Interim NHS People Plan

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

Perhaps that is the soundbite that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues—including the hon. Member for Dewsbury, who is shouting across the Chamber yet again—should remember.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s announcement that the Government are giving higher priority still to the recruitment and retention of staff in the NHS. It is an undeniable fact that there are acute shortages, particularly of nurses, in practically every part of the NHS, and we urgently need to improve our recruitment and retention. With that in mind, will he confirm that in finalising the people plan, serious consideration will be given to the immigration rules that will apply to recruitment after we leave the European Union? About one in 20 of the whole staff of the NHS at the moment are citizens of the European Union, and it would make no sense at all to put new restrictions of any kind on people coming from the European Union who want to make a valuable contribution to our health service. In Nottingham, we used to run recruitment campaigns for nurses in Romania. We are a long way away from being able to in any way put restrictions on staff coming from any part of the continent.

[Stephen Hammond]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Father of the House is completely correct. We want to make sure it is clear that the EU nationals who work in the national health service—there are more than 63,000 of them—are valued and make a huge contribution to our NHS. He will probably be aware that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Home Secretary are in continuing negotiations, to ensure that there is no change to that position. I guarantee that we want to see EU nationals continue to work in and contribute to our great health service.