Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Blackwood]

On 19 September we published our comprehensive response to the report, which describes a range of actions that we will take on each of Lord O’Neill’s recommendations. The most practical progress that I can report is the fact that the prescribing of antibiotics has fallen for the first time since records began. I think that we can all be proud of that progress.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

4. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK’s decision to leave the EU on the NHS workforce.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

There are currently 127,000 staff from the EU doing a vital job for patients in the NHS and social care system. In this year of Brexit, we salute their excellent work and remain confident that we will be able to negotiate for them to continue it in the future.

[Gavin Newlands]

There are more than 50,000 EU nationals working as nurses and doctors throughout the United Kingdom, along with 80,000 in the social care sector. The NHS already faces extensive rota gaps owing to a shortage of senior and junior doctors. Will the Secretary of State join our First Minister in demanding an unequivocal guarantee that EU nationals who are already living here will have the right to remain?

[Mr Hunt]

That is exactly what we intend to achieve through negotiations, but we must remember the British citizens, including people from Scotland, who are living in the EU and whose rights we also wish to protect. That is why the Prime Minister has made a big point of saying that she wishes to negotiate the issue at an early stage in order to give certainty to those people.