NHS Long-term Plan

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

A very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. The Secretary of State is attending to the questions put to him in his usual courteous fashion, and I think that is respected. However, I gently point out to the House that this is the first of three ministerial statements today and that there is then further substantive business with which we want to make progress, so I gently encourage colleagues to be economical.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am heartened that Baroness Harding is looking at the staffing side of things, but she does have a mountain to climb. Let me remind the Secretary of State that the last time the NHS went out to recruit GPs, it ended up with fewer GPs at the end of the year than it had had before. That is not to mention the pension cap put in place by his former mentor—or maybe his current mentor—the former Chancellor, which now means that there is a problem with the retention of senior clinical staff. We can add to that list the immigration rules and pay ceiling. Is the Secretary of State lobbying the Home Office and the Treasury, particularly to deal with the £30,000 cap and the pension cap?

[Matt Hancock]

I welcome much of the tone of the hon. Lady’s remarks. The truth is that it is critical to ensure that we have the workforce and the people to deliver the plan. There is a whole section of this plan, as well as ongoing work, to deliver that. I want to clear up this point: in the immigration White Paper published by the Home Secretary before Christmas, as now, there is no cap on recruitment numbers for nurses and doctors. The proposal is that the cap will not necessarily apply within a shortage occupation. We will be recruiting people from around the world to work in our NHS.