Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Naseby Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I believe our nation welcomes the broad thrust of this Bill, as I do, but in the short time available, I will pick out just three points. First, I suspect that all noble Lords are well aware of the challenge with care workers. There is no doubt that there needs to be some transition, some amendment to how we deal with care workers. We have 8% of roles in adult social care vacant at the moment: 122,000. In addition, 8% of the social care workforce have an EU identity—et cetera.

It seems to me that Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to mention just three countries that face a very similar problem, have found what they believe to be a fair answer to meet this challenge—which is not a challenge that can be dealt with in five minutes. I have been a Member of Parliament, as have a number of my colleagues sitting in the Chamber this afternoon. We know about care homes, old people’s homes and nursing homes, so we know you cannot adjust them furiously in a few minutes. But I say to my noble friends on the Front Benches that we have to find an answer.

The other aspect of the NHS is doctor recruitment. We have had far too few young men and women entering the medical profession. It is highly oversubscribed, but—I am sorry to say this; I might be seen to be sexist—60% of the intake today is female, and, of those, well over half only ever work part time, so that is not an answer. We need to increase the intake to our medical schools.

My noble friend Lord Lilley mentioned nursing. What was the figure he gave: 25,000 nurses applying to nursing schools turned down last year? We have to find an answer to this. If we do not, the figure of 29% of doctors working in NHS hospitals coming from overseas will never be solved. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench: I hope that will be looked at.

Finally, a number of colleagues in the House know that I am closely involved with Sri Lanka. I know a fair bit about illegal immigration; I know about self-harm; I know about alleged torture; and it is still happening. I am sorry to say that: self-harm is still happening. That is not good for the individuals involved and it is putting money into the pockets of people that it should not be, so I should like that investigated, and I will be supplying my noble friend with some information about that.