Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Christian Matheson(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
NHS staff do a fantastic job in tough circumstances, and pay restraint has been challenging for many of them. However, given the financial pressures, it is also true that the NHS would not have been able to recruit an additional 30,000 staff since May 2010 without the cap.
Christian Matheson
The NHS is short of 3,500 midwives and 40,000 nurses. What proportion of those numbers does the Secretary of State put down to the public sector pay cap?
Mr Hunt
As I said in my previous answer, without pay restraint we would not have 11,300 more doctors in the NHS and 11,300 more nurses on our wards. The hon. Gentleman will know that we recognise that it was not sustainable to carry on with the 1% rise going forward, which is why we have been given the leeway to have more flexible negotiations next year.