Junior Doctors: Industrial Action Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Valerie Vaz
Main Page: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)Department Debates - View all Valerie Vaz's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Junior Doctors: Industrial Action
Valerie Vaz Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Ben Gummer
Reading Bevan’s remarks from 1948, as from 1946, are a revelation. There is so much truth in them. The fact is that there are parts of the BMA that want to come to a good and constructive deal with the Government. The general practitioners have just done so. It is just very sad that this once-respected trade union is being dragged to this position by the junior doctors committee. It is doing great damage to the reputation of the BMA, and, in allying themselves to that part of the BMA, great damage to the reputation of the Labour party.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
If the Minister really wants to avert the strike, I suggest he writes to the BMA today with a list of the sticking points and dates on which to meet.
Ben Gummer
Sir David Dalton wrote to the BMA with precisely that list. The BMA refused to reply to him. He made the judgment that there was no point in continuing negotiations because it was refusing to discuss, in any event, the remaining matters. The Government have to move ahead. We have been on this for three and a half years and it is better that we move ahead.