Paul Sweeney
Main Page: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)Department Debates - View all Paul Sweeney's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hunt
I would not dare to talk about an area outside my own Department’s responsibilities, even to such an eminent person as my right hon. Friend.
Flexible pay is at the heart of what we need to do differently in the NHS. This is really about two types of NHS worker. First, many people find that the shift patterns in the NHS are very unpredictable. Every six weeks their lives are turned upside down as they are given a new set of times when they have to work. People want regularity and predictability, and we do not offer that at the moment, which makes life much tougher for those who are trying to achieve a work-life balance. Secondly, we make life hard for people who want to do extra shifts at the last minute. Both those factors are important, and they will be helped by this new pay deal.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
We have already heard about the 14% real-terms fall in NHS staff pay since 2010. There have been eight long years of pay restraint, and this deal does not go far enough to offset that historic deficit.
The Secretary of State is having to deal with the massive problem of an ageing population and the need to increase the capacity of the NHS to deal with it. Does he agree that alienating an entire generation of junior doctors was not a productive way of achieving that?
Mr Hunt
We do not recognise the figures that the hon. Gentleman has given but, in any event, he cannot say that the deal does not go far enough without asking why that has happened. It happened because in 2008 we had the worst financial recession since the second world war, which was made an awful lot worse by the Labour Government’s loss of financial discipline. What I think is most disturbing for people in the NHS is that the hon. Gentleman’s party seems set on repeating the same mistake.