Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Philip Dunne and Andy Burnham

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

We have announced the first 1,000 nursing associates. In fact, the first cohort commenced at the beginning of this month. I visited, in Queen’s hospital, Romford, the first very enthusiastic group of nursing associates. We have announced a second wave of 2,000 associate roles. I regret to say that Wiltshire does not have any of those at the moment, but that will not stop it bidding for them in future. I will look at my hon. Friend’s point about further education colleges.

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

When the Secretary of State scrapped the nursing bursary, he claimed that his reforms would lead to an increase in nursing applications. Last week, figures from UCAS showed that there had been a drop in nursing applications of 23%—a worrying trend when the demands of Brexit will mean that we need more home-grown nurses. Will he scrap this disastrous policy or, at the very least, give Greater Manchester the ability to opt out of it and reinstate the nursing bursary?

[Mr Dunne]

I urge the right hon. Gentleman not to indulge in scaremongering about the number of people applying to become nurses. There are more than two applications for each of the nursing places on offer to start next August. He needs to be careful about interpreting this early the figure for applications from EU nationals, which has gone down significantly, because it coincided with the introduction of the language test for EU nationals.