Schedule 1 - Constitution of public benefit corporations
Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill
8:55 am
Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)
My hon. Friend has picked up a point, and I will come to it in a moment, because—notwithstanding what the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) said—my understanding of amendment No.153 is that, regardless of where bank or agency nurses come from, if they do not have a contract of more than 12 months with that corporation, they will not be eligible to vote. My hon. Friend pointed out that, contrary to what the hon. Member for Ealing, North said, not all agency nurses do extra work in the NHS. I have a problem with that amendment, because the period of more than 12 months is too long and will unfairly impact on corporation staff who have a stakehold in that corporation but who are disfranchised.
The Government may, with reason, say that if part of a work force is transitory because it is sourced through an agency or because the trust employs staff directly only on short-term contracts of less than 12 months, which may or may not be renewed, those people will be disfranchised. If a trust's policy was to employ some staff, not as agency nurses or as bank staff, but as employees on short-term contracts of, say, six months that are open for renewal by the trust at the end of each six-month period, that could be an open-ended process, and under amendment No.153, I assume that staff could work, for example, for up to five years. However, because their contracts are only for six months but are renewable, under amendment No.153 they would presumably, for the whole period they work in that hospital, not be eligible to be part of
the constituency. That is wrong. Had the Government tabled the amendment and specified a month, so that it applied to transitory workers who came to the trust for a month on a contract and then moved on, I would have understood and accepted that that is too flexible and disruptive. A person working only for a month for a corporation does not have commitment. I would understand that. However, more than 12 months seems too long, and disfranchises too many people.