NHS Pay

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

In the time-honoured words, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and to see you in rude good health. To follow that, if I can—almost everything has been said—I heartily congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this debate.

Let us take this down to brass tacks. First, one of my best friends very, very nearly died of covid, and it was NHS staff who hauled him back from the edge. He is a pal of mine and, in a personal way, I am deeply grateful. All of us will have had similar experiences.

Secondly, it is a sad, true fact that another pandemic will come one day, because that is the nature of human life and the world—these viruses mutate and will come at us again. Therefore, we want to be even better prepared next time, so we have to have our NHS staff at tip-top levels of performance—they have to be absolutely ready. There is no doubt that if people do not get the pay they think they deserve, or the public, in this case, think they deserve, that demoralises NHS staff. When they are demoralised, some people will leave the profession; they will retire early and pack it in, and that is not what we want. As others have said, the general public expect better than 1%. In the Scottish Parliament, Liberal Democrat colleagues will work in a positive way with the Scottish Government to secure a better deal—pay is of course devolved north of the border.

I have one lesson, which relates to when I came to this place nearly four years ago. I said to myself then, “What was austerity all about?” I say that because, now that we have gone into the pandemic, money seems to just appear. So my final point is that the Government can give a better pay rise than 1%—it can be done. Strategically, for the health of the nation, and for the defence of the nation against a killer virus and another pandemic, that should be put in place as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hosie. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this important and heavily subscribed debate today. She gave an excellent, impassioned introduction. She summed the issue up very well when she said that NHS staff are being asked to do more for less. That really does sum up the Government’s approach to a lot of things: more for less.

I thank all other hon. Members for their contributions today. There are too many to mention individually, but I will pick out one or two during my speech. I particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for co-sponsoring the debate.

Every Member spoke with great passion, sincerity and knowledge about why the Government’s approach to the NHS pay deal is flawed. It is disrespectful and ultimately self-defeating. Members who spoke showed clear support for and appreciation of the NHS workforce. Every single Member had that in common. They also have in common that they are all from Opposition parties. Not one Back-Bench Tory MP has come today to defend their party’s policy—not one. Worse still, not one has come to defend the NHS workforce. That says it all, doesn’t it?

I am sure we all agree, certainly among Opposition Members, that our amazing NHS staff have been the ones who have kept this country going during the pandemic, who have kept us safe and who have looked after our loved ones. They have been on the frontline looking after not just the 450,000-plus people who have been hospitalised with coronavirus, but everyone else who has needed medical attention, while at the same time putting their own lives on the line. Our NHS staff are feeling the strain. Do not forget that we entered the pandemic with a record 100,000 vacancies in the NHS, and with a health workforce smaller than many other countries, meaning that our NHS staff have worked longer and harder than others during the covid crisis.

For many people, the added pressure has had a profound impact on their psychological wellbeing. Almost half of NHS staff in England have reported feeling unwell from work-related stress—the highest rate recorded in the past five years—and NHS staff took 3.5 million sick days off between March and October last year due to mental health issues. The latest figures from the NHS staff survey, published this month, show that 300,000 staff have worked unpaid hours, and that almost 13,000 more staff reported working unpaid overtime compared with 2019, suggesting that over 1 million hours of unpaid overtime have been worked during this pandemic. It is little wonder that NHS staff are exhausted and that they are leaving.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree made a strong case that pay increases can have a positive effect on retention levels, which is something that urgently needs addressing. The Minister will know all about the shocking number of healthcare staff who have left their NHS roles for better pay conditions and work-life balance in recent years, because she has seen the data—it is the Government’s own data that say this. She will be well aware that over the last year, 31,000 nurses and health visitors left the NHS—an increase of 50% since 2010-11.

[Jamie Stone]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Justin Madders]

I am sorry, but I will not have time to take any interventions.

The Minister will know that since 2010-11, there has been a 181% increase in nurses and health visitors resigning due to their work-life balance, and an 82% increase in the number leaving for health reasons. She will be aware that there has been a 57% increase in resignations since that time because people found a better reward package elsewhere.

Years of pay freezes, record vacancies and relentless pressure have had a devastating effect on our NHS workforce. Not surprisingly, as a last resort, hard-pressed staff are voting with their feet. That should ring alarm bells loud and clear that Ministers are not getting things right, that they need to change course and that they need to start listening to the NHS workforce. It is simply unacceptable that instead of giving our NHS staff the pay rise that they were promised, the Government are recommending that they should receive just 1% this year, an amount that the Government are fully aware is actually a real-terms pay cut. NHS staff are not being properly rewarded, as the Secretary of State said they would be. That is not what is set out in the legislation passed by this House, which the Government voted for in the NHS long-term plan.

