NHS Pay

Helen Whately Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The Labour party supports people taking legal industrial action, and if the hon. Lady supports public sector workers, she should be joining us in the Division Lobby later.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the pay restraint over the past few years has been uncomfortable but necessary, in order to bring Government spending—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

[Helen Whately]

None of us would want anyone to be paid any less, but it has been difficult but necessary, in order to control the overspending by Government and put right the financial mess that the country was left in after the last time the hon. Gentleman’s party was in government.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I agreed with the hon. Lady’s comments at the time of the debate on the Gracious Speech, when she said:

“I’m of the view we need to look at public sector pay in the light of increasing inflation.”

If those were her comments then, she should be joining us in the Division Lobby this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I have given way to the hon. Lady once and I have been generous, so I hope she will forgive me if I do not give way again.

We have heard several examples of what vacancies in the NHS mean for services. We have heard about the walk-in centre in Wirral, but Macmillan Cancer Support warned last week that bigger workloads and vacancies in key roles are creating “unrelenting pressure” on the cancer care workforce and that some cancer patients are attending A&E because they cannot get help elsewhere. I have mentioned midwifery, and this summer we revealed that almost half of maternity units closed their doors to patients at some point in 2016, with understaffing often used as the justification. Earlier this year, I revealed FOI requests that showed a rising number of cancelled children’s operations, with 38% of trusts citing workforce shortages as the reason for those cancelled operations. Visit any hospital and doctors will talk about rota gaps, and the latest NHS staff survey reveals that 47% of staff view current staffing levels as insufficient to allow them to do their job properly.

Not only is the pay cap unfair on hard-working staff who are struggling to make ends meet, but it is unfair on patients, who suffer the direct consequences of under-staffed, overstretched services. We look forward to the Health Secretary telling us how he will use his newfound flexibility. We look forward to his telling us what remit he will set for the NHS Pay Review Body in the coming days. He has had all summer to think through his response to these demands. I know that he got into a big argument with Professor Stephen Hawking, but we will leave that there. The Health Secretary sets the remit—he tells the pay review body what it is able to provide—so we look to him to tell us what he is going to ask it to provide. We want him to tell us today when he will publish the remit letter.

[Helen Whately]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I have been very generous to Government Members, and the hon. Lady has already had a chance.

The pay cap must be scrapped, and it must be done by giving the NHS extra investment. The self-defeating nature of this policy means that we are already spending £3 billion on agency workers, and the Government have found billions for corporation tax and inheritance tax giveaways, so this new flexibility must mean more investment. We will not tolerate hospital bosses being forced to cut services to find these funds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I will give way to some Conservative Members.

[Helen Whately]

Opposition Members are raising concerns about staff shortages and about recruiting staff from overseas. I am sure we all have hospitals serving our constituents that have had to go overseas to recruit. We do not want to see that; we want to see nurses trained in the UK and British nurses. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has taken action to remove the cap on nurses in training so that we can train more home-grown nurses.

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right about that, because at the heart of this problem is getting the training of nurses right and making sure we train enough nurses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I will not try to compete with my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), but one reason why I am speaking today—and why I often speak on healthcare matters in this place—is that I, too, come from a family of doctors and nurses who work in the NHS. It was wanting to make the NHS better that first got me involved in politics, and I care very deeply about our national health service.

I welcome the Government’s decision to lift the pay cap, and to do it in a responsible way, but it has served a purpose. Back in 2010, the pay cap was necessary. Indeed, there was a pay cap in the Labour party’s 2010 manifesto as well. Labour also recognised that a level of pay restraint was necessary because of the financial situation in which the country found itself. Pay restraint was urgently needed, because wages are a significant driver of costs in the NHS and the wider public sector, and the public finances were running totally out of control. The pay cap was part of the restoration of financial discipline, of confidence in our economy and of growth, which we are now enjoying. Thanks to that growth, millions more people are now in work.

It is right to lift the pay cap now, but it must be done with caution because this country still has a sizeable deficit and increasing levels of debt. We are still paying off large amounts of debt interest. We therefore have to be responsible in the way we make commitments on public sector spending. I am very concerned about Labour’s plans for the pay increases that they would be willing to fund. They seem to involve an open promise and a potentially bottomless pit. Labour Members will not tell us how much the pay increases would be, but we know that the proposals in their manifesto would have cost between £6 billion and £9 billion extra. It was not clear where that money was to come from. Time and again, we heard that it would come from corporation tax, but we know that when we put up corporation tax we reduce the tax take, so that policy would not have funded the increases. I am concerned that Labour Members are making an irresponsible promise that they would not be able to deliver, were they in a position to try.

I welcome the more responsible approach taken by this Government. It will not involve a blanket pay rise; rather, it will draw on the guidance of the next pay review body for the health service and make pay rises where they are most necessary. In my constituency in the south-east, for example, I am aware that the high cost of living affects the people on the lowest pay in the public sector, and I hope that they will be recognised in the pay review. We should definitely draw on the expertise of that body when making proposals for public sector pay, rather than just trying to score debating points and get the right headlines.

In my experience of about a decade working in many parts of the NHS, including hospitals, and as an MP, I have spoken to people working in the NHS and found that pay is rarely, if ever, the No. 1 concern. The issues that come up much more frequently include having time to care—

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. She clearly wishes to champion nurses and their selfless desire to serve the public, but does she acknowledge that nurses in my constituency have to visit a food bank after a long shift at the hospital? Should not their selflessness in wanting to serve the public be recognised by their being paid what they deserve so that they can fund their families and their livelihoods?

[Helen Whately]

I genuinely believe that all members of the public sector should be paid a fair amount, and that is exactly what the pay review body will report on in its next report.

I was making the important point that pay has not been the No. 1 issue among nurses and other healthcare professionals when I have asked them what worries them most. Instead, they mentioned having time to care; being part of a stable team rather than having a high turnover of staff and lots of temporary staff; being listened to by the people they work with, particularly the senior people in the institution; and being valued. Being valued is not all to do with pay; it is much more to do with the way they are treated. In fact, I remember very well talking to one nurse whose line manager had not talked to her since the previous appraisal. To me, that is an extraordinary way of not valuing a member of staff; everyone should have regular conversations with their manager about how they are progressing.

Part of the problem in some NHS institutions is, therefore, in my view, not good enough management practices. If they were improved, we would have a much better environment for staff to work in, and I would very much like to see more attention paid to creating the right environment for healthcare workers, as well as ensuring that there is a fair and sensible pay settlement.