Orders of the Day — National Health Service (Nursing, Medical and Other Professional Staffs)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 27 March 1962.

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Photo of Mr Charles Loughlin Mr Charles Loughlin , Gloucestershire West 12:00, 27 March 1962

The Secretary of State for Scotland said that he thought it was time he intervened in the debate. Having listened to him, I wonder why. He has not thrown in one new idea to the discussions we have had on this question.

I was interested in his suggestion that the Government are pursuing a policy solely in the interests of the nursing staffs. I wonder how the Minister squares up this question of inflation with the case quoted by his hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), who talked about a mental hospital in his constituency. I remind the Secretary of State of what the hon. Member said. He quoted the rates of wages received by the adult male nurses in that hospital. He said that the adult male nurse received £8 14s. a week. Does the right hon. Gentleman imagine that he is acting in the best interests of such a male nurse by refusing him an increase of more than 2½ per cent? Is this the weird type of argument that the Minister has sunk to in pursuing a policy that is now completely discredited?

If this House means anything at all, the Minister ought to accept defeat after this debate. Hon. Member after hon. Member from his side of the House has made a case against the Minister. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh). My view is that the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel), the hon. Member for Harborough, the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster)—and I could go on—each made a sincere contribution to the debate. Each one argued that special consideration should be given to the people about whom we are talking tonight. I have been in the Chamber all the time.

If any power resides in the House, surely in a situation in which back-bench Members on both sides have established a case as it has been established today, it is incumbent upon the Minister to reconsider ibis decision and to do justice not merely to those in the Health Service but to the House. I expected that the first thing which the Minister would say was that, in view of the contributions to the debate from both sides of the House, the Government were prepared to reconsider the whole issue of wages increases for people employed in the National Health Service.

Everybody knows that we are in a difficulty and that throughout England, Wales and Scotland hospitals are short of nurses. Despite all his attempts to colour the picture, at one point even the Secretary of State admitted that there was a considerable shortage of nurses. Every hon. Member has received letters from people employed in the Health Service, and from responsible bodies organising them, urging us to assist them in their difficulties. I accept that it would not be possible to get people to do these jobs in hospitals if they thought solely in terms of wage packets. I cannot imagine a girl of eighteen or nineteen doing some of the jobs which nurses have to do if she thought only in terms of wages. I have visited hospitals in my constituency—I was in one on Sunday—in Which some hospitals have chronic sick and old people. May I pay tribute to those who man these hospitals? No one would undertake the duty involved in looking after the chronic sick and the old if she were doing it merely on the basis of the wage packet. They look on this work as a contribution which they are making to the happiness of people.

I address my remarks deliberately to the Minister: the fact that we know that these people have a vocation, and that they will not exploit their position, is no excuse for under-paying them. They could exploit their position. If the law of supply and demand were the criterion, I could tell hospital employees how to get a substantial pay increase. All they would have to do would be to leave the hospital service. In three weeks' time the Minister would be issuing the necessary advertisements to bring them back with substantially increased salaries. But we know that they will not do that or indulge in strike action. They will not walk out of the hospitals because they have been offered only a 2½ per cent. increase instead of a 5 per cent. I know it. It would be cowardly of the Minister and of Members of this House, knowing people in the health services will not indulge in industrial action, to see them underpaid in the way they are.

Is the Minister satisfied in his own mind that one of the reasons why he is not prepared to go further than he has announced is not because he knows these people will not indudge in any strike action? Can he honestly say the figure between £8 10s. and £10 a week is commensurate with the duties carried out by an adult male nurse, or sufficient to enable him to give the service he has to give to the patients and at the same time do his duty towards his family?

There is an argument about this treatment of people in the Health Service being part of a national plan. Are we, in a national plan, wholly concerned with salaries and incomes? What has the Minister done in his capacity as a member of the Cabinet to attempt to ensure that there is a standstill on the incomes of those people who are exploiting the land shortage? What has he done to ensure the Courtaulds shareholders would not get the enhanced values offered to them by Courtaulds to resist the I.C.I, take-over? He will not accept that tax comes into this. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said they had not got it yet. When it was first announced I said I did not know a Surtax payer who, if he wanted to take advantage of the projected reliefs, could not get all the overdrafts and other credits he wanted. Many of them may well have had them.

But even assuming that the policy of the Government in this matter is the correct one, even assuming it is perfectly correct to pursue a policy of wage restraint in the context of a national plan—I would not accept it, but let us assume it—is it fair, is it decent, is it honest to say to the people in the National Health Service that the miserable pittances which they are expected to live on can be increased by only 2½ per cent.? How much will the increase in wages be in terms of the net increase to a man now in receipt of £8 10s. a week? Relate that increase of 6d. in the pound to what it will buy in goods of one kind and another. It does not seem to me that the Minister shows any sense of reality. What will eight sixpences and the odd threepence buy a man with family responsibilities? Give him 4s. 3d. on a wage of £8 10s., and how can we possibly talk to him about inflation? How can a Minister or any Member of the House say that man's interests have been studied? We know that within the Service there is a vast shortage of nurses, auxiliaries, porters, grades supplementary to medicine, and that they are totally underpaid. The Minister knows that a case has been made out, not just by my hon. Friends but by hon. Members opposite, and he really should say that he will reconsider this decision, and agree that these people should have a far bigger increase than they have been offered.