As the Minister knows, the plan set out a 2.1% pay increase for all NHS staff. The head of NHS England, Sir Simon Stevens, has confirmed that the NHS did indeed budget for that 2.1% pay rise, so the Government have broken their promise. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that inflation will rise by 1.5% this year, so instead of a pay rise that was budgeted for and indeed voted for, NHS staff will see a real-term pay cut of hundreds of pounds. Experienced nurses will see a paltry £3.50 per week extra in their pay packet, which is just 50p a day. My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) told of a healthcare worker who will get 9p an hour extra.

Counting for inflation since the Conservative party took power in 2010, some NHS workers have seen their pay slashed by thousands of pounds a year. The starting salary for nurses, physiotherapists, radiographers and numerous other NHS roles has seen a real-terms pay cut of £841 per year, and average salaries have reduced in real terms by around £2,379. That is not being properly rewarded; it is not being rewarded at all. It is not good enough for those who have performed heroically over the last year to be rewarded in this way. For many, a real-terms pay cut will be the last straw. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) made the point that we are in an international market for healthcare staff and cannot afford to be complacent in such matters.

It could not be clearer that we need investment in our workforce. Waiting lists have spiralled out of control, and we will need the staff more than ever. The Government urgently need to reconsider their approach; otherwise, the exodus that we are seeing at the moment will become a flood. Hon. Members, the public, UNISON, other unions, the NHS Confederation and other bodies are all urging the Government to reconsider their 1% pay rise proposal, so what is stopping them? It cannot be a lack of money, because, as we have heard, £37 billion can be found for Test and Trace, millions can be spent on unusable PPE, and we have had £2.6 million for the Prime Minister’s new media centre. It is a political choice, and it is a choice that cannot be defended. Indeed, as we see today, it seems that no Conservative Back Benchers want to defend it.

I am sure that the Minister is well aware of the anger the proposals have generated, but let me read out a few quotes from bodies representing the workforce so that she can see the strength of feeling. The British Medical Association said it is a

“total dereliction of the Government’s moral duty”

and a kick in the teeth. The Royal College of Nursing said:

“This is pitiful and bitterly disappointing”

and “dangerously out of touch”. Unison said it is the “worst kind of insult” and “some kind of joke.” The TUC said it is

“a hammer blow to staff morale”

and Unite described it as “unyielding contempt”. So I do not think there is any mistaking how NHS workers feel.

That mood is matched by the public, who overwhelmingly oppose the Government’s position. A poll showed that 83% of the public and 78% of Conservative voters think the Government should increase their pay offer. For a Government who routinely pit people against one another when it comes to pay, that must surely tell them they are on the wrong side of the argument. If it does not, they must surely know they should think again when the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), calls their offer a “miscalculation”. As understatements go, that is right up there. We do not know whether that view is widespread on the Tory Benches, because no Conservative Member is here to tell us what their view is. I am not surprised that the Prime Minister wants to avoid putting the proposals to a vote, because how could any Conservative Member look their constituents who work for the NHS in the eye if they vote for that? I do not know.

It should not have come to this. The Government really need to think again. The whole country is watching and waiting for them to do the right thing. It is not enough to say, “Wait for the pay review body” without giving a guarantee that, should the pay review body recommend a real-terms pay rise, that will be honoured by the Government. If the Minister confirms at least that today, that would be a start.

After the last year, we should not have to fight a battle to ask the Government to consider more than a 1% pay rise. It says everything about how little value those efforts over the last year have been appreciated. Our NHS staff deserve more than that. They deserve an agreed fair and sustainable pay settlement. Ministers should admit their mistakes and undertake to agree a multi-year pay deal with NHS staff. In starting talks, they should take the pay cut off the table and not set a ceiling. Time and again, the Prime Minister said that the NHS would not pay the price for the pandemic. The Chancellor promised that the NHS would get whatever it needed. It is time to put those words into action. It is time to ditch the empty promises and gestures. It is time to do the right thing.

We stayed at home to protect the NHS. We clapped for our carers during the pandemic, and we on the Opposition side meant it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree said, claps and smiles do not pay the bills. That is why the Opposition will not rest until our brave NHS staff get fair pay and the long-term settlement that they truly and honestly deserve.