Cross-party MPs say more than 800,000 on Covid frontline get less than ‘national living wage’
A cross-party group of five former health ministers have called on the UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to award embattled care workers an urgent wage increase to see them through the second wave of the pandemic and raise pay above the legal minimum.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and a former health secretary, alongside Sir Norman Lamb, Phil Hope, Alistair Burt and Paul Burstow, all former care ministers, are backing calls from care providers, unions and doctors for the chancellor to provide £3.9bn to lift earnings. There are more than 800,000 care workers on the “forgotten frontline” who are paid less than the £8.72 per hour “national living wage”, the new Future Social Care Coalition said.
