NHS Bursary

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am grateful to have the opportunity to take part in the debate and I strongly support the petitioners in calling on the Chancellor to keep the NHS bursary for those students who are studying to become the next generation of nurses, midwives and other health professionals.

Before I make further progress, I should declare an interest: my sister is a nurse at my local hospital in Paisley, the Royal Alexandra, to which my mother was admitted only a couple of hours ago. My local university, the University of the West of Scotland, helps to train and educate 4,000 nursing students, one of the largest cohorts in Scotland.

Following the Chancellor’s bursary announcement, I spoke to my sister, nursing friends and nursing students to learn about the impact of that reckless decision. They were disappointed, to say the least, to learn of the Chancellor’s actions and short-sightedness, but they were not surprised. Since coming to power the Chancellor and his Cabinet colleagues have launched a direct assault on the health service and on the education sector in England. A week does not seem to go by without health workers or students protesting about polices pursued by the Government.

Following my discussions, I decided to raise the issue of the bursary with the Chancellor when he stood in at Prime Minister’s questions while the Prime Minister was gallivanting around Europe in his rather pathetic renegotiation tour. I called on the Chancellor to explain to nursing students why he was removing vital support from them. Unfortunately, he was unable to provide any sort of answer, and from that performance it is clear that he will need to improve if he wants to become Prime Minister.

It is important to remember and understand why nursing students receive a different funding settlement from other students. Nursing students usually work longer hours on their course than other students and, alongside their studies on the course, nursing students work 37.5 hours each week in their placement areas. The long hours on placement ensure that nursing students follow the same duty patterns as full-time staff. From speaking to nursing students, I know how much they appreciate that education on the ward, and they benefit greatly from learning alongside qualified colleagues.

We should also remember that the majority of nursing students are women; a higher proportion are mature students; and some have children or other dependants to look after. Many students work part-time to help cover the cost of living, and most of their jobs are low paid. Based on that, we can all appreciate and understand why there is a different funding settlement for nursing and other health-related students.

If we want to improve our NHS, we cannot make reckless decisions like this one. The Chancellor’s decision to abolish bursaries should be seen as an attack on the NHS, on the health professionals of tomorrow and on aspiration—the very opposite of what the Government claim they want to achieve. Let us be clear: forcing such students to take out loans to cover the costs of their course will deter people from wanting to enter an NHS career.

A coalition that includes Unison, the National Union of Students, the Royal College of Midwives, the British Dental Association and others states that the proposed new system will lead to students accumulating debt worth at least £51,600. That is a disaster waiting to happen. Demand for NHS services is growing and we need more nurses and other health professionals; putting barriers in their way will lead to fewer choosing such professions. Instead of removing support for such students, we should look at whether the existing level of support is enough for them to excel in their studies and to develop their career within the NHS.

At the moment, nursing students in England receive up to £4,200 a year to support them through their studies. Given that those students are also working full-time in the ward, they will clearly be earning well below the minimum wage. We have to ask ourselves why the Government have not published the impact assessment that was carried out on the effects of their decision. Have they something to hide?

When summing up, will the Minister tell us why that impact assessment has not been published? Will he tell us what impact the changes will have on those students who come from the most deprived backgrounds? What impact will the policy have on the drop-out rate for students studying on nursing and health-related courses? Those are important questions that need to be answered. I fear that we are creating and debating policy without knowing the full impact of policy created in pursuit of the Government’s ideological obsession with austerity.

The Chancellor should seek guidance from the Scottish Government on support offered to nursing and health-related students. Whereas the UK Government want to abolish bursary support for nursing students, the Scottish Government provide £6,578 to students, which is £2,500 more than for students south of the border and all on a non-means-tested basis. Whereas the UK Government want to impose tuition fees of £9,000 on those students, the Scottish Government have abolished tuition fees and preserved the principle of education based on the ability to learn, not the ability to pay. Whereas the UK Government work against health service and education partners, the Scottish Government work with such bodies, in partnership, ever to improve the education and health services that exist in Scotland. I ask the Minister directly: will he assure me that the cut to bursaries will not result in cuts to the block grant allocation to Scotland? Finally, how will the cuts affect cross-border study?

We seem to have a tale of two Governments: a UK Government and Chancellor fixated on austerity and making life difficult for students and workers alike; and a Scottish Government working with people to protect us from Osborne austerity. However, we in the Scottish National party will not sit back and watch the UK Government attack the next generation of health professionals, including junior doctors. We support those students studying down south who dream about a career in the NHS. We will be a friend to them, a friend to aspiration and a friend to the NHS. We will challenge the cuts at every opportunity.

[Several hon. Members rose—]