Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 13 January 2016 to Question 21676, whether the new junior doctors' contract would be an improvement on the pay structure previously developed without the addition of transition protection.

The new Junior Doctor contract is an improvement on the current contract in the pay structure. All doctors will get equal pay for equal work, rather than being paid for time served, to create a genuinely level playing field for men and women. The contract remains within a cost-neutral envelope excluding any workforce growth and the cost of protection sits outside that; this has not changed. There are a number of improvements in the final contract from the November 2015 offer. Some were agreed with the British Medical Association during negotiations in December 2015 and January 2016 and are reflected in the summary offer of 12 February 2016 - for example, restructuring of the nodal pay points with larger basic pay increases occurring earlier in career progression. Some were as a result of the Secretary of State’s consideration of the draft final contract, as set out in the Equality Analysis, and include improvements to the transitional protection arrangements themselves, providing that the three years of pay protection be extended to six years for those working at 0.5 of whole time.