Regional Pay (NHS)

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

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[Andy Burnham]

This debate is flushing out the Government’s position, is it not? The Under-Secretary of State keeps heckling from the Front Bench, but we now know—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to resume his seat. [Interruption.] Order. Let me say once and for all to the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has been conducting a running commentary since she sat down on the Front Bench at the start of the debate, “Stop it.” I do not wish to hear it, and neither does the House. The Secretary of State will respond in due course. If the hon. Lady is dissatisfied with what has been said, her right hon. Friend will have a chance to respond. I do not want the sedentary chuntering, the finger-wagging and all the rest of it. The hon. Lady can say “pooh” if she wants, but she will accept the ruling of the Chair, and either behave or get out of the Chamber. I do not mind which it is.

[Andy Burnham]

The Government’s position was indeed made clear in Westminster Hall this morning, and perhaps we shall hear it again from the Dispatch Box in a moment.

The south-west trusts’ initial document stated that the consortium would explore

“radical changes to terms and conditions of the workforce”.

It went on to say that this would not be a negotiation, and that

“trusts would be obliged to dismiss and re-engage staff to secure such changes”.

That is disgraceful, and it is simply not possible for the Government to have no view on it. It is provocative, destabilising and divisive. However, it gets worse. In the vacuum left by Ministers, the chaos is spreading. We have identified a further 12 trusts across England that are actively considering opting out of “Agenda for Change”. There are five in the north-east, which gives rise to fears of a second emerging pay cartel. North Tees and Hartlepool has issued 90-day notices to 5,452 staff as a precursor to forcing them to sign new non-“Agenda for Change” contracts—staff who refuse to sign by March 2013 are threatened with the sack—and South Tees is considering a similar move.

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[Mr Speaker]

I hope that it is a point of order rather than a point of frustration. We will hear it and I will discover whether it is.

[Mr Anderson]

On three occasions, the Secretary of State has said that the trade unions bankroll the Labour party. A large majority of the trade unions in the health service have no links to the Labour party whatsoever.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but that is a point of debate that he might wish to develop further if he is successful in catching my eye. We will leave it for now.

[Mr Hunt]

I ask the right hon. Member for Leigh, rather than irresponsibly scaremongering, to do something positive by doing everything in his power to encourage his trade union friends to work in the best interests of their members, of patients and of his constituents and mine to come to a speedy resolution. I suspect he has rather more influence with the unions than I do in that regard. Even with a protected NHS budget—something that he thought was “irresponsible”—the NHS must do significantly more within its limited means, and as its single largest expense the pay bill cannot be immune to change. It represents between 60% and 70% of total expenditure in most NHS organisations and costs more than £43 billion in the hospital and community services sector alone.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In the interests of trying to accommodate as many colleagues as possible, and many wish to speak in the debate, I have imposed an eight-minute limit on each Back-Bench contribution with immediate effect. I call Mr Ben Bradshaw.

[Mr Bradshaw]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman had previously expressed an interest.

[Mr Bradshaw]

That is very kind of you, Mr Speaker, but I have had my Adjournment debate this morning and taken up enough time, so I want to let colleagues speak.

[Mr Speaker]

We are extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his selfless sacrifice. I call Kerry McCarthy.

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[Kerry McCarthy]

I very much hope that when the Government—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let me say to the Minister once and for all—[Interruption.] No. I say to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—perhaps she will have the courtesy to listen when she is being spoken to from the Chair—that it is not acceptable for any Member of the House to treat the debate as a private conversation between himself or herself and the Member on his or her feet. If the Minister is dissatisfied with what is being said, other people on her Benches can pick up those points. It is totally unacceptable to behave in this way and it will stop straight away. I hope the Whip has noticed it, and I will be speaking to others about the matter.

[Kerry McCarthy]

There is some confusion. When I wrote to the Health Secretary to get some clarity—

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I could not help but notice that the clock did not stop during that intervention. I see that a minute has been added on, but I think it should have been more than that.

[Mr Speaker]

Allowance will be made. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his service. Perhaps we can now proceed with the debate in an orderly way.

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[Yasmin Qureshi]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we were a bit surprised to hear the Secretary of State say that Labour is asking for national pay and opposing regional pay because the unions are bankrolling us? My hon. Friend said that she had received many e-mails. I am sure that, like me, other Opposition Members have received hundreds of e-mails from people who work in the health service—ordinary people, working people—who say that they do not want regional pay. That has nothing to do with any union.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Interventions on both sides should be brief, and rather briefer than that.

[Kerry McCarthy]

It is sad that the Secretary of State resorted to the union bashing that we also heard from the Minister in the Westminster Hall debate. I have had a meeting with the Royal College of Nursing, and I have a briefing from the BMA about the case against the local and regional approach to pay. That has nothing to do with Labour-affiliated unions. Those organisations are speaking up for their staff, who are extremely worried. It is patronising to say that staff are concerned only because someone stoked them up and told them falsehoods or whatever. They are worried about the proposal because they work in the NHS and they know what impact it will have on them.

The south-west consortium’s explicit intention is to reduce costs by considering

“further more radical changes to the pay and conditions of the workforce”.

Yet to do this at a time when hospital budgets are under great strain and nurses are being made redundant, each trust paid £10,000 of public money to join the consortium. They have to appoint a consortium director, establish a consortium working group and commission legal advice, so it remains to be seen how much the added bureaucracy of the consortium will cost.

Even more worrying is the lack of transparency or accountability for that spending, given that we still do not know who is responsible for employing the director of the consortium or to whom they are answerable. Perhaps most disturbingly, the project initiation document explained that

“it is likely that Trusts would be obliged to dismiss and re-engage staff to secure such changes”,

which not only calls into doubt the validity of their proposals, but has serious cost and legal implications.

I can only agree with the BMA that regional pay is a

“costly and time consuming distraction”.

But of course this affects not only the NHS as an institution, but the individual staff on whom the whole service relies, who potentially face a 15% pay cut. The consortium proposes to cut sickness absence payments so that they are paid only at the base rate, yet for staff permanently on nights, the extra payments that they get for working night shifts are an intrinsic part of their salary, on which their mortgage payments often depend. It would constitute, on average, a 20% pay cut if they were ill and were paid just at the base rate.

Reducing annual leave entitlement not only amounts to a pay cut but means that staff who rely on their leave to balance caring responsibilities will face additional costs, if they can even continue to work. At the same time, extra child care costs will be even less affordable if enhanced payments for nights and weekends—payments which are intended to recognise their personal sacrifices and the additional costs that these workers incur—are changed.

The consortium is also considering increasing working hours. Once again, this is an effective pay cut, which ignores the fact that so many overworked staff already work longer hours. According to the Royal College of Midwives, 87% of midwives “frequently” or “always” worked more than their contracted hours, and more than half reported that none of those extra hours were paid for. These are emotionally and physically demanding jobs and the consortium risks leaving staff even more tired, or coming into work when they are really too ill to do so, in order not to lose their extra pay.

The south-west is a net importer of NHS professionals, but our trusts risk losing demoralised and under-appreciated staff to other regions where the terms and conditions are more favourable. NHS staff require the same training, dedication and commitment all around the country, so why should my constituents be paid less simply because of where they live, especially when there can be a greater demand for health services in the south-west because of our older population, and when the cost of living in many places is so high?