Education (Student Support)

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

May I just say to the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) that this is not about scoring political points? It is about debating in this House of Commons something that is of immense importance to our country. I agree with her that no one has a monopoly on these things, but it is only right and proper that we have an open and frank debate about the matter. That means that there will be a clash of views and a clash of opinions, but out of that will come better policy, and I hope that the Government, as they move forward, will listen to some of the concerns that have been raised, even if they do not change their policy. There is nothing wrong with that. That is not political point scoring; that is holding the Government to account for the policies they are pursuing.

Let me also say this: the only reason why the Government are being held to account is that my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench have obtained this debate. They deserve a great deal of credit for that, because the Government were not going to debate these regulations. Indeed, the House of Lords Committee, that scrutinises these secondary legislation reports said that it was unprecedented for the Government to be forced to hold a debate in this place when revoking one set of regulations and replacing them with another. So, it is quite right that we are actually saying this to the Government. We would not be able to get the Government to put forward their views as to why removing bursaries is a good thing, and we would not be able to explain why we are holding them to account, were it not for the fact that we raised this matter in the way that we have.

The hon. Member for Lewes criticised the Royal College of Nursing’s figures, but the RCN—a highly respected body in this country—has laid out the statistics, including for many of the routes that she says it has not, regarding the fall in the number of applications since NHS bursaries were got rid of two years ago. There has been a 33% fall in the number of applications for nursing degrees. It may be that that does not matter, but the Government still need to address and defend it and explain why the RCN is wrong to highlight that as a figure that should cause us concern.

[Maria Caulfield]

That is the point: despite the fall in the number of applications, the number of placements has actually increased to its second-highest level ever. If the bursary system was so great, why were the nursing student numbers not coming through it, and how come we had such a high drop-out rate of student nurses?

[Vernon Coaker]

Let us see where this goes. The hon. Lady’s point is that it does not matter that there has been a 33% fall in applications, because other things will happen, but that is not the view of the Royal College of Nursing. Applications from mature students have been disproportionately affected by the funding reform; the number of applicants aged over 25 has fallen by 42%. I do not know whether the Minister intends to respond—it would be a shame if he did not—but perhaps he can explain why that figure does not matter. That point needs to be addressed in debate. The hon. Lady disagrees, but I say that it does matter, and that it will cause problems for future nursing recruitment.

[Dr Whitford]

The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) asks why not enough nurses were coming through. Is that not simply because there was a cap on places? The Government keep linking the bursary with the cap. The issue was not the bursary; it was the cap. If the Government want to invest in nurses, they should lift the cap but not remove the bursary, because that will shrink the number of applications.

[Vernon Coaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I say to the Minister that there is hard evidence from the Government’s own equality analysis that the reforms will

“increase the amount of student loan borrowing for postgraduate students and could lead to a fall in student numbers. The government has acknowledged that, due to the student intake, the impact will fall largely on women, older students and, to a lesser extent, students from ethnic minorities.”

Where is the Government’s defence of that, and what are they doing to mitigate it? I have no doubt that the Government would say, “We have done x, y and z.” Indeed, that is what the hon. Member for Lewes has said, but where is the Minister’s explanation?

It is not just the Government equality analysis that says we should be concerned about the changes. A House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, published just a few days ago, also raised concerns. First it criticised the process and then it said:

“Our second, no less strongly felt concern is with the wider impact on recruitment to post-graduate nursing courses which may result from the switch from bursary to loan support”.

That is why this debate is so important. There is evidence from a highly respected Select Committees of this House, and from the Government’s own equality analysis, and were it not for the actions of my Front-Bench colleagues, we would not even be debating the issue and the House of Commons would not even be reflecting on a major change to the way in which we fund the postgraduate training of our nurses.

We all agree that the nurses of this country deserve our respect, and that they do a wonderful job, but the point of this debate is to ask whether we are going to address the shortage of nurses following the removal of nursing bursaries. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said, we have serious concerns and doubts about that, and it is quite right that those are debated.

Let us see whether the hon. Member for Lewes is right, or whether the Royal College of Nursing is right that the huge fall in applications we have seen at undergraduate level will be reflected at postgraduate level, and that down the track the Government will regret ignoring the professional bodies and their own equality analysis. The Government need to reflect on that and see what more can be done. Rhetoric about our nurses being brilliant is fine, and we all share that admiration, but at the end of the day, what this country needs is hard-nosed policy that works.