Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

The right hon. Gentleman's remarks are addressing supply, not demand. He is not addressing why there are so many clinical negligence cases, nor why the insurance that is charged is going up exponentially. There are existing rules for special severance payments for whistleblowers but, as was found in the National Audit Office's report in 2005 and the Public Accounts Committee's recommendations in 2006, there is still a problem in the way that whistleblowers are tackled in the NHS and in the way that such cases are dragged out. That is a failure of the previous Government. It is to that failure that he should address his remarks; not to the fact that we continue to fix a problem that is growing exponentially year on year.