| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
8.46 pm
Mr. Brooke: With the leave of the House, I shall reply to both the debate and the questions that have been asked. All who had the pleasure of listening to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) will probably agree that the debate has consisted of variations on a theme, and that the hon. Gentleman provided the theme while other hon. Members provided the variations. The hon. Gentleman's speech, which lasted just under an hour, was interesting throughout, and I personally enjoyed it.
At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Gentleman referred to the name. As I know from experience elsewhere, the name is a matter of potential difficulty. I continue to derive pleasure from the existence of a finger post in Lincolnshire that directs people to the villages of Mavis Enderby and Old Bolingbroke: under those names has been added the graffito "the gift of a son".
The hon. Gentleman mentioned trust funds. I can assure him that there is no risk of any trust funds being inappropriately diverted. If the money cannot be spent on the purposes for which it is intended, it cannot be spent, and remains in the trust fund. The hon. Gentleman also spoke at length about critical mass. The issue here is not the critical mass for good and strong groups; it is research. Such a critical mass is necessary for research, enabling a full range of specialities alongside each other to allow synergy and cross-fertilisation. Perhaps I was at fault in not using the phrase "critical mass" in my introductory speech.
The numbers to be taught--
Mr. Simon Hughes:
I do not wish to pre-empt the right hon. Gentleman, but--if he is not already planning to address it--can he address the point about the size of entry cohorts, which was one of the critical mass sub-definitions that I was very keen to explore?
Mr. Brooke:
That was the very next point that I was going to address. If we examine Hansard in retrospect, we will find that I had just embarked on that point.
The numbers to be taught are of the order of 300 to 330 medical students per year, as the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) quoted. That allows the development of effective cohorts of students with different backgrounds and for the possibility of having a mature graduate entry cohort who would be capable of staying together as a cohort and of being taught as a single body.
There are three teaching hospitals involved, so that it is possible in planning terms to assign particular teaching hospitals to particular cohorts. But that is still a matter for
the future, and it is a matter on which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey may wish to remain in correspondence with interested parties.
Mr. Hughes:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brooke:
I will give way, but the hon. Gentleman must not assume that I have inexhaustible knowledge.
Mr. Hughes:
I am grateful, and I shall not intervene too often. The right hon. Gentleman's answer troubles me because he suggested as a reason why 300 or more students would not be too many the fact that they may be spread among the three hospitals. The logic of the proposal is that they will all come on to one site to work on one hospital. I therefore wonder whether he has a briefing or the knowledge to be able to explain what appears to be a discrepancy between the two arguments.
Mr. Brooke:
I cannot do that. The hon. Gentleman's preoccupation was that the numbers would be overwhelming. I am saying that, because we have the potential of teaching in different cohorts, we can make use in some respects of the multi-site background.
As for the dental schools, there are mechanisms in hand for the clinical experience element to be taken in two large successful dental hospitals, which is perhaps an example of the point that I made a moment ago. It has not yet been decided how that should be done. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey was of course right about the numbers that he quoted. It may be that there will be two separate cohorts, which in that respect will be divided between the two dental hospitals. It is also possible--although this is still at the unresolved and planning stage--that that may be done on a year-by-year basis, so that one year a student will be in one hospital and in the next year in the other hospital.
There is a potential for having separate specialisations in the two hospitals so that one hospital will concentrate on some specialisations and the other hospital on other specialisations. There is currently some degree of complementarity and overlap. One can therefore see why the matter is still in the planning stage and not yet resolved. The fact that we have that combined strength in the two hospitals provides potential protection for the future on the issue raised by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey at the end of his speech.
The argument for co-ordinated teaching is not about joint biomedical teaching, but to ensure that the clinical professions are able to undertake appropriate clinical classes together. I doubt that there will be integrated science teaching. That is probably a false assumption. Some joint classes may be given, but the buildings are not being designed on a scale to take life science and medics together. The planning of the new building on the Guy's site is not envisaged so that both could be done in one place.
The matter of costs was raised by the hon. Member for Bath and by the hon. Member for Fife, Central(Mr. McLeish). The private finance initiative process means that currently the actual costs are necessarily unknown in detail. In response to the question from the hon. Member for Fife, Central, however, I can say that the PFI process is currently on track. That is not to say that it will continue to be on track, but it is currently on track.
I can confirm the figure of £140 million, which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey asked me about, of which £70 million--or approximately half--will go into the biomedical building on the Guy's site. A figure of between £40 million and £50 million will go into the refurbishment of the Cornwall house site.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey referred in his speech to this being all taxpayers' money. It is taxpayers' money if one regards the sites that King's will be selling in west London as taxpayers' money, but those sites already exist. The hon. Member for Fife, Central also referred to an article in one of the educational papers, and the potential for developing sites in those areas. Part of the equation is the money that will be realised from those sites. Moreover, the biomedical activity will be brought from six different sites, including those in west London, on to a single site.
Mr. Brooke:
The hon. Gentleman cannot restrain himself further.
Mr. Hughes:
I stand corrected on the matter of where the money will come from, and I understand the point made by the right hon. Gentleman. Can he help us with the tally at the end of that set of sums? I am grateful for confirmation of sum of £140 million in total. Does he have--if not, I shall be happy to receive it from him later--the breakdown as to how much will be PFI money from the private sector, how much will be money from the sale of current assets and how much will be properly defined taxpayers' money from the Higher Education Funding Council?
Mr. Brooke:
I cannot answer that question. I have been given a breakdown which shows that £54 million will come from the health service, £20 million from the Higher Education Funding Council, £7 million from the united medical and dental schools--of which £2 million will be from the special trustees and £5 million from UMDS itself--and then the money from property sales at King's. It is too early to give the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey the detailed answers that he sought on the PFI process earlier.
I realise that the tower at Guy's affords an opportunity. It gives the hospital an opportunity for additional health uses--within the health service, about which the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey expressed some scepticism--as well as what I would describe as trust-focused academic-clinical research. In other words, employees of the trust as against employees of the medical school will be engaged in the research, which is of course one of the bonuses and the glories of the two systems being side by side.
The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey wanted an assurance on the consolidation of the biomedical activity. All candidates and all students will have a base there. If there is any academically desirable science teaching that needs to be done at a clinical site, that can and will be done. There is a degree of flexibility in the planning, but I do not think that we are yet at the
point of absolute definition--perhaps understandably, because until the Bill is passed we do not know that we have the commitment to progress.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |