Tory MP Simon Clarke defiant after saying nurses using food banks ‘should budget better’

Published

2 years ago

January 20, 2023

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A former cabinet minister has doubled down on his criticism of nurses using food banks after his comments were branded “disgusting, heartless and out of touch”.

Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, said the average nurse’s salary is £35,000 a year and that “is not a salary on which you ought to be relying on a food bank”.

“I’m afraid if you are using a food bank and you are earning the average nurse’s salary of £35,000 a year then something is wrong with your budgeting,” he told the BBC on Wednesday.

Mr Clarke, who earns more than £84,000 a year as an MP, has been rebuked by his successor Michael Gove, NHS staff and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) – who are leading further strikes today in the dispute over nurses’ pay and conditions.

Mr Gove told Sky News: “I would never criticise nurses for something like that.”

Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary, said: “To criticise anybody using a food bank is disgusting, heartless and dangerously out of touch.

“Sky-high inflation means some nursing staff are living on a financial knife-edge and even their own employer – NHS trusts across the country – are being forced to open food banks to feed their staff.”

However, Mr Clarke said he stood by his remarks.

Tory MP Lee Anderson tweeted in support of his colleague: “The point here is that ANYONE (not just nurses) earning *MORE* than 30k, & are using foodbanks must have a budgeting problem.

“I have constituents i.e armed forces, bin men, bar staff, care workers, bus drivers, pensioners etc who can all live on less. Am I missing something?”

Mr Clarke said this was his point “exactly”, and that people earning £35,000 “shouldn’t need to use a food bank” except in “very particular circumstances”.

In another post, Mr Anderson said a member of his staff called Katy “is single & earns less than £30k, rents a room for £775pcm in central London, has student debt, £120 a month on travelling to work saves money every month, goes on foreign holidays & does not need to use a foodbank”.

However, the MP for Ashfield’s tweet was met with backlash by fellow social media users who accused him of using his employee to make a political point – while the hashtag “Poor Katy” started trending on Twitter.

Nurses ‘pushed over poverty line’

While the average salary of a nurse is about £35,000, the majority of nurses are on a Band 5 pay rate, which has a starting salary of £27,055, rising to £32,934 over four years.

Matthew Tovey, a nurse and spokesperson for the campaign group NHS Say No, told Sky News those who earn £35,000 and upwards “are typically specialist nurses who have had further training – often university courses which incurs extra cost”.

He said nurses often come from university with “the excess of £50,000 worth of debt from training” while their pay packets are being squeezed by rising rents, mortgage rates, fuel and food prices.

“Some people the food banks typically see are student nurses, nurses working part-time, nurses being the sole earner,” he said.

“We are now on a knife edge to the spiralling cost of living. [Nurses] are queuing in bitterly cold weather for food and then working 12-hour shifts on the front line looking after patients with dangerous nurse to staff patient ratios.

“Nurses like myself are choosing between heating and eating whilst battling the worst conditions ever known to the NHS.

“I have seen first hand how nurses are being pushed over the poverty line and into food banks this winter. This MP needs to speak to constituents and go to his local trust and food bank to see.”

The row comes as thousands of nurses go on strike at more than 55 NHS trusts in England this week.

The bitter dispute over pay looks set to continue after Steve Barclay, the health secretary, said a 10% pay rise is “unaffordable”.

Ms Cullen – who is calling for a 19% pay rise but has said she would meet the government half-way – branded his comments “disappointing” as she joined the picket line this morning.

“Every nurse I have spoken to is deeply disappointed,” she said.

“They say this is just another move to turn their backs on the fantastic nursing staff that have kept us all going through a very, very incredible period, which was the pandemic and long before it.”

PM ‘should grab olive branch’

Ms Cullen called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to overrule Mr Barclay and “grab the olive branch” before further NHS strikes next month.

NHS leaders are making contingency plans ahead of the biggest walkout in the health service’s history.

Ambulance staff and nurses are set to both go on strike on 6 February – taking industrial action on the same day for the first time ever.

Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, has said the proposed walkouts are a “huge concern”.

She urged ministers to “get round the table with the unions urgently to deal with the key issue of pay for this financial year, otherwise there is no light at the end of the tunnel”.

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

10 hours ago

July 14, 2025

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

World

Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

22 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.