§ 6. Mr. WhittingdaleIf he will make a statement on the study which he has commissioned on pay rates in the NHS. [13814]
§ Mr. DobsonI have ordered a survey of earnings in the national health service, to make available to the Government information that any employer would want to have. The previous Government stopped collecting that information, presumably on the basis of the motto, "Ignorance is strength".
§ Mr. WhittingdaleIn conducting his survey, does the Secretary of State intend to take account of the effect of introducing a minimum wage, which is bound to cost the NHS tens of millions of pounds? Can he guarantee that the NHS budget will be increased to cover that cost and that it will not be met at the expense of patient care?
§ Mr. DobsonIt is precisely so that we can advise the Treasury and the rest of the Government on the possible 696 impact on the national health service of a national minimum wage that we are collecting the information. It was the hon. Gentleman's own stupid, ignorant Government—for want of a better expression—who, for their own benighted reasons, stopped collecting the information; yet Tory Ministers from the Department of Health came to the Dispatch Box and announced figures of the impact on the national health service of a national minimum wage. As they did not know how many people were earning £2.50, £3, £3.50, £4 or whatever an hour in the national health service, that was pure speculation, like all the rest of the Tory attacks on a national minimum wage.
§ Mr. HinchliffeOn NHS pay rates, may I take my right hon. Friend back to the answer that he gave a few moments ago to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) about the formula for allocating resources to individual health authorities? What consideration has he given to removing the market forces factor from the current formula, which assumes that NHS wages are low in generally low-waged areas, such as my constituency, and badly penalises those areas?
§ Mr. DobsonWe have changed the arrangements for this year and we are considering next year's. To the people who graced—if that is the word—the Treasury Benches for the previous 18 years, all I can say is that I am astonished that they are not ashamed to acknowledge, let alone claim, to the House that a substantial number of the 1 million hard-working people in the national health service are likely to be paid less than what would be a reasonable national minimum wage. They are saying that our national health service depends on paying poverty wages, when they know that poverty makes people ill.
§ Rev. Martin SmythWill the Secretary of State confirm that the Unison recommendation of £4.42 an hour as the national minimum wage would be more than what is earned by 96.4 per cent. of ancillary workers in the health service; by 5 per cent. of clerical and administrative workers; and by 8 per cent. of professional and technical workers? Does he acknowledge that, if those workers were not paid properly, the health service would suffer?
§ Mr. DobsonExactly. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Low Pay Commission is currently considering what the national minimum wage should be. As he points out to Conservative Members, who sit on the same side of the House as him but with whom lie is generally not associated, I am glad to say, a substantial number of badly paid people in the national health service nevertheless provide services that are vital if the highly paid professionals are to be able to do their jobs properly. Once again, it is shameful that Tories should be asking me what the impact on the national health service of a national minimum wage is likely to be, when they are apparently proud of paying poverty wages to people who provide treatment and care for the sick and injured.
§ Mr. SkinnerDoes my right hon. Friend agree that it is staggering to hear the Tories attacking low-paid workers when a previous Tory Secretary of State for Health, who later became Chancellor of the Exchequer, has now got four extra moonlighting jobs, picking up something approaching £500,000 a year? There are gangs 697 of them on the Tory Benches, all lining their pockets with outside interests, and they have got the cheek to attack low-paid workers in the national health service. Gang of hypocrites!
§ Mr. DobsonAs my hon. Friend points out, yet again, the Tories are for the few rather than the many, and we are proud to be for the many rather than the few.