Is Boris set to U-turn over nurses’ pay?
As Tory MPs join backlash...
THE Prime Minister appeared to prepare the ground for a U-turn on nurses’ pay yesterday after he was accused of spending lavishly on his Downing Street flat and bumping up the salary of exaide Dominic Cummings.
Boris Johnson came under sustained attack from Sir Keir Starmer in the Commons over the controversial 1 per cent offer for the NHS in England. The Labour leader said it amounted to a pay cut because of inflation.
And Mr Johnson faced calls to apologise last night after he wrongly claimed during Prime Minister’s Questions that Labour had voted against a planned bigger increase for health workers.
Mr Johnson hinted that the Government could make a U-turn on the increasingly damaging policy, however, and give nurses more money if the NHS pay review body recommends it.
He told MPs: ‘Of course, we will look at what the independent pay review body has to say, exceptionally, about the nursing profession, whom we particularly value.’
He later added: ‘It is very important that the public sector pay review body should come back with its proposals, and we will, of course, study them.’ The cost of raising the wages of the majority of the English NHS workforce by 1 per cent this year would be £750million, ministers have said.
The issue of nurses’ pay has dominated Westminster since last week’s Budget with several Conservative MPs joining in the backlash, unions preparing for strikes and the head of the NHS confirming that hospital staff had been in line to get a 2.1 per cent rise this year.
Sir Keir claimed that nurses’ pay has fallen in real terms by more than £800 in a decade.
He said Mr Johnson had given Mr Cummings a 40 per cent pay rise and added: ‘I’d take the PM a bit more seriously if he had not spent £2.6million of taxpayers’ money on a Downing Street TV studio, or £200,000 on wallpaper for his flat.’