§ 11. Mr. SteelTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the figure for the number of student nurses in Scotland; and how that figure is expected to change over the next three years.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythSince 1979 the number of qualified nurses employed by health boards in Scotland has increased by more than 30 per cent.?—from 26,929 to 35,110. The number of student nurses in training has increased by 15 per cent. At 30 September 1987 there were 8,694 student nurses in training in Scotland. The number of student nurses over the next three years will be affected by a range of factors, but we intend to maintain our splendid record in this area.
§ Mr. SteelDoes the Minister accept that falling school rolls will make it difficult to keep up the number of recruited student nurses? That is, perhaps, something that the Government can do little about. What effect does he think the poll tax will have on that, given that Scottish student nurses will have to pay it for at least a year, while English student nurses will not? Will that not have a devastating effect on student nurse recruitment north of the border?
§ Mr. ForsythIf it were true it might, but it is not true. As the right hon. Gentleman must know, we have responded to the Project 2,000 proposals and there is no question of the status of student nurses in Scotland being altered in 1990 or of there being a period when student nurses are put in a different position from anyone else. The right hon. Gentleman might have taken the opportunity to welcome the new £32 million hospital in his constituency, which will be opened this week by Her Majesty The Queen, which will have a new training centre for student nurses to ensure that student nurses are recruited and equipped to meet the needs of his health board and his constituency.
§ Mr. StrangSurely the Minister recognises that as things stand student nurses in Scotland, unlike their English counterparts, will have to pay the poll tax in its first year of operation. Surely that is anomalous and unfair. Are the Government prepared to look at that again?
§ Mr. ForsythThat is the unsophisticated version of the argument that the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel) was making. Student nurses and every other group in Scotland will pay the poll tax before those in England [Interruption.]—the community charge—because we are introducing the 358 community charge a year earlier. Why does the hon. Gentleman not ask me about the fact that student nurses will stop paying rates in Scotland a year earlier than in England? [Interruption.]
§ Mr. Bill WalkerDoes my hon. Friend agree that Scotland's splendid record for training nurses has been continued and improved under the Conservative Government, and that one of the things that we are so proud of is that in every part of the world one will always meet nurses who have been trained in Scotland? Will my hon. Friend also confirm that nurses, like everyone else who will be required to pay the community charge, will, where their incomes so merit, receive rebates, so all the Opposition's fears are just nonsense?
§ Mr. ForsythMy hon. Friend is correct about rebates, but as we have increased the pay of student nurses so substantially they will find themselves moving up the income scale. Those hon. Members who shouted out that student nurses do not pay rates either do not live in the real world or assume that all student nurses live in hospital accommodation, which they do not. The end of rating will be taken into account.