This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/18/jeremy-hunt-ramps-up-rhetoric-over-imposing-contract-on-doctors

The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Jeremy Hunt ramps up rhetoric over imposing contract on doctors Jeremy Hunt ramps up rhetoric over imposing contract on doctors
(about 2 hours later)
Jeremy Hunt has revived his threat to “impose” a new contract on junior doctors, despite government lawyers and his own ministry having said that he was merely “introducing” it. Labour has called on the attorney general to clear up the mounting confusion over whether health secretary Jeremy Hunt has the power to impose a new contract on junior doctors. Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary, has written to Jeremy Wright asking him to clarify whether Hunt has the legal right to force 45,000 NHS trainee medics in England to accept new terms and conditions, which have already prompted four strikes.
His stance deepened the confusion over the government’s tactics towards NHS trainee medics and the uncertainty surrounding his legal right to impose updated terms and conditions on them. Hunt deepened the uncertainty over his legal powers in the Commons on Monday when he again said that he was “imposing” the contract, even though both the government’s own lawyers and his department of health insist that he is merely playing a key role in its “introduction”.
Responding to an urgent question in the House of Commons granted to Labour, the health secretary said: “Yes, we are imposing a contract with the greatest of regrets.” “We are imposing a contract with the greatest of regrets,” Hunt told MPs when answering an urgent question from Labour. He is facing a high court challenge from five junior doctors who claim he does not have the power to impose the contract.
His use of the word, for the first time in more than two months, appeared at odds with both the government legal department and the Department of Health, which confirmed last Friday and Sunday respectively that Hunt was merely “introducing” the contract in England from August. In her letter to Wright, Alexander writes that government lawyers’ “failure to point to any specific power relied upon by the secretary of state appeared to suggest that a new contract was not being imposed, but merely approved”.
Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary, accused him of provoking junior doctors to undertake their first all-out strikes next week by threatening to use imposition, not agreement. “This has caused considerable confusion, which today’s urgent question in the House of Commons only added to, as the secretary of state appeared to contradict the argument of the government’s legal department by confirming that he was imposing a contract.”
“Despite giving us all the impression back in February that he was going to railroad through a new contract, it now seems the health secretary is simply just making a suggestion – or, as his lawyers would say, ‘approving the terms of a model contract’,” she said. Hunt was asked by four MPs yesterday to identify the basis of his power to impose the contract, but did not do so, simply insisting that “the secretary of state does have that power and we are using it correctly”.
“How can the health secretary possibly justify a situation whereby his rhetoric, underpinned by nothing but misplaced bravado and bullishness, could lead to the first ever all-out strike of junior doctors in the history of the NHS?” Alexander has asked Wright, the government’s chief legal adviser, to “set out explicitly where in the defined roles and responsibilities of the secretary of state it gives him the power to impose a contract on NHS employers” and also why government lawyers did not identify the source of that power when it wrote last Friday to solicitors for the five junior doctors.
Hunt denied that the government had changed its policy from imposition to introduction. “This house has been updated regularly on all developments relating to the junior doctors’ contract, although there has been no change whatsoever in the government’s position since my statement to the house in February.” Hunt denied that the government had changed its policy from imposition to introduction: “This house has been updated regularly on all developments relating to the junior doctors’ contract, although there has been no change whatsoever in the government’s position since my statement to the house in February.”
But government lawyers have told solicitors acting for five junior doctors seeking a judicial review of his decision to impose that he was merely introducing the document, which has already prompted four walkouts by thousands of junior doctors since January. They believe Hunt has acted outside his powers Lawyers for the medical quintet challenging him in the high court claim that the provisions of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, in which the then health secretary Andrew Lansley set out to limit the health secretary’s power over the NHS, mean that Hunt was exceeding his powers by deciding on 11 February to impose the contract after two months of talks with the British Medical Association failed.
Despite being pressed by several MPs to outline the exact legal basis of his power to impose the contract, Hunt was unable or unwilling to identify what legislation enables him to do so.
Lawyers for the medical quintet challenging him in the high court claim that the Health and Social Care Act 2012, when then health secretary Andrew Lansley intended to limit the health secretary’s power over the NHS, meant that Hunt was exceeding his powers by deciding on 11 February to impose the contract after two months of peace talks with the British Medical Association failed.