Tory MP Simon Clarke defiant after saying nurses using food banks ‘should budget better’
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.
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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.
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Govt treats nurses with ‘distain’
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.”
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10% pay rise for nurses ‘not affordable’
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”.
This is the highest stakes diplomacy via social media.
The American president just posted on his Truth Social platform: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers.
“Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Israel-Iran live: Trump says US knows where Iran’s supreme leader is ‘hiding’
It was followed minutes later by “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
In real-time, we are witnessing Donald Trump’s extreme version of maximum pressure diplomacy.
He’d probably call it the ‘art of the deal’, but bunker busters are the tool, and it comes with such huge consequences, intended and unintended, known and unknown.
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Nuclear sites targeted in Iran
There is intentional ambiguity in the president’s messaging. His assumption is that he can apply his ‘art of the deal’ strategy to a deeply ideological geopolitical challenge.
It’s all playing out publicly. Overnight, the New York Times, via two of its best-sourced reporters, had been told that Mr Trump is weighing whether to use B-2 aircraft to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, Axios was reporting that a meeting is possible between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
The reporting came just as Mr Trump warned “everyone in Tehran to evacuate”. The nuclear sites being threatened with bunker busters are not in Tehran, but Trump’s words are designed to stoke tension, to confuse and to apply intense pressure.
His actions are too. He left the G7 in Canada early and asked his teams to gather in the White House Situation Room.
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Trump: ‘I want an end, not a ceasefire’
This is a game of smoke, mirrors, brinkmanship and – maybe – bluff. In Tehran, what’s left of the leadership is watching and reading closely as they consider what’s next.
Maybe the Supreme Leader and his regime’s days are numbered. Things remain very unpredictable.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
From history, though, regime change, even when it comes with a plan – and there is certainly not one here, spells civil war and from that comes a refugee crisis.
These are truly tense and chaotic times.
World
Ukraine war: 14 killed as Russian missile and drone attacks strike Kyiv – including American citizen
Russian missile and drone attacks have killed 14 people in Kyiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials.
A 62-year-old US citizen who suffered shrapnel wounds is among the dead.
At least 99 others were wounded in strikes that hollowed out a residential building and destroyed dozens of apartments.
Pic: AP
Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Images show a firefighter was among those hurt, with injured residents evacuated from their homes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “one of the most terrifying attacks on Kyiv” – and said Russian forces had fired 440 drones and 32 missiles as civilians slept in their homes.
“[Putin] wants the war to go on,” he said. “It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it.”
Pic: AP
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said 27 locations across the capital have been hit – including educational institutions and critical infrastructure.
He claimed the attack, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was one of the largest on the capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Drones swarmed over the city, with an air raid alert remaining in force for seven hours.
One person was killed and 17 others injured as a result of separate Russian drone strikes in the port city of Odesa.
Pic: Reuters
It comes as the G7 summit in Canada continues, which Ukraine’s leader is expected to attend.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold talks with Donald Trump – but the president has announced he is unexpectedly returning to Washington because of tensions in the Middle East.
Ukraine’s foreign minister says Moscow’s decision to attack Kyiv during the summit is a signal of disrespect to the US.
Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, and says the attacks are in retaliation for a Ukrainian operation that targeted warplanes in airbases deep within Russian territory.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko says fires broke out in two of the city’s districts as a result of debris from drones shot down by the nation’s air defences.
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Pic: AP
On X, Ukraine’s foreign ministry wrote: “Russia’s campaign of terror against civilians continues. Its war against Ukraine escalates with increased brutality.
“The only way to stop Russia is tighter pressure – through sanctions, more defence support for Ukraine, and limiting Russia’s ability to keep sowing war.”
Olena Lapyshnak, who lived in one of the destroyed buildings, said: “It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life. I can only curse the Russians, that’s all I can say. They shouldn’t exist in this world.”
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