Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Willis of Knaresborough and Lord Prior of Brampton

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I agree that the issue of research council autonomy is of the utmost importance and will take this opportunity to restate the Government’s commitment to the Haldane principle so well described by my noble friend Lord Willetts. I think we will be coming back to the Haldane principle later this evening. We sought to embed it throughout Part 3 of the Bill.

These reforms have been developed following Sir Paul Nurse’s independent review of the research councils, which involved significant consultation with the sector. It would not be for the benefit of research and innovation, or the UK, were we to delay bringing these reforms forward while conducting another review. In implementing Sir Paul Nurse’s recommendations it will be necessary to make changes to current structures—for example to better enable inter-disciplinary research. I am confident that we can undertake these reforms to build on the existing success of our funding bodies.

I reassure noble Lords that the research councils will continue to be vital components of the research and innovation landscape, and through Clause 103 we are protecting their symbolic property and goodwill, including their name, insignia and branding. Furthermore, they will retain their discipline responsibility, operating within a structure that enables greater interdisciplinarity.

Key among Sir Paul Nurse’s recommendations is the need for a single accounting officer. To implement his vision, the governance structure of research councils needs to change and the role of the chief executive will evolve accordingly. Council executive chairs will be powerful positions focused on key strategic planning, performance management and decision-making within their disciplines. The role will have sufficient powers and should be able to attract extremely high-quality candidates. To ensure that this is the case, the role will combine those of the current council chair and chief executive.

I do not believe that a distinct, non-executive chair position is necessary within this new arrangement. Councils will have collective responsibility for strategic, scientific or innovation decisions in their disciplines and they will, for example, continue to take decisions on the prioritisation of their hypothecated budgets within their delegated limits. The UKRI chief executive and board, which of course has a non-executive chairman, as well as the executive committee, will be able to provide challenge and support to inform these decisions. Each executive chair will also be supported by their council. Introducing a non-executive chair and chief executive for each council into this line of accountability would risk confusing accountabilities within UKRI and undermine its key strategic role.

The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, referred to Confucius and the three ways of improvement: reflection, imitation and experience. All my experience—it is possibly bitter experience—is that confused lines of accountability lead to problems. To have chief executives of councils who are accountable to a non-executive chairman, with perhaps a dotted line there and a straight line to the chief executive at UKRI, would build accountability problems into the structure. I was interested by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Broers, of an equivalent to a senior independent director or SID, in a sense imitating corporate governance on the board of a council. That is worthy of further consideration. Perhaps the chair of UKRI might like to discuss that with council members once they have been appointed.

On the proposal for an executive committee, I fully agree that such a committee would provide a valuable forum within UKRI. Yet an executive committee would simply be a matter of good organisational design and governance, and it does not need to be in the Bill. However, noble Lords made an interesting case warranting—I regret to say—further reflection.

Following on from this, I will also address the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, that the executive chairs of councils should be consulted on the development of UKRI’s strategy. I agree wholeheartedly; it is a necessity to ensure the overall coherence of the UKRI strategy and each council’s strategic delivery plan. I fully expect the executive committee, on which all the executive chairs will sit, to play an integral role in this process.

On Amendment 480, we set an upper limit on the number of members on each council to facilitate their effective and efficient operation. I believe that this is appropriate, particularly given that the UKRI board will take on certain functions such as oversight of corporate functions. None the less, the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and others made a compelling case to increase this limit. My noble friend Lady Neville-Jones suggested that there should be no limit at all. Again, that is something that we would like to reflect on.

On Amendment 481, regarding lay representation on councils, I appreciate the intent with which the noble Lord tabled this amendment and reassure him that this legislation does not preclude the councils from appointing lay members, as many currently do. I hope that I have provided some reassurance—

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

If you imagine having a chief executive who is also an academic, the rest of the council could then be appointed as academics. Where does the challenge come there to address the issues mentioned earlier about, for instance, the north, Scotland and other organisations?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I think the challenge comes from two places. First, the executive chairman would be on the executive committee of UKRI so it will be challenged there. Secondly, there will also be challenge—or support, where required—from the UKRI board. I hope that I have provided reassurance on the proposed governance structures and powers regarding the councils, and ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

