I had a little experience as a nurse, and when I spoke on the Second Reading of the National Health Service (Scotland) Bill I had in my possession a letter from a Glasgow nurse, whom I did not know personally. She said that although remuneration was important there were other things far more important to many nurses, such as human relationships. Until there is a change in the system where the probationer is on the lowest rung and the nurse who started a few months before her has some power over her, and so on up to the rank of charge sister, we shall have to contend with the difficulties of recruitment and wastage.

I see that by Clause 2 regional nurse training committees may be set up, and I am sorry that the word "may" has been put into the Bill. This provision is one of the most important if we are to succeed in getting the best conditions for the nurses who are recruited. I wonder whether these committees will have any jurisdiction over the entrance examination for nurses. I have in mind the case of a highly intelligent girl from my own village who went to one of the Glasgow infirmaries. She sat for this entrance examination and she was rejected. Not only was her intelligence high, but she had a very pleasant disposition and was rather nice to look at. I feel that the nursing profession in Glasgow lost a very good recruit. I should like an examination made of the examinations which are set for recruits. It is not that I want a lower standard of entrance to this very important profession, but I want to ensure that those people who are willing to enter it and who have high intelligence are not kept out because of some narrow examinations.

In Clause 4 (2) a suggestion is made for a scheme of training and examination. When I first read it I wondered if this was going to mean a lowering of the standard. I am still not very sure. In educational matters I am all against rigidity in any form of examination, but we have to be very careful that we have a really good standard in this matter of the training of nurses. I am wondering if this has been put into the Bill because of the difficulty in isolation hospitals. Perhaps the Lord Advocate will consider this point when he comes to reply, or it may be raised on the Committee stage.

If we are to introduce this new type of examination, and have two types running at the same time, how is it going to be regarded by the nursing profession? Will there not be a feeling amongst some that the original form of training and examination will continue to be regarded as the better form, and when it comes to promotion will there be any differentiation between those people who have had different training and different examinations? These are matters which we must examine during the Committee stage of this Bill.

Clause 7 sets up a Mental Nurses Committee. I understand that there may be some objection to this Clause by nurses in Scotland. My experience—and it was a very short experience during one of my university holidays when many Scottish students worked as I did in a mental hospital for two months—of mental hospitals and through contacts with a big mental hospital in my Constituency tells me that there are problems for nurses in mental work that are not found in any other type of hospital work in Scotland. For that reason I feel that it is an excellent thing that this Mental Nurses Committee is to be set up.

The last point I want to make is on registration of nurses training abroad. There has been criticism from our nurses in Scotland. In going carefully through the Bill, I find that there are safeguards that will ensure that those nurses, who have had their training abroad, will not be of a lower standard and will be at least comparable with the standards of the nurses trained in Britain. On this question of reciprocity, I feel that we in this House cannot legislate for what other countries may do. It is true that we want to keep our nurses here if possible, but this is a democratic country and if our nurses wish to go to other countries then I hope that, since we have given a lead in the British House of Commons, it may be followed in other countries, and that there will be legislation that will allow of this reciprocity.

In the teaching profession we have a scheme for the exchange of teachers with the Commonwealth and lately with the United States of America. That year of exchange is very good. I hope that in the future, as a result of the recommendations of the councils that are being set up under the Bill, we might encourage exchanges of nurses between this country and other countries.

The committees will have upon them a good proportion of the people who are actually doing the nursing work in Scotland. That is of the very greatest importance. I sometimes wish that in many of our industries the councils connected with them would have a greater proportion of workers as their members. That is one of the reasons why I welcome the provisions of the Bill. I hope that the Bill will also help the recruitment of nurses and, in a very short time, will cut down the wastage that takes place.

Nurses, in Scotland and anywhere else in the world, deserve the greatest help that they can get from anybody who can give it. I have not had the experience of being a patient and having a nurse to look after me, but I have had some experience of conditions in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary where my brother is at the present time. His praise of the nurses who have been looking after him and the other patients in that hospital is very high indeed. These women all over Scotland do very fine and important work. I hope that the Bill will help their work and that they will be given every encouragement in the future by all the departments which have anything to do with them.