Education (Student Support)

Debate between Philippa Whitford and Lord Coaker

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

Let us see where this goes. The hon. Lady’s point is that it does not matter that there has been a 33% fall in applications, because other things will happen, but that is not the view of the Royal College of Nursing. Applications from mature students have been disproportionately affected by the funding reform; the number of applicants aged over 25 has fallen by 42%. I do not know whether the Minister intends to respond—it would be a shame if he did not—but perhaps he can explain why that figure does not matter. That point needs to be addressed in debate. The hon. Lady disagrees, but I say that it does matter, and that it will cause problems for future nursing recruitment.

[Dr Whitford]

The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) asks why not enough nurses were coming through. Is that not simply because there was a cap on places? The Government keep linking the bursary with the cap. The issue was not the bursary; it was the cap. If the Government want to invest in nurses, they should lift the cap but not remove the bursary, because that will shrink the number of applications.

[Vernon Coaker]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I say to the Minister that there is hard evidence from the Government’s own equality analysis that the reforms will

“increase the amount of student loan borrowing for postgraduate students and could lead to a fall in student numbers. The government has acknowledged that, due to the student intake, the impact will fall largely on women, older students and, to a lesser extent, students from ethnic minorities.”

Where is the Government’s defence of that, and what are they doing to mitigate it? I have no doubt that the Government would say, “We have done x, y and z.” Indeed, that is what the hon. Member for Lewes has said, but where is the Minister’s explanation?

It is not just the Government equality analysis that says we should be concerned about the changes. A House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report, published just a few days ago, also raised concerns. First it criticised the process and then it said:

“Our second, no less strongly felt concern is with the wider impact on recruitment to post-graduate nursing courses which may result from the switch from bursary to loan support”.

That is why this debate is so important. There is evidence from a highly respected Select Committees of this House, and from the Government’s own equality analysis, and were it not for the actions of my Front-Bench colleagues, we would not even be debating the issue and the House of Commons would not even be reflecting on a major change to the way in which we fund the postgraduate training of our nurses.

We all agree that the nurses of this country deserve our respect, and that they do a wonderful job, but the point of this debate is to ask whether we are going to address the shortage of nurses following the removal of nursing bursaries. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) said, we have serious concerns and doubts about that, and it is quite right that those are debated.

Let us see whether the hon. Member for Lewes is right, or whether the Royal College of Nursing is right that the huge fall in applications we have seen at undergraduate level will be reflected at postgraduate level, and that down the track the Government will regret ignoring the professional bodies and their own equality analysis. The Government need to reflect on that and see what more can be done. Rhetoric about our nurses being brilliant is fine, and we all share that admiration, but at the end of the day, what this country needs is hard-nosed policy that works.