arose throughout the 1990s and 2000 in relation to the Woolf reforms, and many of us who were practising barristers at the time were concerned that individual litigants would be unable to go to the personal injury courts or elsewhere and bring litigation. With no disrespect to the submissions made, the matter has not been resolved, and on this particular issue conditional fee agreements have without question filled the gap. They have been extremely successful—some, including certain Ministers, would say almost too successful—at filling the gap where legal aid previously existed.