Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I think I am unique in this House in that I have had a great deal of experience in the area of clinical negligence and have practised for the best part of 12 years almost exclusively on behalf of claimants. I have conducted well over 100 clinical negligence cases, against a multitude of general practitioners, hospital trusts and the like. They were primarily insurance-backed or conditional fee arrangement cases, although some of them were occasionally legal aid cases. I believe that, in the great tradition of the Government, I have still been unpaid for some of that work, notwithstanding the fact that I have not completed any work as a lawyer since I was elected in May 2010. So I should declare an interest in that I believe I have some legal aid fees outstanding, not that I am pressuring the Minister in any way to beat a path to my clerks and my chambers to pay the bill. I should also declare an interest as a former lecturer and a member of Action against Medical Accidents—AvMA. I have written extensively on this area and am a member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. I have given instructions to a multitude of different hospitals up and down the country, assisting them on how they can avoid clinical negligence claims. I was retained as counsel for several hospital and trust institutions, advising on how to avoid these claims and how to move forward. I should also declare an interest in that I am part of the team pushing for a culture of openness and have met the hon. Member who so very helpfully saved my life in May, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). So I have also conducted an in-depth study of the NHS over the past six months in a way that I did not expect when I was first elected. My final declaration is that I have great respect for the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who occupies part of a seat that I fought in 2005 of the Lleyn valley and peninsular in what was Caernarfon. I know that he is an outstanding MP and barrister and I have great respect for the points that he makes, as I do for the submissions and proposals of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner). Let me address the submissions and proposals of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd regarding the duty to come clean. It must surely be the case that NHS authorities should come clean at an early stage and I endorse some of the comments that were made about this being something to be addressed not so much in the Bill as in the NHS's culture and approach. I regret to say that I disagree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) about this, and I have a copy of an article that I wrote for an Association of Personal Injury Lawyers publication on this exact point. In my experience there is ample evidence of isolated examples of an NHS trust deliberately defending a claim on an ongoing basis in the hope that the relevant individual goes away. That is a serious allegation to make, but it is not just me who says it—cases have been reported. I recommend very highly the amazingly well-written edition of APIL PI Focus, volume 20, issue 3, which I co-authored, which addresses that particular point.