HC Deb 07 February 1979 vol 962 cc502-9
Mr. Moyle

I beg to move amendment No. 49, in page 22, line 33, at end insert— ' 2A. Orders under paragraph 2 shall provide for persons suffering loss of employment in consequence of the dissolution of any of the replaced statutory bodies (whether or not they are entitled to payments in respect of that loss of employment under legislation relating to redundancy) to be entitled, in such circumstances as the order may specify, to compensation payable by the Central Council on scales laid down by the Secretary of State with the approval of the Minister for the Civil Service. 2B. Any dispute arising as to whether or not—

  1. (a) the terms of employment with one of the new statutory bodies are, or would be, 503 less favourable to a person than those on which he was employed at the time when the employment was offered to him; or
  2. (b) whether or not a person's refusal of employment with one of those bodies was reasonable,
and any dispute concerning the compensation referred to in paragraph 2A, shall be referred to and determined by an industrial tribunal.'. This amendment takes up the point raised in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett). He was anxious to ensure proper provision for compensating anybody involved in loss of office as a result of the supersession of the existing nursing profession governing bodies by the Central Council and the national boards. I stress that we do not envisage any redundancy as a result, but, to give an absolute sense of security to the existing employees of the governing bodies, we have tabled this amendment. I am sure that we all feel that the officers of the existing governing bodies have done a good job. In no way would we wish to threaten their security of employment.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

8.59 p.m.

Dr. Vaughan

This is an immensely important moment in the life of a Bill which is very important for the future of the nursing profession. It is only right to acknowledge the help of the professional groups during the passage of the Bill. We hope that it will give them great satisfaction when it finally reaches them.

The hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt) referred earlier to the widespread agreement in the House on this Bill. That has been apparent in our debates and is shown also in the present form of the Bill.

This has not been an easy Bill. The nursing professions were not totally agreed on what they wanted. That was made clear in the discussions and by the various representations that have been made to us about the future of health visitors. Our policy throughout has been to safeguard minority groups while not in any way undermining the effectiveness of the future Central Council. Between us all we have achieved that.

Hundreds of people have written to us. It is of great credit to the writers that these were not all standard letters. The majority of the letters were written individually. The writers set out their own experiences on the matters that they felt strongly about that appeared in the Bill.

I pay tribute to the representatives of the nurses, especially the Royal College of Nursing and the midwives and health visitors who listened to our proceedings in Committee week after week and made their views known to us afterwards.

The House may take some credit for the way in which the Bill has emerged and may feel some satisfaction. It is a much better measure now than when it first came to us. There are some issues that we hope those in another place will consider carefully. We have clearly identified the issues. I hope that their Lordships will put back into the Bill some of the insertions that we made in Committee and that the Bill will be enacted in that form. We may all take some pride in the Bill.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Pavitt

I echo the words of the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) and say that this has been a constructive Bill. Its passage has been harder than we thought and there have been some disappointments. We were hoping that by the time our consideration on Report was completed certain problems would be ironed out. That has not been so.

I pay tribute, as did the hon. Member for Reading, South, to the tremendous amount of interest that has been shown by the professions and to the great help that we have had from them. My right hon. Friend and his Department have been prepared at any time to give information and briefing when differences have occurred and when we have required further information. That information has been given in Committee and between sittings of the Committee.

I am concerned about the speed of implementation. I congratulate the Government on bringing forward the Bill early in the Session. It should have been introduced during 1978, but that proved not to be possible. It is vital that the Bill gets on to the statute book at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Bill is part of a changing system in nursing. At present nursing is in a state of ferment. There is tremendous pressure being brought to bear on recruitment, pay and career structures. The implementation of the Briggs report is a vital part of our further examination of the career structure. These matters were first brought before us in 1968. That is why it is so important that the Bill comes into operation speedily. Without the education background, the further changes that I envisage in the next four or five years will be delayed. Therefore, speed is of tremendous importance.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. He has had to occupy the crease for quite a long time today, as he did in Committee. I know that that is part of a Minister's job. Ministers are paid more for their job than Back Benchers, so it may be right that they do a little more work. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend's patience and the way in which he has dealt with some of the arguments that have been advanced in Committee and on Report.

In the negotiations it is vital that the various organisations reach agreement and manage to resolve the few small difficulties that remain. Unless they can do that, we in this place are powerless to give effect to the Bill as we would wish.

9.4 p.m.

Mr. Hodgson

We come to the end of what was supposed to be an uncontroversial Bill. In fact, we have had eight Committee sittings, and goodness knows how many hundreds of letters have been received by hon. Members, especially by those who considered the Bill in Committee.

I echo the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) but I add two further comments. I regret that they have a slightly discordant note. I do not wish to spoil the happy atmosphere at the end of our discussion. I refer to the Minister's attitude to the general public and their place on the national boards. By introducing amendments, the right hon. Gentleman sought to shuffle out the public interest without referring to that intention in his introduction. More important, there is the position of the disciplinary committees and the make-up of their membership.

