NHS Pay

David Linden Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I, too, pay tribute to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), who secured and opened this debate so eloquently.

As we know and has been said before, this week marks the first anniversary of the beginning of lockdown. This anniversary gives us all the chance to reflect on the past year and the tragedy and hardship that we have all experienced. We have had an opportunity to remember all those who have lost their lives due to the virus and to recognise the grief of their families and friends.

This year has thrown up unprecedented challenges to us all, with people across these islands facing financial hardship, mental health struggles and tragic loss. However, it has been the NHS staff who have seen the very worst of the pandemic. I pay tribute to the hard work and sheer dedication of NHS staff across Scotland and, indeed, the rest of the UK who have worked tirelessly during the pandemic. They include the nurses at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, the doctors at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, the caterers at the New Victoria Hospital, the auxiliaries at Stobhill Hospital, and the cleaners at Lightburn Hospital. Every single one of them has put in a shift and deserves our thanks and recognition.

I also thank all those working in vaccination centres across Scotland, including the armed forces, who have been utterly invaluable. The vaccination numbers have been truly astonishing, with 2,214,672 first doses administered in Scotland as of yesterday. I particularly want to thank the staff working in the six vaccination centres across Glasgow, including in my own constituency at Easterhouse. After a difficult year, we can see light at the end of this tunnel. It is clear today that we are all thankful for the work of NHS staff during this crisis, but, as many Members have said, warm words alone are not enough.

I have sat here today and listened to Members from different parts of the room—I would not say all parts of the House, given that there is only one Conservative Member here—the Minister—and I remain to be convinced about how much attention she has paid to the debate. All Members have lavished praise on the NHS and its staff. The Prime Minister stood outside 10 Downing Street and clapped for the NHS, but, as has also been said, nurses and doctors cannot be paid in rounds of applause. The NHS has faced a once-in-a-lifetime event. Its staff have risked their lives facing a previously unknown disease and now the UK Government’s proposed financial recognition falls way short of what is acceptable.

We know that this UK Government have been incompetent throughout the pandemic—not delivering on vital PPE, handing out contracts to friends and Tory donors, producing a test-and-trace system that has proven ineffective, locking down too late and endangering too many people’s lives. Now, with the vaccination programme in full swing and the UK Government publishing their road map out of lockdown, it seems that they have all forgotten about the NHS staff who work every day to save lives.

We in the SNP are proud of our record on NHS pay. Staff receive the most favourable pay settlement anywhere in the UK. Moreover, Scottish nurses are the best paid in the UK. To give an example, the salary of a band 5 nurse at the top of their pay scale is currently 3.38% higher than the English equivalent, and social care staff in Scotland are already paid better than those in England and Wales, but we have not stopped there. In Scotland, the SNP Government have delivered a £500 bonus—a thank-you payment—to NHS staff after an unprecedented year treating and responding to covid-19.

The £500 payment is for Scotland’s NHS and social care workers employed during the pandemic. It includes staff who have had to shield or have since retired and includes final-year nursing students who have worked on temporary contracts during the pandemic. The Scottish Government have repeatedly called on the British Government to allow the payment to be exempt from income tax. Sadly, the ability to exempt the bonus in this way is not within the current gift or the current powers of the Scottish Government.

We in the SNP just want a simple payment of £500 to go to all NHS staff in Scotland, to reward them for their unprecedented work during the pandemic. The best and most straightforward way of doing that is by exempting the payments from income tax and national insurance. I again call on the UK Government to step up and ensure that that £500 is exempt from income tax and national insurance. The UK Government have to put their money where their mouth is and truly recognise the sacrifice of our NHS staff, not just with claps, but with cash.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing the debate on this important issue and giving me the opportunity to talk about our NHS staff. I come from a family of doctors and nurses, and before I became an MP I spent years working in hospitals and other NHS organisations, particularly to make the NHS a better place to work, because NHS staff are our health system’s greatest asset. In normal times, they go the extra mile, but in the pandemic they have done so time and again.

I welcome many of the points made by hon. Members this morning. Many have talked about the huge sacrifices that staff have made during the pandemic—not only them, but their families. Some, for instance, moved out of their family home to ensure they did not bring coronavirus home with them.

Colleagues have talked about not only nurses but other members of the healthcare workforce, including healthcare assistants, who are often overlooked in these conversations but are a vital part of our health service.

Some Members have talked about vacancies in the NHS workforce, of which I am well aware, and I will provide some reassurance on that in my remarks. Hon. Members have talked about PPE, but I do not see it as a choice between paying the NHS workforce and providing PPE—we must do both. PPE is not a choice; it is essential to protect those working in the NHS, and to me, it is non-negotiable. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), spoke about the need to invest in our workforce. I wholeheartedly agree with that, and the Government are doing so.

As I said, NHS staff are the NHS’s greatest asset. In fact, the NHS is, in essence, its people. The Government are determined to ensure that the NHS can retain and recruit the staff it needs. Over the last few years, the have worked with trade unions to deliver multi-year pay and contract-reform deals for more than a million of our NHS staff. Over the last three years, nurses specifically have seen their starting salaries increase by more than 12%. We have increased the lowest starting salary in the NHS by more than 60%.

We all know that our NHS staff work around the clock to provide care. That is why, on top of the basic salary, NHS staff earn premium rates of pay for working at night and over the weekend, and for agreed overtime. That increases individual pay by around £4,000 on average. On top of that, the NHS reward rightly includes benefits that go beyond the statutory minimum on holidays, sick pay and pensions.

We have also invested in our junior doctors, recognising the huge contribution that they make to the NHS. The deal that we have agreed with the British Medical Association improves junior doctors’ working lives, protecting rest requirements and reducing the number of consecutive shifts worked. By the end of that deal, junior doctor pay scales will have increased by at least 8.2%, and around one in eight junior doctors will receive more as they reach a new higher pay point to reflect their level of responsibility. For our nurses and non-medical staff, this is the final year of the multi-year “Agenda for Change” deal. We have asked the independent pay review bodies to make recommendations on the pay of our NHS staff for 2021-22.

As the Government have set out, the coronavirus pandemic has placed a huge strain on public finances, and the economic outlook remains uncertain. The Government’s written evidence to the independent pay review bodies set out that, in settling the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS budgets, the Government anticipated a headline pay award of 1% for NHS staff. That compares with the pay freeze for the wider public sector and, as we all know, with the context of many people facing unemployment and pay cuts in many parts of our economy.

[David Linden]

The Minister is setting out the bleak fiscal picture for the Government and the tough financial choices that have to be made. Will she explain, then, why they have seen fit to invest in more nuclear warheads but not in pay for NHS staff?

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that although the Government have to make some difficult decisions, various things are non-negotiable. One of those things is ensuring that the NHS is there for all our constituents who need it, and another thing is ensuring that we have the defence that we need to protect people from threats from overseas.

Let me return to the matter in hand and set out a bit more about the process that we are going through on NHS pay. As I mentioned, the evidence that we recently submitted to the NHS pay review covered a wide range of data that was relevant to the decisions that that pay review body will make. The pay review bodies themselves are independent advisory bodies made up of industry experts. Their recommendations are based on a comprehensive assessment of evidence from a range of stakeholders, including trade unions. The wide range of factors that they will consider includes the cost of living, recruitment and retention in the NHS, affordability and value for money for the taxpayer, and comparisons with wider public and private sector earnings.

As the pay review bodies are independent, I cannot, and would not wish to, pre-empt their recommendations. We have asked the NHS pay review body, and the review body for doctors and dentists, to report later in the spring, and we will carefully consider their recommendations when we receive them.