§ Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, Central)I beg to move,
That this House, recalling that the Prime Minister has said that the Government has a moral obligation to respond positively to the commitment of nurses not to take industrial action, drawing attention to the remarks made by the present Minister of Health, (Official Report, 15 March 1979, Volume 964, column 800), namely, that nurses came within the same category as the police, the firemen and the members of other services which look after our essential needs, and recalling that in the same debate the present Minister of State at the Home Office, the hon. Member for Aylesbury, said that the Government must respond to public opinion and ensure that the nurses receive the kind of treatment that the country is demanding for them and that nurses should be regarded as a very special case (Official Report, column 756), calls upon Her Majesty's Government to translate into practice these noble sentiments of the present Prime Minister and two of her Ministerial colleagues by granting salary increases as generous as those awarded to policemen, firemen, servicemen and Civil List Annuitants in the last two years, without equivalent deductions for living accommodation.I want to make one point on nurses' pay. The Prime Minister, some weeks ago, called attention to the fact that the Government had a moral obligation to respond positively to the commitment of nurses not to take industrial action. Two other Ministers have made the same kind of commitment The Minister for Health said that the nurses ought to be treated in the same way as firemen, Service men and policemen. The Minister of State, Home Office, made the same kind of commitment to the nurses. The nurses have been betrayed by the Government in exactly the same way—
§ It being Seven o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.