Nurses: Training

Debate between Lord Willis of Knaresborough and Lord Prior of Brampton

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, as my noble friend probably knows, we are introducing nursing associates into the NHS. There are a thousand in place today, and a further thousand will come in next year. That is the bridge between healthcare support workers and degree-trained nurses. We recognise that there should be another route into nursing—not just the university route, but a more traditional apprenticeship route.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the best estimate of Health Education England is that, making reasonable assumptions about the attrition rate of students and the retention of existing nurses, by 2020 we will have 40,000 more registered nurses working in the NHS than we do today.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

Will the Minister accept—at last—that simply providing more training places and increasing the number going through both the associate route and the graduate apprentice route is only part of the solution? At the moment we are losing a huge number of nurses, with roughly 10% of our graduate registered nurses going through attrition each year, as the Minister accepted. Two years ago, the Secretary of State gave a mandate to reduce attrition by 50%. Can the Minister tell the House how successful that has been, and can he put in the Library the figures showing how many fewer people are leaving the profession simply because we are not looking after, nurturing or caring for our existing workforce?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I think that there is some confusion here. The attrition rate that I was referring to was the one in nursing schools, which on average has been running at about 9.5%. Attrition among the regular workforce, which I think the noble Lord is referring to, is clearly a huge issue for us. Interestingly, we have set up a return-to-practice initiative, which has brought a thousand nurses back into the profession at a cost of £2,000 per person. That is extremely good value if we can persuade people to come back into the service. The noble Lord is absolutely right: people retiring early or leaving early is potentially very damaging for the service. However, I reiterate that the figure of an extra 40,000 nurses in the NHS by 2020 is arrived at after making reasonable assumptions about the level of attrition among the existing workforce.

Junior Doctors: Industrial Action

Debate between Lord Willis of Knaresborough and Lord Prior of Brampton

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the origins of this dispute and lack of trust go back many years, to the end of the old firm structure. Many junior doctors feel a lack of support. It is easy to lob bricks at the Government, but the senior doctors and the royal colleges need to look at themselves pretty carefully and pretty hard in the mirror because they have some responsibility for this as well. I hope they will be very much part of working through some of these non-contractual issues, along the lines my noble friend suggested.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that this does not impact simply on junior doctors but that these strikes and the current chaos affect all the manpower within the NHS, particularly the registered nurses, who have to pick up a great deal of the slack in the absence of junior doctors, particularly when they are on strike? Rather than look at these issues at silos, I implore the Minister to look at the whole workforce and try to ensure that the modern workforce serving a modern NHS is one where integrated services mean integration of staff as well.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. The changes that are coming upon the NHS, whether from technology or forced upon us, in a sense, by demographic change in the UK— meaning that much care that has traditionally been delivered in hospitals will need to be delivered outside hospitals in people’s homes and much care will be delivered by technology rather than directly by people—are all going to have a huge impact on a whole range of different staff levels, not just junior doctors.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

Debate between Lord Willis of Knaresborough and Lord Prior of Brampton

Monday 13th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord is right that the responsibility for safe staffing is now with NHS England. It will take into account any advice given by NICE, whose guidelines for acute in-patient wards and maternity services still stand. The main reason why the responsibility has been transferred to NHS England has nothing to do with funding. It has to do with the fact that the new models of care, such as the new emergency care vanguards, are much broader than just A&E; therefore, we need to take into account other factors.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, this Answer does not empower any validation at all, unless we have criteria by which all trusts could be judged. We have the safer nursing care tool, which was produced in Sheffield and London and validated by Leeds University; it has been adopted by NICE and rolled out by the Shelford Group and other major trusts. This is a tool that would give all acute trusts the ability to judge safe staffing ratios based on acuity and patient need. Can the Minister give this House an assurance that that will be mandated to all acute trusts and then rolled out elsewhere?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I think it might be worth while for the House if I read out four lines from the NICE guidance on safe staffing:

“There is no single nursing staff-to-patient ratio that can be applied across the whole range of wards to safely meet patients’ nursing needs. Each ward has to determine its nursing staff requirements to ensure safe patient care. This guideline therefore makes recommendations about the factors that should be systematically assessed at ward level to determine the nursing staff establishment”.

I read out that paragraph because it is important to realise that every ward is different. Where there are tools to help assess the acuity of patients in wards, those tools will be used. I do not think we are planning to mandate any particular tool at this time.