The National Health Service

Conor McGinn Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am going to make a bit of progress. The Whips are looking slightly askance at me because of the number of Members who want to speak.

There is one Bill that will have a fundamental impact on staffing, and that is the proposed immigration Bill, which will end freedom of movement and introduce a points-based system. Does the Secretary of State recognise that freedom of movement has allowed thousands of staff from Europe—doctors, nurses, paramedics, care workers, hospital porters and cleaners—to come to the UK to care for our sick and elderly? Does he recognise that our NHS and care sector needs that ongoing flow of workers from the EU? How does he reconcile the need for the NHS to continue to recruit with the rhetoric and the proposed restrictive policies of the Home Secretary?

The Secretary of State will know that Conservative campaigners have lobbied for a salary threshold of £36,700. If that were applied, 60,000 current staff in the NHS who are not covered by the shortage occupation list would be affected. Is the Secretary of State really going to allow the Home Secretary to introduce a salary threshold of that order, which will have a huge impact on the ability of the national health service to fill vacancies and recruit, and therefore have an impact on patient care?

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend join me and, I am sure, all other Labour Members, in conveying our solidarity to NHS workers—Unison members—in St Helens and other parts of the country who are on strike this week? Despite doing the same job in the same place and wearing the same uniform, they are paid less than their colleagues because they work for an agency. Will my hon. Friend urge Compass to do the right thing and pay those workers properly, and will he commit a Labour Government to ensuring that there is equal pay for equal work in our NHS?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is what happens when privatisation and outsourcing go wrong: workers are worse off. We should bring an end to it.