A responsible Government take a responsible approach to funding our public services, including the NHS. Later I will come to exactly the point about the Opposition’s proposals to use that funding pot again and again for the health service.
Coming to social care and international recruitment, we have put care workers on the shortage occupation list. As a result, social care employers have already been able to offer care worker visas to more than 34,000 people. I welcome international nurses joining our nursing and midwifery register, and I make no apology for continuing to encourage bright and talented international doctors to come and work in the NHS. In fact, that is the very idea of the points-based immigration system that we have so successfully implemented.
As well as recruiting the best and the brightest, it is vital that we retain them. Ultimately, our goal is to make sure that the NHS is one of the very best places to work in the world; both my parents were NHS doctors and, believe me, I have had plenty of conversations about why sometimes it is not. What is most frustrating is when the system prevents them from giving people the very best care.
It is not simply all about pay, as Opposition Members might have us believe. The hon. Member for Ilford North talked about nursing pay, but he will understand that we are currently in talks and now is not the moment to play politics with this issue. We are pleased that the Royal College of Nursing has paused strike action. We have no doubt that both sides are committed to finding a fair and reasonable settlement—one that recognises the vital role that nurses and nursing play in the health service, the wider economic pressure facing the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister’s priority to halve inflation.