§ 3.42 p.m.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to repeat a Statement which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Security is making in another place. The Statement reads:
"I met representatives of the Staff Side of the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council on April 29 and a deputation (44 strong) from the Royal College of Nursing yesterday. At both meetings the need for an independent inquiry into nurses' pay was urgently pressed upon me. The Royal College asked for an answer to their request in three weeks' time and told me that unless a satisfactory reply was forthcoming they would have to advise their members, after giving proper notice, to terminate their contracts with the National Health Service. I agreed to meet the Staff Side in three weeks' time to give them an answer to this request.
"The Royal College also warmly welcomed the Government's decision to accept the main recommendations of the Briggs Report and asked me to proceed as quickly as possible with its full implementation. I told them that I propose to make a further announcement as soon as possible about the timetable."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement made by my right honourable friend.
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, I am sure the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for what he called a Statement but which I take it was an Answer to the Private Notice Question which I in fact put to Her Majesty's Government. Is he aware that we on this side of the House are very disturbed that so dedicated a profession as the nursing profession has been driven to make threats of such an extreme measure as their resignation from the National Health Service? I think that without doubt throughout the House there is the deepest respect and admiration for the tremendous services that are given by nurses to the National Health 884 Service, and it is a tragedy that they have been forced into this position. Is the noble Lord also aware that this is the inevitable result of yielding to force in industrial relations? The strongest unions get their way, get all that they ask for, the more moderate unions are left behind, and injustice results.
Is he further aware that many nurses are doing a job which is extremely demanding, and in some cases even dangerous, and that they deserve better treatment from the Government? Is he also aware that this threat emphasises the danger of abandoning the kind of fair incomes policy that the last Government were attempting to carry through? We were attempting to seek justice for all. We had set up a Relativities Board which would have dealt with just this sort of situation. We should have been able to refer demands such as are being made by the nurses, and also by the teachers, to a Relativities Board that was fair and independent, and which would have met the very demands that the nurses are making for a fair and impartial inquiry.
§ 3.45 p.m.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord and to your Lordships for not drawing your Lordships' attention to the fact that this is an Answer to a Private Notice Question put down by the noble Lord, but a similar Question had been asked in another place and my right honourable friend had made a Statement, which I was repeating. I take the points made by the noble Lord, but let me be quite frank about the situation. If the nurses are very badly paid—and that was the implication of what he was saying—then surely his Government should bear some responsibility for that situation. Noble Lords opposite cannot have it both ways. If this situation arose as recently as April 29 of this year, then that indicates the state of affairs that must have existed when the last Government went out of office.
My right honourable friend pointed out in another place on May 6 that the Government accepted the main recommendations of the Briggs Report and, to prepare the way for its implementation, invited the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council to negotiate details of improvement in the pay of certain grades. Those grades would cover not only teachers and 885 tutors but ward sisters and staff nurses; but my right honourable friend said that they would have to be within an additional expenditure of something like £18 million. I cannot take the matter any further, my Lords, because I believe I am right in saying that the Whitley Council is meeting at this present moment to discuss the allocation of this money, and I do not know any more than anyone else does as to what is likely to be the outcome of those discussions.
§ LORD AMULREEMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for repeating this Statement, and I would merely comment that it is tragic that the nurses have been forced into the position that they are in now. I know a good deal about the amount of work that they do having worked with them for many years. One thing I should like to suggest is this. Supposing some kind of inquiry is set up, will the Government or the Secretary of State see that a speedy report comes from that inquiry, so that this situation, which we all deplore, may be resolved as quickly as possible?
LORD GRENFELLMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that information which I have, which I believe to be completely reliable, is that young nurses, both male and female, have not sufficient funds at the end of the month to purchase for themselves a decent meal in the canteen of the nurses' home? Does he not think that this is an exceedingly dangerous situation for young men and girls who are working magnificently and very hard in the hospitals, and who badly need those meals? Does the noble Lord not feel that this situation must be taken into account very carefully when consideration is given to the further pay? Otherwise I fear that the National Health Service will break down completely.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, I will certainly convey to my right honourable friend the suggestion he has made and I am sure she will feel that in the interests of the situation facing us such a report must be made known as quickly as possible. I know that my right honourable friend would have considerable sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, has said, but again I want to be perfectly frank: this is not 886 a situation which has arisen in the last few weeks. It has obtained for some considerable time. I do not think that noble Lords opposite (I am not suggesting that the noble Lord is one of them) can lay the whole responsibility and blame on this Government.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords, is my noble friend aware that the nurses have time after time approached successive Conservative Governments? I am well aware of this because I have often been involved, and time after time the Conservative Government have said that they would not take any action at all; that the Government had no power and all had to be left to the Whitley Council. No Conservative Government have ever attempted to help the nurses in the way that they are asking today, and therefore for the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, to get up and pretend that the Conservatives have been so thoughtful of the nurses' condition is, I am afraid, completely false. That is not the history of the nurses' struggle.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I do not think a matter like this is helped very much by scoring political points. We want to try as far as possible to give a better deal to nurses and, as I said, my right honourable friend has suggested a figure of something like £18 million, and the way in which this sum is to be apportioned is being discussed at the present time. It may be enough; it may not be enough. Probably the greatest increase nurses were given was in February, 1970, when they received something like 20 per cent. But that was 1970, and we are now looking very carefully at the situation at the present moment.
