MPs hit out at plans to give NHS staff 1% rise

Giving our NHS heroes 1% is an insult Chi Onwurah MP

NORTH East MPs have condemned Government plans to give our NHS heroes a 1% pay rise.

While inflation is currently running at less than 1%, it is expected to rise over the next year – which would mean the planned pay settlement for nurses and other health workers is actually a cut in real terms.

Unite, which represents tens of thousands of health service staff, said it will now be considering all its options, including holding a vote on strike action.

Easington MP Grahame Morris said: “I think it is a terrible decision that is out of step with public opinion and gives the impression that this Government do not value the massive and ongoing personal sacrifice of nurses and NHS and care workers during the pandemic.”

Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah said: “Newcastle has two of the best hospitals in the world, and one of the most successful vaccine rollouts anywhere. As the MP for many NHS and social care workers I know the heroic efforts they have gone to and the terrible challenges they have faced, from lack of personal protective equipment to the impact on their families and mental health.”

She said: “Giving our NHS heroes 1% is an insult, an insult which comes after years of austerity and pay freezes for the public sector. Government need to get their priorities right.”

The Government has recommended a 1% rise in a submission to the sector’s pay review body.

Nurses and health workers are still better off than many other public sector workers, who are having their pay frozen.

Unions representing workers ranging from nurses and doctors to porters and ambulance crews were furious at the suggestion of a below-inflation pay rise, which will be considered by the review body in May.

Unite national officer for health, Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe, said: “Unite will be considering all its options, including the holding of an industrial action ballot, as our pay campaign mounts in the coming weeks.

“We will be fully consulting our members on the next steps, given that inflation could be 2% by the end of 2021, so what Prime Minister Boris Johnson is recommending is another pay cut in real terms.

“It shows an unyielding contempt by ministers for those who have done so much to care for tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients in the last year.”

But Health Minister Nadine Dorries defended the decision. She said the Government could not afford to give NHS staff in England a pay rise of more than 1%. She said nurses have received a 12% increase in pay over the last three years and the average nurse’s salary is around £34,000.

“Everybody in an ideal world would love to see nurses paid far more ... but we are coming out of a pandemic where we have seen huge borrowing and costs to the Government,” she told Sky.

“I think it is important to note that the priority of the Government has been about protecting people’s livelihoods, about continuing the furlough scheme, about fighting the pandemic, and we’ve put huge effort into that.

“We do not want nurses to go unrecognised – or doctors – and no other public sector employee is receiving a pay rise, there has been a pay freeze.

“But the 1% offer is the most we think we can afford which we have put forward to the pay review body.”