Education (Student Support)

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Rachel Maclean

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I will keep my remarks brief. It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). I agree with him that we need a new long-term system that works and removes the cap from people who wish to study as nurses. The vice-chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, Alistair Fitt, has said that nursing bursaries “had to end” and were not a sustainable system. The cap on places was discouraging people who wished to enter the nursing profession, which is so important for all our constituencies.

In Worcestershire, we need more nurses, not fewer. I welcome the work that has been going on in a partnership between my NHS trust and the University of Worcester. I backed their calls for a medical school, and the work being done on the ground is already reducing nursing vacancy rates. They are down from 8.4% to 7.5%, and nursing turnover rates are down from 14% to 10% in the last year. That is a tribute to local professionals working hard to tackle the real problems in my area for the benefit of my constituents. I want to see more of that.

Under the new system under the regulations, postgraduate healthcare students will be 25% better off as they take part in their studies. These are new measures, and we need to back the Government. We should not vote for the Labour party’s motion to annul these Government regulations, which will help more people to enter the nursing profession at senior levels. We are talking about the senior leadership roles that we need in all our hospitals to deal with the needs of our population and their healthcare.

Finally—I said I would be brief, and I will be—we definitely need to stop the rhetoric about student debt, because it puts people off going to university. I refer Labour Members to the comments of Martin Lewis, a respected financial expert, who just last week said that it was completely wrong—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady is making a serious speech. There should not be so much chuntering going on.

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Martin Lewis’s comments were, it is true, aimed at politicians on both sides of the House, but we have all heard the Labour party’s recent claims about student debt. The idea that that is the same thing as a debt has, in reality, put people from different backgrounds off studying at university. Student debt is not the same thing as a credit card debt. It is a graduate tax that people pay only when their income reaches a certain level, and that is the same for nursing students. We have to go forward with a sustainable solution.

[Rachel Maclean]

I will not, because time is short.

Conservative Members will work to fight against the weaponisation for political ends of students and people who want to be students. We will open up more opportunities for everyone in this country to make a career in the NHS, if that is what they choose to do, and we will run the economy in a balanced way to support our precious NHS during this Parliament and in the years to come. I will not be voting for Labour’s motion tonight.

Question put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I remind the House that the motion is subject to double-majority voting of the House, and of Members representing constituencies in England.