NHS Pay

Debate between Paula Barker and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered NHS pay.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for co-sponsoring this debate. I am pleased to have been allocated such a generous amount of time for the debate. That is entirely justified given the importance of the subject at hand—NHS pay.

I thank all those who have taken the time to sign the following petitions: e-petition 300073, signed by more than 170,000 people and titled “Increase pay for NHS healthcare workers and recognise their work”; e-petition 316307, titled “Award all Nursing Staff in the NHS a pay rise of 10% backdated to 1 April 2020” and signed by more than 140,000 people; and e-petition 560253, which is titled “Recognise all members of NHS nursing profession by giving them a 12.5% pay rise”, has been signed by more than 19,000 people and does not close until 7 June.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I sought before the debate the hon. Lady’s permission and your permission, Mr Hosie, to intervene. The petitions before us are an indication of the numbers of people across the whole United Kingdom who feel strongly about this issue. The people emailing me are not just NHS workers. They are families; they are people who have been recipients of the goodness of NHS workers. I believe that there is a moral obligation on us—I have said this to Government as well—to deliver a satisfactory pay increase for nurses. We need to give them a rose of appreciation in the springtime, not a dandelion.

[Paula Barker]

I completely concur with what the hon. Gentleman has said.

The figures that I have given lay bare the strength of feeling that people in our communities have for our incredible NHS staff as a whole. People who know me and have listened to any of my previous contributions on the public sector will know that I like to set the historical context, that context being the last decade and the political decisions taken by the Conservative party in office during that time, especially on matters of public spending and public sector pay—matters that are very close to my heart. During debates such as this, the Government may like to pretend that the pre-pandemic world does not exist. According to them, decisions that they take during the current economic crisis should be taken in the context of spiralling debt and deficits, as well as the looming prospect of inflation. But we have been here before, have we not, especially given that the last economic crisis was not too long ago? The Government are starting to sound like a broken record stuck on repeat, using the same smokescreens that they used in the early part of the last decade, which laid the pretext for an outright assault on public sector pay.

Public sector workers, and not least the brave women and men who staff our national health service, have long memories. What is it that I am referring to that existed at the front and centre of the NHS worker psyche going into this pandemic? It is the fact that nurses’ pay is down £840 in real terms since 2010. Further to that, the likes of the Health Foundation have stated that at the start of the pandemic, NHS wages were £600 lower per employee in real terms than in 2011-12. It is the fact that staff morale is at rock bottom, with many leaving certain NHS professions and the Government failing most spectacularly to fill the gap in staff shortages—nearly 50,000 combined vacancies exist across doctor and nursing professions. It is the fact that workers have had to endure rising demands on their work with less reward.

That is what NHS workers, who make up 4% of our entire labour market staff, have had to suck up since 2010 in order to pay for an economic crisis—a crisis in the casino economy that they had no part in creating. According to research delivered by London Economics for NHS trade unions, pay levels at every single Agenda for Change spine point have lagged behind inflation since 2010-11, resulting in a significant decline in total pay in real terms. Most spine points have exhibited a decline in excess of 10%, and total pay on the Agenda for Change spine point with the highest incidence of staff, at the top of band five, has declined by 15%. That is three times the decline in median earnings experienced by full-time private sector employees across the UK over the same timeframe.

Let all of us here today contextualise the debate by reflecting on the picture faced by our brilliant NHS staff before and going into the pandemic. They have had their pay cut, their spending power slashed, their living standards squeezed, and their morale smashed. That is the so-called old world that the new kids on the block—the Prime Minister and the Chancellor—would rather us all forget, one built by their predecessors. However, no amount of rebranding will disguise the fact that the current Government intend to continue the same legacy of making public sector workers pick up the tab for a crisis they had no part in creating. Indeed, this time it is even worse than that. They are paying for a crisis that they have ensured we have, and will, overcome. Some thanks, I say, and shame on this Government.

In this new decade, the message being received by NHS workers from the Government is this: brace yourself for more of the same. Staff in our NHS have had to endure all of that, and then 12 months ago were asked to once again go above and beyond, to gravely enter the unknown, risking their mental and physical health. They have sacrificed their family and personal lives. Some have paid the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives in the line of service, duty and compassion.

Let us cast our minds back to how terrifying the news headlines, the newspaper stories and social media chatter were when the virus first emerged on these shores. The virus was the absolutely terrifying unknown for all our people, except for our NHS workers who were not afforded the luxury of watching this public health crisis unfold from the sidelines as passive observers; they were the frontline against the great unknown.

