Speeches by McIntyre.

“But that’s on the front page. When you go on to groceries and on to offers, you have Valentine’s day, Weetabix, and then four for three on chicken dippers and potato waffles. There is a bit for salmon, but for quite a lot of my constituents, a four-pack of boneless salmon fillets is beyond them at the moment, given the…”

“I have just been doing a bit of online shopping—Aldi does not do online, but we will come to you in a moment. Tesco’s 4 for 3 on your favourite frozen products is on your offers of the week. They are Birds Eye chicken dippers, Aunt Bessie’s golden Yorkshires and Birds Eye potato waffles. Sainsbury’s top offers of the w…”

“Just to move on, Liz, I appreciate that Aldi does not do online shopping, so it is a bit of an unfair example—although two of the top three are beer and wine, which I think is a little bit problematic, but for a whole different reason. Looking at price reduction promotions, I have called out the fact that chicken dippe…”

“You are not defecting?”

“I welcome this legislation. Does the Secretary of State agree with me that the fact that the Government have listened to the concerns of resident doctors about training places, and have acted at pace to bring forward the legislation, shows that we as a Government are committed to fixing the problems left behind by the …”

“I note that Reform Members have already made it to the pub ahead of the statement, perhaps to celebrate the latest defection from the Conservative party, but I thank the Minister for today’s statement. Since I got elected last year, I have been running a campaign to open up our empty shops in Gloucester and show that w…”

“There are 13,000 concerns, but we have agreed that there is a high bar for referral to the GMC in the first place.”

“At the moment, from the details in front of me, we have several cases now that are more than a year old. The time taken to deal with some of these cases is increasing—that is correct, isn’t it?”

“In the last five quarters, the number of cases that had been open for more than a year has gone up quarter by quarter; is that correct?”

“Okay. The point I am trying to draw out is that we have a system where we have 13,000 concerns—I appreciate that some of those will be more substantiated than others—and 1,000 doctors investigated a year, some of whom have cases open for 156 weeks or above, which is longer than three years, but the percentage of cases …”

“How many investigations did you start in the last year?”

“Roughly, what percentage of that 1,000 had interim orders placed on their licence to practise?”

“We can come to that in a moment, but I am particularly interested in the interim orders for now. Do you have a rough percentage on that? I appreciate that you might not have the specific figures, but anecdotally, what percentage of the 1,000 who are investigated have interim orders placed on them?”

“How many of those cases resulted in a restriction on practice or a suspension of duties pending investigation?”

“I declare an interest. In my previous role, before I came into this House, I was a lawyer acting for healthcare providers up and down the country, often in relation to misconduct by senior clinicians and sometimes involving cases that went to the GMC. I will not be referring to any of those cases, but to be clear, I do…”

“How many referrals does the GMC receive on fitness-to-practise grounds each year?”

“Yes.”

“I still think there are a lot of concerns. If the general public were aware of some of the delays, I think that they would be concerned that such things are not being dealt with quickly. But let us move on to the other side of the coin. I am conscious of the wellbeing of doctors who are waiting—on these numbers, 180 pe…”

“I am conscious that we are about to have a vote, so I will leave my questioning there. I very much look forward to seeing the data that you can share with the Committee. I am sure we will be able to follow up afterwards.”

“If you could please write to the Committee with the details.”