Debbie Abrahams
Main Page: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)Department Debates - View all Debbie Abrahams's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]
By the end of the year, £37 billion of taxpayers’ money will have been spent on the Serco Test and Trace programme, which is not even fit for purpose. That is on top of the Government spending £10 billion more on PPE contracts than they should have spent. Given that waste, how do the Government justify the view that most of the 300,000 NHS nurses are worth only a £250 a year pay rise?
Helen Whately
The pay conversation that we are having at the moment is indeed about nurses—who are a fabulous part of our NHS workforce, and I cannot thank them enough—but it is also about the wider NHS workforce, which includes paramedics and health support workers, and this pay settlement will also include some doctors. More than 1 million staff are being considered in this process, and that is why the cost is closer to £1 billion than the figure the hon. Lady mentioned; it is around £750 million. The Government were absolutely right to invest in PPE to protect staff in health and social care during the pandemic at a time when there was a global shortage of PPE, and we are absolutely right to have invested in a world-beating test and trace service, which is doing a phenomenal job and is essential to our country’s recovery from this pandemic.