On 12 March last year, the World Health Organization announced that Europe was the epicentre of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, here in Britain, large gatherings were still going ahead, Boris Johnson was merrily telling journalists he was shaking hands in hospitals, diagnosis and contact tracing was abandoned. Briefings appeared proclaiming “herd immunity” as the new strategy to allow everyone to build up naturalantibodies.
When a pandemic hits, you need to act with speed, put public health prevention front and centre, listen to the science and ensure capacity in your NHS. On all of these measures, Boris Johnson failed.
Our PPE stockpiles had dwindled. An already exhausted NHS workforce was sent to the frontline to battle a raging, highly transmittable virus without the protection they deserved.
The way brave, hardworking NHS staff have been treated throughout this pandemic, and over the past decade, is a disgrace. I’ve listened to stories from staff these past 12 months who were on the hospital wards when the very first cases hit. Their stories bring tears to my eyes. I’ve met the nurses who insisted on staying with patients to make sure they did not die alone. And I’ve seen the smiles staff have brought to people’s faces as they’ve administered the vaccine.
Even in the midst of one of the darkest moments in our country’s history, we have seen so clearly who our key workers really are and the debt of gratitude that we owe them as a country. That is why the whole country took to the streets every Thursday night and clapped for our carers. There was a sense as a nation that after a decade of a government that had underfunded and undervalued our key workers, something had to change.
However, that applause rings very hollow today. At the first opportunity they had, the Conservatives announced a pay cut for our NHS staff. Not a real-terms rise or the increase that was promised, but a pay cut. This is an issue that speaks to the very heart of who we are as a country and the Britain that emerges from this pandemic. We can either build a stronger, more secure and prosperous Britain, or we can go back to the same insecure society that left us with the worst death toll in Europe and the worst economic crisis of any major economy.
Labour will not stand by and allow this to happen. We will keep fighting for what we know is right and I am putting ministers on notice today that we will take that battle to parliament. We will use every opportunity we can find to bring vote after vote to force ministers to abandon this pay cut.
There is legislation that can be amended and bills that can be brought forward. This matter will come to a head sooner or later and we will make sure MPs are forced to choose.
We need investment in our workforce to deliver the quality healthcare too many are currently denied and to cut waiting lists so patients can get the treatment they need. Ministers should agree a multi-year pay deal with staff. In starting talks, they should take their pay cut off the table and not set a ceiling.
When Labour clapped for our carers, we meant it. And that does not mean a one-off payment or one-year deal, nor a settlement that tries to buy off some staff, but not others. It means an agreed fair pay settlement for all of our NHS staff.
It’s what the British people expect, it is what our NHS staff deserve, and it is what a Labour government would deliver.
Jonathan Ashworth is shadow secretary of state for health
