§ 47. Mrs. Castleasked the Minister of Health what reply he has sent to the resolution forwarded to him by the Blackburn Trades Council protesting against the deduction made from the pay of hospital cadets attending educational courses.
§ The Minister of Health (Mr. Enoch Powell)The council asked that accepted industrial practice be observed in this matter. I have informed them that it is.
§ Mrs. CastleIs the Minister aware that nursing cadets in Blackburn are having 11s. 6d. deducted from their pay if they attend an educational course on two days a week and that this is almost twice what +they have been awarded recently by way of increase in pay? Is he also aware that some hospital committees have been refusing to make this deduction? Manchester is a case in point. Is he aware that that committee has now received instructions from his Department that it must do so and that Manchester has sent the right hon. Gentleman a protest? In view of this, will the right hon. Gentleman please reconsider this most reactionary practice?
§ Mr. PowellI am aware that these deductions have been the practice for a number of years, and it is a matter in which uniformity of procedure in one part of the country and another is obviously desirable. However, as I told the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) earlier this month, I am considering what alterations, if any, in cadet employment are called for in the light of current conditions of entry into nurse training.