A former cupboard minister has doubled down on his criticism of nurses utilizing meals banks after his feedback had been branded “disgusting, heartless and out of touch”.
Simon Clarke, the previous levelling up secretary, mentioned the common nurse’s wage is £35,000 a 12 months and that “is not a salary on which you ought to be relying on a food bank”.
“I’m afraid if you are using a food bank and you are earning the average nurse’s salary of £35,000 a year then something is wrong with your budgeting,” he instructed the BBC on Wednesday.
Mr Clarke, who earns greater than £84,000 a 12 months as an MP, has been rebuked by his successor Michael Gove, NHS workers and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) – who’re main additional strikes immediately within the dispute over nurses’ pay and situations.
Mr Gove instructed Sky News: “I would never criticise nurses for something like that.”
Pat Cullen, the RCN basic secretary, mentioned: “To criticise anybody using a food bank is disgusting, heartless and dangerously out of touch.
“Sky-high inflation means some nursing workers reside on a monetary knife-edge and even their very own employer – NHS trusts throughout the nation – are being compelled to open meals banks to feed their workers.”
However, Mr Clarke mentioned he stood by his remarks.
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Tory MP Lee Anderson tweeted in assist of his colleague: “The point here is that ANYONE (not just nurses) earning *MORE* than 30k, & are using foodbanks must have a budgeting problem.
“I’ve constituents i.e armed forces, bin males, bar workers, care employees, bus drivers, pensioners and many others who can all stay on much less. Am I lacking one thing?”
Mr Clarke said this was his point “precisely”, and that people earning £35,000 “should not want to make use of a meals financial institution” except in “very explicit circumstances”.
In another post, Mr Anderson said a member of his staff called Katy “is single & earns lower than £30k, rents a room for £775pcm in central London, has scholar debt, £120 a month on travelling to work saves cash each month, goes on overseas holidays & doesn’t want to make use of a foodbank”.
However, the MP for Ashfield’s tweet was met with backlash by fellow social media users who accused him of using his employee to make a political point – while the hashtag “Poor Katy” began trending on Twitter.
Nurses ‘pushed over poverty line’
While the common wage of a nurse is about £35,000, nearly all of nurses are on a Band 5 pay charge, which has a beginning wage of £27,055, rising to £32,934 over 4 years.
Matthew Tovey, a nurse and spokesperson for the marketing campaign group NHS Say No, instructed Sky News those that earn £35,000 and upwards “are typically specialist nurses who have had further training – often university courses which incurs extra cost”.
He mentioned nurses typically come from college with “the excess of £50,000 worth of debt from training” whereas their pay packets are being squeezed by rising rents, mortgage charges, gas and meals costs.
“Some people the food banks typically see are student nurses, nurses working part-time, nurses being the sole earner,” he mentioned.
“We are now on a knife edge to the spiralling cost of living. [Nurses] are queuing in bitterly cold weather for food and then working 12-hour shifts on the front line looking after patients with dangerous nurse to staff patient ratios.
“Nurses like myself are selecting between heating and consuming while battling the worst situations ever recognized to the NHS.
“I have seen first hand how nurses are being pushed over the poverty line and into food banks this winter. This MP needs to speak to constituents and go to his local trust and food bank to see.”
The row comes as hundreds of nurses go on strike at greater than 55 NHS trusts in England this week.
The bitter dispute over pay appears set to proceed after Steve Barclay, the well being secretary, mentioned a ten% pay rise is “unaffordable”.
Ms Cullen – who is looking for a 19% pay rise however has mentioned she would meet the federal government half-way – branded his feedback “disappointing” as she joined the picket line this morning.
“Every nurse I have spoken to is deeply disappointed,” she mentioned.
“They say this is just another move to turn their backs on the fantastic nursing staff that have kept us all going through a very, very incredible period, which was the pandemic and long before it.”
PM ‘ought to seize olive department’
Ms Cullen referred to as on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to overrule Mr Barclay and “grab the olive branch” earlier than additional NHS strikes subsequent month.
NHS leaders are making contingency plans forward of the most important walkout within the well being service’s historical past.
Ambulance workers and nurses are set to each go on strike on 6 February – taking industrial motion on the identical day for the primary time ever.
Saffron Cordery, the interim chief govt of NHS Providers, has mentioned the proposed walkouts are a “huge concern”.
She urged ministers to “get round the table with the unions urgently to deal with the key issue of pay for this financial year, otherwise there is no light at the end of the tunnel”.
Source: information.sky.com”