On the question of a public inquiry, when Francis reported on his first inquiry, commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh, he made the point that it was about people affected being able to come and tell their story, and Francis said in his first report:
“I am confident that many of the witnesses who have assisted the inquiry in written or oral evidence would not have done so had the inquiry been conducted in public.”
It is very important that that first inquiry allowed people to come forward. The right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley) may also well have been right to make the second stage of that a public inquiry, which was authorised because of one of the Francis recommendations, because we now have all the information, provided before a Queen’s counsel, about what happened there.
Francis is very clear about no blame being apportioned to any Minister. It is of course right for Ministers to be accountable if anyone knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it, or if something that was going on was a result of a Government edict or policy, but that was not the case at Stafford.
Targets had to be introduced to get a grip on this terrible situation of lack of access to health care. Targets did not cost lives; they helped to save lives. They were accompanied by the resources, the capacity and the political will that transformed waiting lists of 18 months to two years to a maximum of 18 weeks and an average of nine.
This is what Francis said about targets:
“It is important to make clear that it is not suggested that properly designed targets, appropriately monitored cannot provide considerable benefits and serve a useful purpose…indeed the inquiry accepts that they can be an important part of the health system in which the democratically elected Government of the day sets its expectations of providers who are funded by the taxpayer.”
The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) was absolutely right to say that long waiting lists have dogged the NHS since it was created in 1948. Rudolf Klein, the great historian of the NHS, says every Health Secretary shouted their orders from the bridge and the crew carried on regardless. Something had to be done to deal with that, and it was done.