In Committee the Minister gave an undertaking on the question of no fewer than a quarter of the members being from the profession concerned It was understood by the Opposition that the Minister wished to consider further the meaning of the word "profession". He used the word "profession". We understood that a clear commitment was given to a quarter of the membership being made up of persons from the same profession as that of the person whose case was being heard. By comparison, the Minister's amendment was a weak and feeble child. When I drew his attention to that fact he did not have the courtesy to answer. He immediately pushed the amendment through on the next and we went on to the next amendment.

Apart from those two minor provisos, about which I am unhappy at this stage, I thank the many people from outside the House who brought to our deliberations expert insight, knowledge and help. I wish the nursing profession in the United Kingdom all success in its new guise.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. Molloy

When the Bill was first printed and we read it and related its contents to the Briggs recommendations, it seemed as though we were in for a lengthy and difficult time. As a result of the almost free manner in which the Committee operated, we were able to get to the quintessence of many of the problems. There was remarkable cooperation—although members of the Committee were apprehensive—from representatives of nurses, midwives and health visitors in the Health Service.

From the remarkable interest shown by those organisations, as well as by the big trade unions, NUPE and COHSE, we were able to understand more quickly their intentions as they understood the Bill. I have served on many Committees in the House of Commons, and I thought the manner in which the professional organisations and the trade unions operated in making their recommendations, and in requesting to see us so that we should understand their points of view, was almost a classical example of how the House of Commons should work.

It is right to underline the part played by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, his many courtesies and patience, and the great way in which he was prepared to help. He acknowledged that sometimes we had to push him rather hard in the direction in which he did not want to go. He was able to understand that it was right and proper that the points agreed to by the majority of the Committee should be conceded, especially when they represent an across-the-board opinion, with no political influence other than what Members of Parliament genuinely feel.

Finaly, the aims and objects of this Bill will provide great assistance to the profession that it is intended to help. As a result, its members will provide an even better Health Service for the British people.

9.9 p.m.

Mr. Moyle

I moved the Third Reading formally in the hope that it would help the House generally if I spoke in answer to points raised on Third Reading. I am pleased that I adopted that course as one or two points have been raised upon which I should like to comment.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt) and Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) for their words of appreciation. I devote most of my appreciation to the fact that we have now reached the end of the Third Reading. I hope that we have introduced a measure which will enable the professions to go forward in unity and co-ordination and apply the Briggs report.

I believe that never has a measure which was agreed by all the parties caused such excitement during its passage through the House. There has also been a very concerned involvement by the profession in the country in all our deliberations. I can remember no other occasion on which so many members of the public have attended the proceedings in the Committee, filling all the available space from start to finish. Indeed, there were members of the public queueing up to fill vacant seats.

I will pass on to members of my Department the kind words of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South con- cerning their work. They have worked hard on the Bill because they believed in the essential principles of the measure that they were putting forward. We have tried to follow a policy of giving the maximum amount of information to all Members in Committee to assist them in their deliberations.

In this brief Third Reading debate, hon. Members on each side have also expressed their admiration and thanks to the professional groups for the help they have given and for the way in which that help has been extended. It only reinforces my experience during the many meetings of the Briggs co-ordinating committee, in which I worked very closely with all the professions concerned. I well recall the courteous way in which they worked hard to provide solutions.

This is a Bill to which hon. Members in all parts of the House have made contributions. Although the basic drafting of the Bill was the work of parliamentary draftsmen, approved by Ministers, the Bill now contains a number of amendments submitted in Committee by hon. Members, including a number of Opposition amendments. I have no hesitation in saying that, in my view, the amendments have in most cases improved the Bill.

There are still some unhappy health visitors and we have an unhappy hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Hodgson). The hon. Gentleman is upset at the thought that disciplinary committees have not a firm commitment to one-quarter of the membership coming from the group of the profession to which the accused, if I may use that term, belongs. The hon. Gentleman suggested that my amendment was a feeble one. I do not think that this is so. In terms of my amendment, there is no reason why all the members of the disciplinary committee, when it is hearing, for example, a disciplinary case against a district nurse, should not be district nurses. The amendment provides a flexible solution to the problem and I think that this is the way forward.

There has on occasion—particularly in Committee and sometimes also on Report—been a tendency for some hon. Members to try to nanny the nursing professions. I believe that the more freedom we give them to work out their solutions to practical problems, the more likely is the principle of the unity of these professions to work in practice.

There is still the problem of overcoming the sense of unease felt by health visitors in particular, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South that the key to solving the problem is agreement. Everything is possible if we can get a substantial measure of agreement among the bodies represented on the Briggs co-ordinating committee as to where the frontiers should be drawn between minority and majority interests. This is a problem which will engage their Lordships, but the key to it all is agreement. In this respect we shall have to wait very much on the professions. With that thought, I leave the Bill with the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.