Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Brake) on obtaining this debate. Liberal Democrat Members have sought such a debate for some time, because we believe that the issue is one of the most important that affects public services in our London constituencies. We want to make it clear to the Financial Secretary that, like the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), we believe that this urgent problem requires instant Government attention.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington put well the argument that we need more information about the problem. One of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford was that we do not know about the effects of measures outside London, as well as inside the capital city. If we had better information about relative staff shortages in various public sector professions, not only in London, but outside it and in its environs, we could sensibly judge correct relative weightings. However, we do not have that information.

Mr. Burns : The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington are right to make the point about the lack of information. However, we have information about the scale of the problem for police forces: we know the funded numbers for each constabulary, and if individual constabularies keep records, as they often do, they can tell us how many officers are actually serving at a given time.

Mr. Davey : I am grateful for that intervention. We know some of the funded numbers, but it takes time to discover the actual numbers serving. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the figures can be obtained, but they are not easily got. When conducting research for today's debate, I found that information is not available about many professions in the public sector. Many statistics held by Departments are inaccurate, being based on funding and expectations rather than on what is happening. In addition, with such high staff turnover in hospitals, police stations and schools, figures change quickly.

I shall highlight the significant turnover problem affecting London schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington referred to vacancy rates, which provide an important indicator of the supply of employees not meeting the demand. High turnover is another such indicator--on that, in many ways, shows the damage done to the quality of service that our constituents receive. However, turnover figures are not readily available. My hon. Friend mentioned anecdotal figures and surveys such as those carried out by institutions such as the Royal College of Nursing.

When trying to build a picture from anecdotal evidence, I found that there are large potential costs for the taxpayer arising from the problems that we are discussing, because of the extra costs of more frequent recruitment and of management in integrating new employees into the work force, whether on a hospital ward, in a police division or in a classroom. Extra costs also result from having to pay premium rates for short-term placements, such as supply teachers, bank or agency nurses. Therefore costs are incurred not only as a result of recruitment, but by plugging the gaps and putting a finger in the dyke. If we estimate those costs just for the health service, we come up with a figure that easily exceeds £100 million. We could radically improve the situation by redirecting the money that is currently spent on short-term solutions; rather than spend excessive sums treating the symptoms, we should deal with the causes of the problem and put the money into decent salaries for public sector employees. That is the solution, but how quickly will the Government reach it?

The vacancy rate in Kingston hospital in my constituency is more than the average for England, but it probably slightly less than the London average; nevertheless, turnover is high. Management tried their best to deal with the problem, but ended up going to Manila in the Philippines, where they recruited nearly 100 nurses to work in the hospital on two-year contracts. We welcome those Philippine nurses; they are exceedingly talented and have undergone a rigorous recruitment programme. However, it is ludicrous that we went to a relatively poor country on the other side of the world to recruit huge numbers of staff to work in Kingston hospital--I cannot believe that that makes economic or social sense. Two-year contracts mean that the turnover problem will be dealt with for a short time, but the overall long-term sustainable capacity of the London health service is not enhanced by having to resort to such measures.

In my constituency, I meet former nurses who had worked in the health service for many years and for whose training the taxpayer paid. They left the NHS because in the private sector, in retail and in office jobs, they receive higher salaries and enjoy more flexible working conditions, which can help them to meet family commitments, for example. The NHS competes in that market, and I do not believe that recruiting on the other side of the world can provide a solution. We should encourage those whom the taxpayer trained to return to the health service and work in their local hospitals. In my example, it would not be a case of poaching nurses from West Chelmsford; we must encourage people to work in public services provided to the communities in which they live.

Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham): My hon. Friend eloquently describes a problem that many suburban hospitals have in common. West Middlesex university hospital faces an almost identical situation. Does he agree that the problem is, in part, caused by a chronic shortage of nurses' accommodation? Perhaps the Government could provide on-site facilities. A related problem is the difference between inner and outer London weighting, which does not reflect the current realities of the labour and housing markets.

Mr. Davey : I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, partly because he has anticipated two of my points. Clearly, we think alike.

Reserved housing for nurses, police and teachers is a potential solution, but only a partial one; people in those professions do not want to receive their salary only or mainly in the form of housing because of the inflexibility of such an arrangement. However, such provision could be useful, especially for new entrants. Cuts in funding for public services have meant that much of the accommodation that was once used has been sold to supply a short-term solution to a funding gap elsewhere in public services in health and education. Many local education authorities used to have houses for teachers, and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned that a head teacher in his constituency considered bring back such provision.

The Government should examine reserved housing as a solution and consider reforming outer London weighting. The chief executive of Kingston hospital told me about the problem that that has caused in his hospital. When Queen Mary's university hospital in Roehampton closed, many of its staff moved to Kingston hospital to allow it to take on those patients who had formerly gone to Queen Mary's. However, the London weighting received by staff at Queen Mary's was higher than that received by staff at Kingston hospital, just down the road. A difficult agreement had to be reached to enable staff to work side by side with different London weightings, and the situation will have to be sorted out later. As my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) implied, the differences between inner and outer London weighting do not reflect financial realities. It can be more expensive to live in Surbiton or in Kingston than it is to live in parts of Roehampton and Putney. The old system no longer works.

In many respects, I do not blame the current Government for the difficulties. They inherited a huge political problem. As my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, the Conservative Government's abolition in 1982 of the London weighting index that the Labour Government had introduced in 1974 was one of the longer-term causes of the problem. We have also heard about the Conservatives' abolition of the police housing scheme in 1994, which contributed to the increasing scale of the problem.

Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford): To what extent does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that more money being given to public sector employees in London increases the problems of retaining people in the public service in the area outside London, to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) referred?

Mr. Davey : I thought that I had dealt with that matter earlier, when the hon. Member for West Chelmsford intervened. My point is that we need information, not only about London, but about other parts of the country: information on shortages, retention, recruitment and turnover in the public sector is limited, which is absurd given the avalanche of requests from the Government for huge amounts of information on services, outputs, waiting lists, absenteeism, qualification league tables and examination results from schools, local education authorities, police authorities and NHS trusts. The point is that the information that will help us to plan services more effectively is not requested. Public services depend on their employees: the health service, the police service and the education service are only as good as the people who work for them. If we really care about the quality of services in London and the surrounding counties, we must demand high-quality information on inflows, outflows and quality of staff.

If the Government sent questionnaires to the chief superintendent of Kingston police, Alan Given, to the chief executive of Kingston hospital, John Langan, and to the director of education in the royal borough of Kingston, John Braithwaite, they would provide the requested information because they know how important it is. They want the Government to acknowledge a major problem facing our public services. Armed with high-quality information, Government policy would be so much better informed. In addition, points made by Conservative Members about the difficulty of making fine judgments between London and areas outside London, and of reforming outer and inner London weightings, could be informed by data, not by anecdote and prejudice. That must be the way forward. If the Minister takes note of only one point from my speech, it should be that work force planning in public services must be better informed by gathering the relevant statistics.

My final point relates, of course, to my constituency. People who work in public services in London should be congratulated on the fantastic job that they do for our constituents. The quality of life in London is far higher because of their hard and dedicated work. We should take note of the work of temporary staff from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in our schools and hospitals and thank them for it.

Return to Police campaign

Home | How to contact me | Advice sessions | Parliament | Constituency | Liberal Democrats