§ Mr. Mulleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), Official Report, 24 November column 358, if he will ensure that decisions on National Health Service expenditure take fully into consideration the pay claim for 1982 of the Royal College of Nursing and the need to bridge the gap structure between the pay of nurses and comparable occupations.
§ Dr. VaughanI am not aware that the staff side of the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council—of which the Royal College of Nursing is a constituent member—has yet submitted its pay claim for 1982. The relationships between nurses' pay and that of comparable occupations is one of a number of questions which I am hoping to pursue in the further discussions I am trying to arrange with both sides of the Whitley Council on the longer-term arrangements for nurses' pay.