To this day, their unrelenting commitment to the public service still moves me, as it should all people here today in Westminster Hall. I am not one to often quote Winston Churchill, or indeed make wartime references, but never was so much owed by so many to so few. If any of this brave few were able to come up for breath for just a moment, maybe because of their shift patterns, and sit in front of a TV screen on a Thursday evening last year, they would have seen many ordinary folk applauding their efforts. They would also have witnessed the galling sight of the occupiers of No.10 and No.11 clapping for the photo op, with little intention of rewarding them for their work, their sacrifice or their trauma.

Appreciation of NHS workers is not about rhetoric, warm words and pats on the head. Let me be absolutely clear. Claps and smiles do not pay the bills. It is about deeds and actions, and when it comes to NHS pay, the only deeds and actions made by the Government have been a fresh round of insulting pay offers, or, in real terms, pay cuts.

The Prime Minister recently told the House of Commons that the Government have delivered a 12.8% increase in the starting salary of nurses. It may well be true to say that some—but not all—nurses have received a pay rise of more than 12% since 2017-18. However, that is in cash terms, not in real terms, and it does not account for the fact that inflation erodes the spending power of workers’ wages over time. It is a flattering figure in other ways: it applies only to one group of nurses rather than reflecting the experiences of all NHS workers in England, and it does not take into account the years of austerity that defined the years prior to 2017-18. The Government cannot spin an assertion that they are awarding pay rises when millions of NHS workers know the exact opposite is true.

All we ever hear from the penny-pinchers that occupy the Government Benches is that we cannot afford this or that—basically, anything of social value or any moral good. The old mantra that public sector equals bad and private sector equals good is making a return. This tired politics draws the economic orthodoxy to the conclusion that suppressing public sector pay is of economic benefit in times of crisis, rather than the opportunity to grow the economy that it represents. It is almost as if a decision has been taken according to the same logic that public wages are a drain on the public purse and therefore a resource to be tapped into in order to control public finances when it suits.

It is sound economics to deliver a just and fair pay rise for NHS staff and a decent pay rise is affordable. Currently, just over 1 million nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and NHS support staff are covered by the Agenda for Change pay framework in England. The same aforementioned research conducted by London Economics concluded that a 10% increase to the NHS England pay bill amounting to £3.4 billion would result in the net expenditure of only £0.66 billion when including factors that are offset against the original figure.

Such offsets include increased tax receipts, because public sector workers pay taxes, and increases in direct, indirect and induced tax receipts, because public sector workers spend money in their local areas that helps to grow local economies and support communities. A pro-public sector agenda is a pro-business agenda. It is a miracle that public and private sector workers exhibit similar economic behaviours—who knew?

There would also be savings in recruitment and retention, because better paid staff are happier staff. There is even an extra £130 million in savings from the lower student debt write-offs for nursing students. This is the sort of sensible, moral and longer-term economic thinking the Government are totally incapable of. Instead, we have crumbs for midwives and support staff; their dignity, livelihoods and take-home pay is unaffordable, according to this Government, but not lucrative, publicly funded contracts for the friends of Tory Ministers to deliver personal protective equipment shortages and botched public health projects to the tune of billions of pounds. Apparently, that sort of spending is every bit affordable: in fact, we are told, it should be celebrated. Not only do we have a Government guilty of cronyism, but of skewed priorities. We see that only too well today when not a single Conservative Member apart from the Minister is here for this debate.

Government policy on the NHS tells us everything that we need to know. Nurses, midwives and support staff are left neglected, their immense contributions disregarded, forgotten by a Government and party intent on reverting to type. There is no policy impact assessment, as the real burden for public sector pay restraint will once again fall on the shoulders of women who make up so much of the public sector, especially our NHS. There is no regional impact assessment on areas more reliant on public sector spending, such as my city of Liverpool—so much for the levelling-up agenda.

To round up, the public overwhelmingly support a pay rise for NHS staff because they, like me, understand and appreciate their service each and every day; in times long before covid, during it and long after. They are out on the frontline, as I speak here today, delivering vaccine shots in the arms of millions of people, as well as catching up on the huge backlog of urgent elective care procedures while the Government parade around this place telling us that the economics will not permit just recognition and reward. If any group of workers in our National Health Service collectively decide that enough is enough and they embark on a course of industrial action, they will have unwavering solidarity. I appeal to the Government to change their course, walk the walk on NHS pay and give the NHS staff the pay rise that they so deeply deserve.