NHS Bursaries

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong on both points: more mature students are applying now than in 2010; and there are specific recommendations in the consultation to deal with mature students.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Does this not demonstrate the Minister’s point? We have a choice: we either inspire people to aspire and give them the opportunity to enter the NHS by talking it up, or we take the opposite view, talk the NHS down by being negative, and put people off.

[Ben Gummer]

I do believe that. The Opposition were wrong back in 2010, and had we followed their advice, fewer people from disadvantaged backgrounds—precisely the people Labour was elected to represent and support—would be going to university. As a result of our taking forward brave proposals, in the teeth of much opposition, we have done more for the prospects of people from disadvantaged backgrounds than any Government dealing with this matter since higher education was reformed after the second world war.

I come now, I am afraid, to the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Lewisham East. It implicitly accepts that we have made progress. The fact that it is so anaemic in offering an alternative makes it clear that there is no alternative suggestion that she thinks would achieve the aims that she and I want: an increase in the number of students going into nursing and training, and of those coming from a diverse background. It also implies that she accepts, like me, that workforce planning over the last 10, 15, 20, 30 or 40 years has failed. I can say that, whereas she is not willing to, because everything we are doing now to correct workforce numbers—for example, the 5,000 additional GPs my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary fought the last election campaign on and will be delivering in the next few years—is the result of poor commissioning decisions made not under the coalition Government, or even in the latter years of the Labour Government, but under Governments 20 and 30 years ago.

The failure to predict the number of GPs needed, and the number and types of other professionals needed, lands us perpetually in this perverse situation where we are not accepting British students on to training courses at British universities and, as a result, are not creating the numbers of domestically trained nurses we need. In response to the inadequacies in care uncovered as a result of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust scandal and the failure of the Labour Government to provide the number of nurses needed in hospitals across the country, we are having to import nurses from abroad and to fill nurse places with expensive agency posts. That is something we are putting right now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Welcome to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am glad that your first act has been to call me to speak.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), for whom I have a great deal of respect. He always speaks with credibility and from experience. I am more than happy to acknowledge that there are many colleagues in the House with more experience than I have of working in the NHS, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). My experience is as a customer or as a relative of someone who has been treated in the health service. I have to say that, to date, my experience has been nothing but positive. The treatment that our NHS continues to deliver to our nation is the best in the world, and Government Members can be immensely proud of that.

One of the things that I find most frustrating about our debates on the health service is the fact that the Opposition seem to think that they have a monopoly on caring for the NHS. Nothing could be further from the truth. Conservative Members care deeply about our health service and we do everything we can to support it.

It is worth saying that every Labour party election leaflet since the second world war has said, “We’ve got 24 hours to save the NHS before the Tories come into government.” It repeats that message every time. If we look at the facts, however, we will see that the truth is that the Prime Minister was the only party leader to enter the 2010 general election saying that he would protect the NHS budget. Others did not. In 2015, the Prime Minister was the only party leader who committed to the extra £8 billion support funding for the NHS when other Opposition parties would not back that figure. Today that figure has increased: this party is now backing the NHS with an extra £10 billion. We are also delivering on the aspiration of people like me, who are either customers or relatives of people who use the NHS, to get a high-quality service seven days a week.

Whenever we debate this issue, the difference between the two parties is one of credibility. The only way we have been able to deliver the extra £10 billion of funding to the health service is by having a credible economic plan that stands up to scrutiny. The great British public understand that and what it means to have a credible plan that can be delivered in government.

As a number of colleagues have said, we agree on a lot of things. No one can deny that both the Government and the Opposition acknowledge that we need more nurses, but we differ on the credible plan to deliver them. Members on both sides of the Chamber have made speeches today acknowledging the need to deliver extra nurses, but it is only Government Members who have a credible plan to make it happen. We cannot just hope it happens, or state that it will happen, without saying where the extra money will come from. The consequence of that would be to withdraw cash from front-line services, such as existing doctors, nurses, operating theatres and wards, and put it into training.

If we want to increase the number of nurses coming into the NHS, we should not restrict the number who can be trained. It seems obvious that the way to raise the number of nurses is to lift the artificial cap on the number that we can train. I welcome the fact that the Government are considering and consulting on their options and looking to ensure that there is no artificial cap, so that we can train as many people as are inspired to go into the nursing profession.

I reiterate my admiration for those people. People leaving full-time education enter nursing not because they want to be rich but because they care and they see it as a vocation. We need to support people who have that calling and who aspire to look after those in society who find themselves ill and in need of support. We must find a system that allows them to aspire to that, whatever their background and wherever they come from. They must be able to go through their training and reach the point where they can follow their vocation.

The arguments that are being deployed against the Government’s suggestions appear similar to the ones that we heard about student loans. We were told that those from a deprived background or from more challenging areas would be put off and would not be able to find a way through the system. We need to reflect on the evidence, which shows that the opposite has happened—the number of people from challenging backgrounds going to university has gone up, even though we were told that they would not be able to go.

At the end of the process, we need an NHS that can adapt and change. There is enormous social pressure on it, and there is the challenge of getting a balance between adult social care and healthcare as society gets older. When cash is short, we must spend it on front-line services—on the doctors, nurses and drugs that can improve the lives of people who need the support of the NHS. I look forward to the consultation, and I know that the team in the Department of Health will look at the responses. I hope that we get to the right place, and that we have more nurses at the end of the process.