§ LORD SLATERMy Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that we have reached a tragic position when our Hospital Service has to depend upon agencies to find the complement of nurses to go into hospitals to attend to patients? This has received wide publicity not only through the Press but through the other mass media. What is being done about these agencies which have been set up to transfer these people to take up duty in the Hospital Service?
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, your Lordships will remember that a Question was put down on this matter 887 a few weeks ago. I went into it very fully at that time, so perhaps your Lordships will forgive me if I do not repeat it. I am speaking entirely from memory but I think only something like 3 per cent. of the qualified nurses engaged in the National Health Service come through agencies. One has to remember that although people complain that these agency nurses get a great deal more money, they do not have the same protection in terms of sick leave, payment while sick, superannuation and holidays that nurses have within the National Health Service.
§ LORD LEATHERLANDMy Lords, will my noble friend represent to his right honourable friend that very speedy action is needed and urge her to take her courage in both hands and cut through any Whitley Council red tape so that the matter can be resolved quickly? It has been unresolved year after year. It is time that something was done now, and the country wants something done. Furthermore, when the matter is considered, will some attention be given to the question of student nurses? They find it impossible to live decently at the present moment, and if student nurses are not encouraged to enter the profession then the future will be even worse than the present.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, in reply to my noble frend, the Royal College of Nursing, which I think has the greater number of nurses as members, has asked my right honourable friend to deal with this matter in three weeks' time. She undertook to do so. If I may say so with very great respect, perhaps we ought to wait for that period to elapse to see what emerges.
LORD GRENVILLE OF EYEMy Lords, may I ask the Government whether they will take into consideration the increase in the cost of living since 1970, when the nurses were given a 20 per cent. increase? Can my noble friend say, if an increase is to given, whether this is to come from National Health funds?
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, in reply to the first part of my noble friend's question, of course there have been other increases since 1970; I did 888 not wish to imply that there had been no other increases. Naturally, the present conditions in terms of the higher cost of living will be taken into account. Regarding the second part of his question, I really cannot give him an answer but I will let him know in due course.
§ LORD ABERDAREMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I was not attempting to score political points, but I think I am justified in pointing out that these wage awards for major sections of workers in the community raise enormously important political issues that go far beyond Party considerations. I think I was justified in pointing out that we were trying to find the answer to this through a relativities board. We believe that only through some such machinery can you in the end get fairness between different groups of workers.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, if I may say so, I was not referring personally to the noble Lord. I thought there was a danger that we might be dealing with this on a political basis. That is what I wanted to avoid.
§ LORD ROBBINSMy Lords, may I put a question on completely non-Party lines? Would the noble Lord agree that the deplorable situation which we are discussing at this moment is typical of what happens to the weaker classes in any community in which inflation is proceeding at the rate at which it has been proceeding in the last two years and the rate at which it is likely to proceed in the next 12 months?
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I would feel inclined to agree with what the noble Lord has said.
§ LORD AUCKLANDMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that all of us will agree that this should not be put in the forefront of Party politics? Would he not also agree that although student nurses have a very strong case indeed, the staff nurse and the nursing sister and those in senior grades are also feeling the pinch? They have responsibilities far greater than their counterparts in industry and commerce. Is this factor also going to be considered?
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I certainly think that this is my right honourable friend's intention. When 889 replying to a question some time ago, I referred to the additional expenditure in terms of increases up to a limit of £18 million and I said that this would incorporate ward nurses, staff nurses and other nursing groups and categories below staff nurse.
§ LORD PLATTMy Lords, would Her Majesty's Government not agree that although the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, made a very important point when he said that this was the kind of thing which is bound to happen when you get runaway inflation such as we have had for a number of years, there is a different factor in regard to the nurses which has not yet been sufficiently stressed? The noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, referred to it—that is, the question of recruitment. Recruitment depends on some kind of balance between the nursing profession and the many other professions now open to women of the kind of age when they become nurses. Unless new rates of pay are going to be—I will not say competitive, because recruits enter nursing for very good reasons other than pay—at least reasonably equal with other professions in which women now engage, we shall have the same problem arising in six months' time.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me, I think that when the implications of the Briggs Report are considered—and as the noble Lord knows, it will be dealing with the whole question of selection, training and the type of duties (both in the hospital and in the community) that nurses will be required to undertake in the future—the whole question of nurses' respective responsibilities will have to be equated with some adequate payment for the changed nature of the job they will be asked to do.
§ LORD LEATHERLANDMy Lords, I do not want to prolong this discussion nor to go into the Briggs Report, but may I ask my noble friend whether, as a result of these present negotiations, the student nurse will get a rise? That is a simple question.
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I understand that their plight will be considered. It really is a matter for the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council to decide how the £18 million is to be used.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy 890 Lords, may I ask my noble friend just one short question—perhaps more rhetorical than anything else. Is it not significant that the two lowest paid professions in this country consist predominantly of women?
§ LORD WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I think it may well be due to the fact that in various fields women have shown a great deal more devotion than men.