The Rt Hon Lucy Powell MP

Secretary of State for Education

Department for Education

Sanctuary Buildings

Great Smith Street

London SW1P 3BT

The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Department of Health and Social Care

39 Victoria Street

London SW1H 0EU

Dear Secretary of State,

As registered midwives, student midwives, healthcare professionals, parents and members of the public, we write to express our profound concern about the situation student midwives face who are being misled about the degree they are paying for and the career they are being promised.

Midwifery students pay up to £9,790 a year in tuition while completing a minimum of 2,300 hours of unpaid clinical placement over three years. They do not simply observe. They support midwives and maternity teams, care for women during pregnancy, labour and the postnatal period, and contribute directly to maternity services, including in understaffed units.

Since midwifery training moved from NHS funded training to the tuition fee model in 2017, students have been left carrying the financial risk. They can graduate with significant student debt after thousands of hours of unpaid clinical work, yet there is no guarantee of employment. In 2026 Fund Future Midwives UK documented hundreds of newly qualified midwives struggling to secure posts despite actively seeking employment.

This creates a fundamental unfairness: students are asked to pay for their training, provide substantial unpaid support to maternity services, and then may be unable to secure the employment needed to repay the debt they incurred.

We are therefore asking the Department for Education to take urgent action on five areas:

Debt relief for current student midwives and qualified midwives who have incurred student debt through their midwifery training, including consideration of cancellation or reduction of that debt.

Immediate action on employment opportunities for newly qualified midwives so that those who have completed their training can enter the profession they were trained for.

A review of unpaid clinical placements, including whether students undertaking substantial clinical work should receive payment or basic employment protections.

Greater transparency in university recruitment, including clear information about placement requirements, employment prospects and the financial realities of the degree.

Better coordination of student numbers and workforce requirements, so universities are not continuing to train cohorts without sufficient sustainable employment opportunities.

Midwifery is a safety critical profession and rigorous clinical preparation is essential. We are asking for the people undertaking that preparation to be treated fairly.

In July 2026, following sustained pressure from Fund Future Midwives UK, the government committed £10 million towards newly qualified midwife posts. While this was welcome, it does not address the debt already accumulated by students and graduates under the current system.

Those who have trained to provide essential maternity care should not be left carrying substantial debt after contributing thousands of unpaid clinical hours to a service the country urgently needs.

Representatives from Fund Future Midwives are requesting to meet with you in person to discuss these concerns and the action you can take to address them. We can provide evidence, data and testimony from affected students and newly qualified midwives.

Yours sincerely,

Fund Future Midwives UK