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Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 13 October 2015.

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Photo of Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Hunt The Secretary of State for Health 11:30, 13 October 2015

I welcome the hon. Lady to her post. I hope that, just occasionally, we might agree on some things, although I suspect that today may not be one of those occasions.

Let me be absolutely clear about the commitment that we have made to junior doctors. We will not cut the junior doctor pay bill, but what we do need to change are the excessive overtime rates that are paid at weekends. They give hospitals a disincentive to roster as many doctors as they need at weekends, and that leads to those 11,000 excessive deaths. Let me gently say that that was a change to the doctors’ contracts made in 2003, so for members of the Labour party to say that this is nothing to do with them is not accurate, and they should help us to sort out the problem.