Keir Starmer puts nurses’ pay row at heart of election campaign

Ballots on 6 May are crucial test after Labour leader’s slump in polls

Keir Starmer is putting the row over nurses’ pay at the centre of his campaign for elections in May, declaring that Labour would “give our key workers a proper pay rise”.

The Labour leader clashed with Boris Johnson in the House of Commons on Wednesday over the government’s 1 per cent offer to nurses after a year in which they have been on the frontline in the battle with Covid-19.

Launching his party’s campaign for the Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections on Thursday, he will contrast the offer with the 40 per cent increase given to Dominic Cummings shortly before he resigned as Mr Johnson’s chief Downing Street adviser.

The 6 May polls, which also see votes on 13 elected mayors, more than 150 English councils, police and crime commissioners and the London Assembly, represent a crucial test for the Labour leader after dismal polling sparked muttering about his position.

He this week said Mr Johnson had a “vaccine bounce” to thank for surveys putting Tories as much as 13 points clear of Labour, after the parties were broadly level at the end of 2020. A Savanta ComRes poll last weekend put Tories on 42 per cent to Labour’s 36.

But Labour believe that anger over the pay offer - which is likely to amount to a cut after inflation over the coming year is taken into account - could begin to reverse the tide. 

They put out figuressuggesting that the starting salary for nurses, physios and many other NHS roles has dropped in real terms by £841 since Tory-led governments took office in 2010 and the average salary of a nurse and health visitor by £2,379, after taking inflation into account.

Denouncing Conservatives as “out of touch and out of ideas”, Starmer will describe Mr Johnson’s Tories as “a party that gives a 40 per cent pay rise to Dominic Cummings, but a pay cut for our nurses. A party that gives billions to Serco, but nothing for our NHS. A party that spent a decade weakening the foundations of our economy – and now has no answer for the future, only more of the same”.

And he will say:“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.” 

With his party tussling with Tories for second place behind a dominant SNP in polling for the Scottish elections, Sir Keir will turn his fire on Nicola Sturgeon’s administration for  what he terms a “record of shame” on declining education standards, rising child poverty and falling life expectancy during their 13 years in power at Holyrood.

In an effort to capitalise on the vicious feud between Ms Sturgeon and her predecessor Alex Salmond, he will say the SNP are “too busy fighting among themselves to fight for the Scottish people” and present Scottish Labour under new leader Anas Sarwar as “focusing on what unites Scotland”.

He will also seek to draw a line under the Jeremy Corbyn years by presenting Labour as “a different party, under new leadership, making a different offer to the British people”.

In an implicit criticism of Mr Corbyn - currently fighting for readmission to the parliamentary party after suspension for his refusal to accept in full a report on antisemitism on his watch - Sir Keir will say that he and deputy leader Angela Rayner are “working hard to rebuild trust” and “reconnect with the British people”.

“There’s a long way to go but I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved,” he will say. “Whether that’s rooting out the antisemitism that had poisoned this party or rebuilding our relationship with British business.”

And 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.

“These elections are about how Britain recovers. How our communities and public services are run and how we reward our frontline workers.

“There’s a simple choice ahead of us: to change; or to go back to more of the same.”