Corbyn: We will scrap hospital parking fees
JEREMY Corbyn has pledged to scrap hospital car parking charges.
He said a Labour government would make parking free at NHS hospitals in England for patients, visitors and staff.
The move follows years of campaigning by patient groups and unions. Labour will raise to 20% the insurance premium tax on private medical care to pay for the plans.
Campaigning in the key Worcester seat yesterday, Mr Corbyn said parking fees were a “tax on serious illness”.
He said: “Labour will end hospital parking charges, which place an unfair, unnecessary burden on families, patients and NHS staff. Our hospitals are struggling from under-funding at the hands of Theresa May’s Conservative government, but the gap should not be filled by charging sick patients, anxious relatives and already hard-pressed NHS staff for an essential service.”
NHS hospitals earn £162million a year from car-parking charges which they use to make up funding shortfalls. The Mirror revealed last month how nurses are having to leave patients every two hours to dash out and move their cars – because their spaces in the hospital car park were cut.
The free-parking plan was welcomed by Unison general secretary Dave Prentis who said: “The cost is heaping excessive financial pressure on health employees who’ve gone for years without a decent pay rise.” A Conservative spokesman said: “This promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because Jeremy Corbyn simply wouldn’t be able to deliver it. “
In a campaign speech today, Mr Corbyn will tells voters they have just four weeks to “ruin the party” for the mega-rich elite who want the Tories to win.
“Don’t wake up on 9 June to see celebrations from the tax cheats, the press barons, the greedy bankers, Philip Green, the Southern Rail directors and crooked financiers that take our wealth,” Mr Corbyn will say at a speech in Manchester.
“When Labour wins, the British people win. The nurse, the teacher, the small trader, the carer, the builder, the office worker win.”