Be woman kind ‘Shameful’ offer is a cut in real terms
12hr loads take 4 days via 3 nations
For every 970 men in the UK, there are 1,000 women. Yet as decision-makers, women remain shamefully under-represented.
Only one in three MPs is a woman. And even though nearly eight in 10 frontline health workers are women, only one in four makes up the Government’s Covid taskforce.
International Women’s Day tomorrow is not only a chance to reflect on that. But to do something about redressing the balance.
RESEARCH by Labour shows a
1.7 per cent increase would have been needed just to make sure real-terms NHS pay stood still.
But one per cent means a nurse with less than two years experience, on the new rate of £25,156 a year, will really be £174 worse off.
And a nurse with more than seven years of service, to be paid £38,534, will see her spending power fall £265.
“Sneaking out this pay cut in the small print was cowardly and shameful,” said Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth.
“Yet again it shows you can’t trust the Tories with NHS.”
Pay for specialist occupational therapists, physios or health visitors with seven years of experience under their belts will be £312 out of pocket in real terms.
Porters will be £850 worse off than in 2010 and maternity care assistants £2,100, the TUC said. General Secretary Frances O’Grady, left, said: “The Government offer is a hammer-blow to staff morale. It’s time we cared for them the way they cared for us.”
NHS Providers, which represents health trusts, said it was ready for a 2.1 per cent rise.
GMB boss Rehana Azam said: “You know a deal is insulting when NHS Providers say it’s too low.”
DEMAND for foreign holidays has soared after a wave of sunspots said they would welcome back Brits.
Cyprus was first to announce those with two jabs would be allowed in from May without the need to quarantine.
Greece is now in talks with the UK about also allowing vaccinated Brits to visit as early as May while Portugal, the Seychelles, and the Canary and Balearic islands, all want to reopen to tourists who test negative. Turkey and mainland Spain may soon follow suit.
Vaccination rates in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus are at about 6.5 per cent while 60 per cent of people in the Seychelles have been jabbed.
Leaving the UK for foreign holidays will not be allowed until at least May 17.
But David Child, of Thomas Cook, said the firm had seen a 25 per cent rise in bookings to Cyprus.
He said: “Families have returned in their droves to book precious weeks in the sun.” EasyJet said “pent-up demand” had caused bookings to leap while Tui has seen “a real uptick”.
Brits made over a million trips to Cyprus in 2019.
Portugal is on the UK’s red list of high-risk countries, meaning travellers coming from there have to quarantine in a hotel in the UK.
But officials in Lisbon want quarantine-free travel to restart as soon as possible. Some three million UK tourists visit the nation each year. From tomorrow, anyone leaving England must fill in a “Declaration to Travel” document online stating their trip is permitted.
Those who fail to do so could be fined £200.
The Department of Transport says it was keeping measures
under “constant review”.
DEMAND
BREXIT pottiness is forcing a firm to ship plants from Ireland to Wales on a 1,400-mile, three nation detour.
The 170-mile journey between Neil Alcock’s Seiont Nurseries in Caernarfon and his supplier in Kilkenny used to take just 12 hours via Holyhead.
Now red tape means a four-day marathon via France, Holland and England – at £280 a trolley instead of £100.
Neil, 51, said: “It’s ridiculous and not sustainable. Holyhead is the best solution but we can’t find hauliers because they worry about paperwork errors holding them up. The only way is via Europe on existing trade routes. It makes no sense but it’s our only option.”
Plants are now driven to Rosslare and shipped to Dunkirk, in northern France.
They go by road to Aalsmeer, in the Netherlands, to join other plants being imported by Seiont. The larger consignment is driven to Rotterdam, shipped to
Harwich, Essex – then driven 330 miles across England, into Wales. Neil previously used groupage – where shipments from different firms go on one lorry.
But he says hauliers stopped offering groupage on the Irish route because if one order has a mistake on the paperwork “the whole cargo is held up”.
He says plants don’t suffer during the cold weather – but fears the worst if they are hauled for four days in the heat.
Government agency Defra said: “We are phasing in new checks to give businesses time to adjust and are providing extensive advice and support.”
HISTORY MAKER Kamala
Kamala Harris
LAWYER Kamala, 56, has made history by becoming America’s first black female Vice President.
The daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, she specialised in prosecuting child sexual assault cases in her first job in California’s
Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in the 1990s.
She went on to become San Francisco’s District Attorney in 2003 and won a seat in the Senate in 2016.
After the Democrats’ election win she said: “What a testament it is to Joe’s character that he had the audacity to break one of the most substantial barriers that exists in our country and select a woman as his Vice President. But while I may be the first woman in this office, I won’t be the last. Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”