Debate contribution: Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 24 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

24 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5404672

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I was not expecting to be called so quickly. I echo the remarks that have been made about this not being the ideal way in which to do things. Last week at the Committee, we had questions that the officials did not have answers to. There were numbers in the background that I would have liked to see to give us the opportunity to scrutinise the LCM properly. Of course, we are in the strange position of being asked to discuss something today that will get Royal Assent next week. I am also cognisant of the fact that we were told that, if we do not approve it, that might create an anomaly whereby Northern Ireland goes in a different direction from the rest and ends up being the back door for people to come through to get that training, because different opportunities would be available here from those everywhere else. I cannot help but think that the core of the issue is the 'Little Britain' attitude that has taken hold of local people's getting the opportunities first. I am glad that that has been extended to the UK and Ireland. It is always good to retain our own workforce where we can. I raised an eyebrow last week at Committee when I realised that only 10% of the places at university were for people from overseas. That means that 90% of the people in each year's intake to university whom we train in medicine are defined as the "local cohort", so it would seem odd if they were disproportionately represented in the cohort that gets the training places. As with everything else, it is about a holistic journey in which we should try to maintain opportunities for people to train locally, work locally, provide their services locally and have their entire career locally. Nobody wants to see a local person being left in a position in which they have to travel overseas, because we are then left in a position where we train people, spend money on putting them through university and then do not give them an opportunity to train further to work here, which means that they have to go elsewhere. In other words, we spend our money to train people to go off somewhere else. If the Bill helps to reset that in a fashion, that is good. However, we need to look at the pressures that make people who are five, 10 or 15 years into their careers say, "Do you know what? I can't be annoyed with the stress and pressure that we are under in the service that we have here. I want to go somewhere else, where it is easier to work, be that Australia, Canada or America". We need to keep our workforce here and give them a local service in which they can work, keep their work-life balance and enjoy their full working career. On the basis of the pressure that there is to pass the Bill, we will reluctantly support the LCM. There has been a lack of scrutiny, but we will agree to it.

516 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:03 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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