NHS Bursaries

Debate between Richard Graham and Ben Gummer

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

It is an assertion that is backed up by the evidence of the past five years, and which has received the recommendation of Professor Dame Jessica Corner, the chancellor of the Council of Deans of Health. I can tell the hon. Member for Lewisham East, in answer to her barracking, that Professor Dame Jessica Corner said:

“We recognise that this has been a difficult decision for the government but are pleased that the government has found a way forward. Carefully implemented, this should allow universities in partnership with the NHS to increase the number of training places and also improve day to day financial support for students while they are studying. The plan means that students will have access to more day to day maintenance support through the loans system and recognises that these disciplines are higher cost, science-based subjects.”

Likewise, Universities UK has said:

“We support increasing health professional student numbers and will work with Government and the NHS to secure the sustainable funding system”

that the Government have provided. It is particularly pleased about the impact that this will have on placement training. These are the people who are providing training in our NHS, and they support our proposals because they will release the same kind of innovation that we have seen elsewhere in the university sector.

[Richard Graham]

I want to reinforce a point that the Minister has made. I think—he will know this—the evidence shows that far more people from deprived backgrounds have gone to university since the changes we made five years ago, at a time when Opposition Members were saying that they would have precisely the opposite effect. So the evidence is even more conclusive than my hon. Friend suggests. Can he confirm that the maintenance grants will go up by about 25%, which will help in regard to the specific point being made by Universities UK and the other lady?

[Ben Gummer]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It brings me neatly on to my next point, which is that the great virtue of these reforms to student finance is that we will be able to increase student finance support—maintenance support—by 25%.

The hon. Member for Lewisham East made some clear and sensible points. She suggested that training as a student nurse was different from being a history undergraduate, because student nurses have less time to take on a second job. There is therefore even more reason to provide better maintenance support for them. However, she has not come to tell the House that she will provide 25% additional maintenance support for students who do not have time to do a second job. She has not made that commitment, yet she has criticised our efforts to increase maintenance support by 25% precisely to help those people who would not otherwise be able to take time out to take on a university course. She cannot have it both ways. She cannot criticise us for the reforms we are undertaking while at the same time saying that students need greater support. It is precisely through these reforms that we are producing the support that so many students require.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer]

I will make some progress now, if the hon. Lady does not mind.

We are introducing a new nursing associate grade. This will present an extraordinary opportunity to eradicate one of the great unfairnesses in the NHS, which is that there are brilliant people working as healthcare assistants who are unable to become registered nurses because they were let down by the schools they went to. I am afraid that this is a consequence of the failure of school reform under the previous Government. Under previous Governments, people were failed to the extent that they have not been given the opportunities that they deserve.

We are going to reverse that situation by providing an apprenticeship ladder to a nursing associate role, and from there to a registered nursing position. A degree apprenticeship will be available to those who are able and competent to reach that grade. That will provide a route of opportunity that was not available under the previous Labour Government. It is being brought in by this Conservative Government—a one nation party for all.

By bringing in these reforms, creating a nursing associate role and creating 100,000 apprentices in the NHS, many of whom will be healthcare assistants working their way towards a nursing associate position and from there to a registered nursing grade, we will give people multiple opportunities to become nurses. That will include those who are already in the service and who want to earn while they are learning. It will take them between four and a half and six years to get to a registered nursing position from a healthcare assistant role. It will also include those who are able to take time out and do a degree to become a registered nurse, for whom we will provide additional support in the form of increased maintenance grants. Opposition Members are shaking their heads, but at what, I do not know. Are they shaking their heads at the 100,000 NHS apprentices that we are creating? Are they shaking their heads at the nursing associate roles? Are they shaking their heads at the increased maintenance support? None of those issues was addressed in the speech of the hon. Member for Lewisham East.

[Richard Graham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Ben Gummer]

I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind if I just conclude my remarks, because I know that Members from across the House want to contribute to the debate.

In my remaining minutes, I want to state why the reform is important not only for the individuals who want to become nurses, and not just for social equality and opportunity, but for the NHS. The NHS is unable to innovate like other parts of our public sector and our private sector because of the long lead times for training people. We do not have the instruments within the NHS to reflect the dramatic changes in demography and technology that change the NHS not year by year, but month by month. The great benefit of bringing in apprenticeship routes and nursing associate roles, of diversifying the skill mix and of creating quicker, more numerous routes into the nursing profession is that we can create a more diverse, flexible and agile trained workforce.

All that will be possible as a result of the changes, of which this bursary reform is part. None of it would have been possible with the reduction in funding promised by the Labour party, or a failure to wish reform upon the system. That is why I hope the House will reject the motion, which is full of suggestions and implications rather than firm plans. It says nothing about the future of the people on whom the NHS depends, and does nothing to suggest how we will increase numbers, provide additional maintenance support or, most importantly, provide opportunities for those who have not yet had any. We will do that by reforming the system, just as we did in 2010. We will ensure that we do not listen to the well-intentioned but erroneous voices of the Labour party. Had we listened to them back in 2010, tens of thousands of people would have been denied an opportunity. We are determined not to do that. We will be the party of opportunity, presenting it to people who want to be nurses or hold any other position in the NHS. This NHS will be truly national only if it provides opportunity to the many, not the few.