Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will reinstate the student nurse bursary.

The Government has no plans to reinstate the bursaries for nursing degrees in England. The tuition fee model means universities can offer more training places removing the cap that was in place under the previous centrally funded system. Eligible pre-registration nursing and midwifery students can now receive more funding than under the National Health Service bursary system through tuition fee loans and living cost support from the Student Loans Company.

The interim People Plan published on 3 June 2019 sets out some of the steps needed to ensure the NHS have the staff they need to deliver high quality care, including growing our nursing workforce by 40,000 in the next five years.

Nurse education, training and funding in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is a matter for each of the devolved administrations in that country.