Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the problem of lorry driver shortages, which is affecting the whole world, from Europe to North America. What we are doing immediately is working to get out more licences. We are taking advantage of our post-Brexit freedom so that all the young thrusters on the Conservative Benches with a post-1997 driver’s licence can now drive a vehicle with a trailer as well—everybody can drive a vehicle with a trailer as well. But after a long period of stagnation in wages for those in the road haulage industry, we are also seeing a long-overdue increase in wages. That is part of the same phenomenon that this Government are introducing and the Labour party is opposing.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

I pass on my condolences to the Prime Minister and his family on the sad loss of his mother the other day. And I join the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in congratulating Emma Raducanu on her fantastic success in New York last Saturday.

Of course, we mourn the anniversary last Saturday of 20 years since the horrors of 9/11. We remember all those who paid the sacrifice in that outrage.

This morning we learned that the rate of inflation has reached its highest level in a decade. For ordinary workers and families, prices are going up at the very moment when they can least afford it. Workers and families need more than just a winter plan for covid; they need a winter action plan to fight a Tory poverty pandemic that is only going to get worse.

Does the Prime Minister know, and can he tell us, how much Tory Government cuts to social welfare will cost the average nurse?

[The Prime Minister]

We are protecting people on low incomes up and down the country—[Interruption.] Indeed we are. And we are freezing fuel duty and supporting childcare. We have brought in a huge package of measures, not least the living wage, which has already seen an increase of £4,000 for every family on the living wage.

More importantly, the right hon. Gentleman talks about the income of nurses. We are investing massively in health and social care up and down the country. That will help to fund, apart from anything else, the increase in nurses’ pay that they so thoroughly deserve. I hope he will support that package.

[Ian Blackford]

My goodness, my goodness, an increase in nurses’ pay. Either the Prime Minister does not know or he simply does not care. When we take the cuts to universal credit and the increase in national insurance, the figure he was looking for is that the average nurse will lose £1,736. Once again, this Government are cutting the pay of key workers, the very people we are relying on to see us through another difficult winter. The cost of living is spiralling and people are left with a Prime Minister who does not know how much his cuts are hitting key workers and a Secretary of State for Work and Pensions who does not know how universal credit works.

If any Scottish Tories are in possession of a backbone, now would be a good time to find it. Does the Prime Minister expect any MPs from his Scottish branch office to stand against the callous cuts to universal credit, or has he already bought them off with promises of jobs in his reshuffle?

[The Prime Minister]

What is actually happening is that we are funding the NHS across the whole of the UK, including in Scotland I am proud to say, with record sums. We have ensured that nurses have access to a training bursary worth £5,000 and a further bursary of £3,000 for childcare costs, and that is before we put up their pay by 3%. That is only possible because of the investment we are making, the measures I outlined last week and the package we are putting forward for health and social care. If the right hon. Gentleman is really saying that the Scottish nationalist party is opposed to that investment, if he is really saying that he would send it back, he would be better off banging on, as he normally does, about a referendum. He is better on that.