Thirlwall Inquiry Terms of Reference

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:17 pm on 16 July 2026.

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Photo of Preet Kaur Gill Preet Kaur Gill The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care 5:17, 16 July 2026

The hon. Member makes some important, valid points. Of course, the Countess of Chester hospital will want to know the outcome of the inquiry. As she rightly says, the CQC has been in and has made lots of recommendations, especially because of the inadequate rating.

I have asked for a submission from the CQC to understand what progress has been made. I have been informed that there has been some progress, but equally there are lots of areas in which there has not been progress. I am making sure that I am receiving regular updates, because, as the hon. Lady rightly says, every parent wants to see change. In the end, this is about so many lives. Parents have had to go through such heartbreaking situations just to get to justice, and they do deserve disclosure. I therefore really do thank her for her Intervention.

Where the inquiry identifies lessons on safeguarding vulnerable patients or on how management responds to patient safety concerns, the Government will examine them rigorously and take forward all recommendations that are deliverable, justified and in the public interest.

There is a huge amount of interest, inside and outside the Chamber, about the professional regulation of managers in the NHS. We all know that the NHS needs and deserves the best leaders. We are committed to supporting their development and professionalism, and to strengthening accountability where they fall short. Work is already under way to develop an NHS college of leadership and management to support and develop NHS leaders.

In addition, we will legislate in this Parliament to enable the Health and Care Professions Council to begin to operate a statutory barring system for senior managers. The mechanism will enable the Health and Care Professions Council to prevent senior NHS leaders whose conduct is unacceptable from working again in senior roles. The Government have also launched the maternity and neonatal taskforce, personally chaired by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which will translate Baroness Amos’s recommendations into action.

The right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington has campaigned against Government overreach his entire career; I respect him for that. I know that he will agree with me that our democracy rests on a separation of powers, and I trust our independent judiciary to get on with the job. There are well-established criminal processes and procedures for how expert evidence is used at criminal trials. In our democracy, there are also routes for people to challenge convictions if they protest their innocence—even for Lucy Letby.

It is not for me or the Government to undermine those processes. Our attention should remain on the families and parents impacted by the case and on continuing to work towards providing answers and closure for them. That is what the Government are focused on, and we trust the Thirlwall inquiry to give us those answers.

Question put and agreed to.

House adjourned.

Secretary of State

Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

intervention

An intervention is when the MP making a speech is interrupted by another MP and asked to 'give way' to allow the other MP to intervene on the speech to ask a question or comment on what has just been said.