Greater Manchester MP and Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has accused the Government of breaking its promise over nureses pay.
She told Sky News earlier today:
“They did budget for double that amount. They’ve squandered billions giving their crony mates contracts when they didn’t have any experience in the field… we can’t afford not to give the NHS a pay rise because we’ve got thousands of vacancies already and they deserve that pay rise not a real time pay cut.”
The call comes as the party launches its national election campaign declaring that ‘a vote for Labour is a vote to support our nurses’.
In a speech the Labour leader Kier Starmer will say that a vote for Labour in this year’s national elections is a vote ‘to support our nurses, to rebuild social care and to reward our key workers’.
Starmer will say that the choice at May’s elections is between a Labour Party that will build a stronger, more secure and prosperous recovery for Britain out of the pandemic, or a Conservative Party that is cutting nurses’ pay, cutting spending on the NHS and raising taxes on families.
Starmer will criticise the Conservatives for having ‘spent a decade weakening the foundations of our country and only offering the country more of the same.’ And he will accuse the Scottish National Party of being ‘too busy fighting among themselves to fight for the Scottish people.’
On the subject of nurses pay he will add:
“Under my leadership, and with our great local candidates across the country, Labour offers a very different route to recovery. Labour’s changing. Our priorities are your priorities: securing the economy, protecting the NHS, rebuilding Britain.
“So, if you want to support our nurses. To rebuild social care. And to reward our key workers, then vote Labour. My mum was a nurse, my sister was a nurse, my wife works for the NHS.
“I know how tough this year has been for our NHS and I know that now, more than ever, is the time to give our key workers a proper pay rise.
“Every vote in this election is a chance to show the Conservatives that the British people value our NHS and our key workers so much more than this government does.”
