Clinical Academics

5. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help retain clinical academics in universities.

As autonomous institutions, universities are responsible for their staffing decisions, including recruitment and retention. Where the Tories left universities on the brink, we have acted decisively to secure the future of the higher education sector. We remain committed to restoring universities as engines of growth, opportunity and aspiration.

The number of clinical academics is in worrying decline. These are the people who teach our doctors in universities and are conducting groundbreaking research. Consultant clinical academics’ contracts with universities give them pay parity with the NHS. However, the universities do not have the funding to match the costs of the new NHS pay structure for consultants. I have heard that, unable to retain them, 20 out of 26 medical schools in the country are offering voluntary redundancy to their staff, and sometimes not voluntary. Does the Minister agree that we must do all we can to support medical education and research in this country?

I am aware that my hon. Friend has extensive knowledge in this area, and I seek to reassure him that the Government recognise the vital role that clinical academics play in research and education in the NHS. Although universities are independent and therefore responsible for decisions on pay, we are committed to working closely with education partners to ensure that clinical academia remains an attractive career choice for all, including students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The new Pears medical school at the University of Cumbria and the Lancaster University medical school, among others, are struggling to recruit and retain medical academic staff, in no small part due to the last Government’s somewhat masochistic decision to undermine one of Britain’s best exports: namely, the income we receive from overseas students. Will the Minister undo this nonsense and allow Britain’s brilliant universities, especially the medical schools, to help boost the quest for economic growth?

Students are incredibly important to our universities, and we have some world-leading universities. I will ask my hon. Friend in the other place to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s question.