UK Exit from the European Union

Debate between Paul Scully and Mark Durkan

Monday 17th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

What I really look forward to is being able to take control and make the Government accountable, so that we can look our electorate in the eye and say, “You know what? If you don’t like what we’re doing—if you don’t like the legislation we are pushing through—we are not going to sit there and blame Brussels, or any number of presidents who sit in Brussels and Strasbourg. It is our responsibility; we are accountable to you.” That is what I most look forward to: taking control.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Scully]

No. I have taken a good few interventions, and I know others want to speak.

My view on Brexit is not insular—quite the opposite. I am really excited about the prospect of a bright future in which we lift our head up to the world, trade with every continent, including Europe, and grab the opportunities that follow. Let us be patient, get it right and show the world how democratic accountability, global free trade and a fair, controlled immigration system are not mutually exclusive. Let us all follow the path set for us by the British people, and debate and discuss our independent future in a civilised and positive manner. Instead of being a semi-detached tenant of the European Union, carping from the sidelines—out of the eurozone, out of Schengen and out of the social chapter—let us work on being friendly neighbours, working for our common economic good, while remembering that there is a whole world beyond the political construct of the European Union.

NHS Bursary

Debate between Paul Scully and Mark Durkan

Monday 11th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this important debate. I commend the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for introducing it as a Petitions Committee member. He had the difficult task of framing the wider debate by drawing attention to a number of the background and contextual issues in the way that he felt was fairest and on the broadest issues. Many of us are in-filling the debate with a different emphasis, taking account of some other considerations.

As a Northern Ireland MP, I am conscious that this debate is about the bursary scheme for the NHS in England. Of course, the scheme recruits students from Northern Ireland who are undertaking courses in England, and as a devolved Administration we also have our own variant of the scheme. In previous contributions on this subject, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has raised the question of whether there will be an immediate Barnett consequential to this change to the NHS in England. Even when we get the answer from the Treasury, it changes over time. I have served as a devolved Finance Minister, so I know that in one instance the Treasury will tell you that there is no Barnett consequential, but then a year or two later some new thinking will mean that there is and that the vice has been tightened. Its usual rule of thumb is, “We’re the Treasury; we don’t need a reason,” so it can change at will.

Although, as the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) said earlier in an intervention, the current Health Minister in Northern Ireland has properly set his face against going down the same road as the UK Government on the bursary scheme, the fact is that a significant change such as this has the potential to become the predictable text of future devolved policy. It has a conditioning effect by creating a context, and even when devolved Administrations resist such policy changes it usually adds to their costs, which makes the choice not to make the change harder. There is usually policy opportunity cost elsewhere as well.

We need to ask where the rush to this policy change has come from. Two lines in the autumn statement have heralded a significant change. We are told that a consultation will start this month, so will the Minister tell us how serious, thorough and far-reaching that consultation is going to be? Will it include a comprehensive consideration of all the implications of the change and a proper consultation on all the shortcomings and benefits of the current scheme?

Those of us with concerns are not coming here with a “Little House on the Prairie” picture of how the existing scheme operates. We are not pretending that nursing students and students in the allied health professions currently have a sweet life. They clearly face many serious pressures, but we heard from the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam that the pressures, difficulties and life costs justify the change. In my view, they justify taking great care with any change. We need to address the problems that exist without creating new problems or compounding the existing ones, for exactly the reasons mentioned by other Members, including the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who described the implications of changing to a loan-based system.

We must recognise that the roots of nursing education have historically been very different from those of other education. It is only recently that we have seen the well motivated move to ensure that nursing and the allied health professions are truly recognised as professions of degree standard. The problem is that some people take that to mean that we should treat the bursaries in the same way as any other student loan and that that should be the norm. We know, for the reasons that Members have set out, that it should not. The students in question are not just in training but in service in a real, pertinent and highly pressurised way, which means that they do not have the options for covering their maintenance costs that other people have, and that their time is much more precious. Given their life circumstances, they have responsibilities that students on many other courses do not, so we are not comparing like with like.

Where has the support for the change come from? Has it come from the professional bodies that represent nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, radiographers, chiropodists and podiatrists? No, it has not. They have real concerns about the implications of the change for their members and the services they work in. Has it come directly from the employers? Health service employers in Northern Ireland, including in my constituency, constantly talk about workforce problems and the huge pressure to fill places and keep services running. A new radiotherapy unit has opened in a hospital in my constituency, and there will be huge pressure on it to employ and sustain radiologists for the future. Health service employers in Northern Ireland are acutely conscious of the pressures, but none of them has said to me that they believe this change will solve the problem.

The change seems to be sponsored mostly by the Council of Deans of Health, which is responsible for education, because it will perhaps solve a problem for universities. Universities look at their numbers and their funding and ask what the change will do for their economics, given that they have a key role in educating health service professionals. It will solve a problem for them, but not for the services that are meant to be supported or the professions. We must include in the consultation those whose voices have not been listened to and who have not canvassed and pushed for this change. Their voices must be heard, which is why this debate and others like it are so important.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said that something has to give and that the bursaries need to be changed. At one point, he actually said that one reason why bursaries are not good is that they can be taken away, as though that was an argument against bursaries. It is pretty cheeky to justify a proposal to take bursaries away by saying that we should do it because they can be taken away.

[Paul Scully]

Forgive me, I was talking about the title and the semantics. “Bursary” is a bit of a misnomer when, as had been said, it is more like a salary, albeit an inappropriately low one.

[Mark Durkan]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, which resets the context of his comments. I gladly acknowledge that clarification.

Just as we should not presume that bursaries are a given and cannot be taken away, people cannot afford to presume that the assurances about the loans-based policy are a given. The current rate of 9% of earnings over £21,000 can change—we must remember that the registration fees for people in the nursing and midwifery service have been hiked up. The Government’s justification for that significant hike in percentage terms is that they have been raised from a fairly low base. When people hear the argument that some students will not pay much of the loan or the whole loan, many fear that more money will be sought in the future in comparative and relative loan repayments. People cannot rely on the assurances that have been given and some of the other arguments that have been made. I hope the Minister is able to convince us that the consultation will look at all those issues and that they will be answered properly.