LABOUR’S shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has forced the government to hold a binding vote on its plans to abolish bursaries for nursing students.

The Tories have already axed the NHS bursary for most undergraduate nursing courses and are now trying to go the whole hog by pushing post-graduate, part-time and dental nursing students into the student loans system.

Ministers tried to force the change through using a statutory instrument, which can be passed without a debate or a vote in Parliament, but backed down after Ms Rayner led a fightback against this attempt to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.