Education (Student Support)

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

As a nurse, my hon. Friend speaks with great authority and she is right. This is about empowering those who want to be a nurse, not all of whom want to go to university. She is also right to remind the House that many people’s ambitions are choked off by the existing system. Under the bursary system, over 30,000 people who applied to be a nurse were rejected. Too many people were being rejected, and we need more nurses, so we have a package of measures to increase the number of nursing places. Nothing has been said about those who were thwarted in that ambition. Universities, too, have consistently argued that healthcare postgraduate courses were an area prime for growth if we offered suitable loan products.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Minister is right to highlight the university sector but has he, like me, recently visited his local further education college? If he has, I am sure that staff will have expressed the same view that I heard in Trowbridge recently: the new apprenticeship route into nursing is good for FE colleges that want to offer nurse training. Some colleges currently feel constrained because they are frozen out by universities but, in setting up such courses, colleges will be able to offer nursing to a much greater range of people than is currently the case.

[Stephen Barclay]

As a medic, my hon. Friend alights on an important point that I am happy to pick up. A number of the professions are degree entry, which precludes the further education college sector, so I will be happy to discuss that with him.

It is worth drawing to the House’s attention that it is not just universities that have been pushing for a change. Professor Dame Jessica Corner, the chair of the Council of Deans of Health, said:

“Our members report receiving a high number of good quality applications for most courses and they will continue to recruit through to the summer. Where courses have historically had a large number of applicants, fewer applicants might well not affect eventual student numbers”.

The key issue is not just how many people apply; it is ensuring that there are sufficient applicants for the places and then increasing the number of places on offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

To achieve social justice and deal with the skills deficit, we need a skills revolution. In many sectors, we have a real skills shortage, particularly at level 4 and above. Young people are pushed towards traditional degrees, but only 52% are getting jobs after graduation that require a degree, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. On the flipside, degree apprenticeships are just not growing fast enough, and we need to invest more in further education and skills provision.

I welcome what the Minister has said today, and I thank him for meeting me to discuss this issue. We must go further on nursing apprenticeships, which I believe are the answer to this whole problem. We can square the circle and support nurses by rapidly expanding the apprenticeship programme. Hon. Members will know that I am a passionate advocate of apprenticeships, and I therefore support the introduction of new routes into nursing, through degree apprenticeships and the creation of the nursing associate role.

Nursing degree apprentices will not have to pay anything themselves, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), a brilliant former nurse, explained. They will be able to become degree-registered nurses in four years. Similarly, the new nursing associate role will provide extra capacity in the workforce, and many of those who train as nursing associates may decide to continue to degree-level nursing.

The twin themes of the Education Committee in this Parliament are social justice and productivity. Nursing degree apprenticeships are key to both. They offer an attractive route both for mature students and for those with children, ensuring that all those who wish to train as nurses have the opportunity to do so. I am not suggesting that people should not have the choice of a three-year undergraduate course, but we must maximise the opportunities provided by degree apprenticeships. Doing so would mean that we have a sufficient nursing workforce and that aspiring nurses have options for training.

I have real worries about the fact only 30 people began training as a nurse through the nursing apprenticeship schemes this year, and we need to rapidly improve the number of people doing degree apprenticeships. There needs to be a taskforce involving the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Health Ministers, the Institute for Apprenticeships and others to drive this forward and to encourage people with a proper advertising campaign, using the £200 million levy. Thirty is just not enough; we need many thousands of people. If people in my constituency and across the country knew about the schemes, they would want to take them up.

[Dr Murrison]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the way we might expand the numbers taking the apprenticeship route is to unleash the power of the further education sector? The sector now has degree-awarding powers and would be very attractive to a large number of people not just in the big urban centres but in the smaller regions, too.

[Robert Halfon]

Like me, my hon. Friend is a big champion of further education and understands it completely. This could be an incredible moment for our further education colleges because, along with some very good private providers, they could be leading the way in providing degree apprenticeships.