Oral Answers to Questions

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

First, we have got more than £1 billion of investment in an additional 5,000 permanent beds going into the NHS estate as part of our urgent and emergency care recovery programme. More widely, the Government are committed to the biggest ever investment in the NHS estate, backed with more than £20 billion—the biggest of any Government. Of course, we will not take lectures from Labour, which bequeathed the NHS the consequence of expensive private finance initiative deals that many trusts are still paying for to this day.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on trends in the level of recruitment in the health and social care sector.

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

6. What recent assessment he has made of the impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on trends in the level of recruitment in the health and social care sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

If everything is as rosy as the Minister says, why did a spokesperson for the Nuffield Trust say last year that

“greater costs, more paperwork and uncertainty over visas because of Brexit have been among the biggest barriers to recruiting and keeping EU and EFTA doctors”?

Cannot she admit that Brexit is exacerbating difficulties with recruiting appropriate staff for the NHS across the whole of the UK? Scotland did not vote for Brexit. Why are we having to pay the price?

[Helen Whately]

I suggest it is really time that the hon. Gentleman stops blaming Brexit. He should in fact look to his SNP colleagues in Holyrood and ensure that they make Scotland’s NHS a better place to work. If he had listened to my answer, he would have heard me say that since Brexit we have recruited more than 13,000 more doctors to the NHS in England. In fact, we are doing so well that we recently recruited a doctor from the SNP Benches. [Laughter.]