NHS Redress Bill [Lords]

I entirely accept the hon. Gentleman’s good faith and his support for at least the principle of the Bill. It will not be possible to publish draft orders before the completion of its passage, for the simple reason that there needs to be an extended period of formal and informal consultation with patients and other stakeholders about the detail of the redress scheme. The hon. Gentleman may well say that that reinforces the case for the affirmative action procedure to be used, and that is a matter to which I am certainly prepared to give further consideration, although I think that the point that he makes will be best met by the thorough process of consultation on the detail of the orders before we bring them back to the House. We will certainly publish them in draft before we bring them to the House under, as we propose at present, the negative order-making procedure. The Bill was introduced in the other place and comes to us in an amended form. I will return to that point in a moment, because the significant amendment was the introduction of clause 12, with which we are not happy. I should like first to say a little more about the kind of case that will be covered by the new redress scheme and how the scheme will work. The Bill sets out the framework that will enable us to establish an NHS redress scheme to deal with clinical negligence claims arising out of NHS hospital treatment, brought by patients, their dependents or, in the worst cases, their estates. It is intended to cover cases where compensation awarded by a court would be no more than £20,000. We have selected that figure because in the majority of such cases the legal costs of bringing the action are wholly disproportionate to the compensation awarded. The new scheme will not extend patients’ rights to compensation—it will not create new rights—but by creating a simpler, faster route to redress, it will significantly improve access to justice for those with rights that already exist under current law.