Sir Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of being “too weak to stand up to tax avoiders” as he claimed the prime minister was choosing non-doms over nurses on the eve of an historic strike.
Labour has said it would scrap the controversial ‘non-dom’ tax status and plough the money raised into the NHS.
The influential Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says its “best estimate” is that abolishing the measure would be worth around £3 billion a year.
But Mr Sunak has suggested the move could cost Britain money, by sending the mega-rich abroad.
As the two men clashed at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) Sir Keir said: “The reason he can’t choose nurses over non-doms is that he is too weak to stand up to tax avoiders”.
He also accused the Conservative leader of “playing games with people’s health” amid fears over the potential impact of Thursday’s strike.
He said: “Nurses going on strike is a badge of shame for this Government. Instead of showing leadership, he is playing games with people’s health and there is a human cost.”
He hit out at the government’s refusal to enter pay talks with the nurses, despite high inflation and the cost of living crisis.
He said striking nurses “have been forced into it because the government has broken the health system”.
Speaking about NHS staff, he added: “They will tell you they don’t have enough staff. 133,000 vacancies.
“There’s an obvious solution – scrap the non-dom status and use the money to bring through the next generation of doctors and nurses. That is what Labour would do, why hasn’t he got the guts to do it?”
Mr Sunak replied that the government was “already investing billions more in the NHS”.
He added: “Last year when everyone else in the public sector had a public-sector pay freeze, the nurses received a 3 per cent pay rise. When the RCN asked for more in work training, we gave every nurse and midwife a £1,000 training budget. And when they asked for nurses’ bursaries, we made sure that every nursing student received a £5,000 grant. That’s because we do work constructively and we will continue to back our nurses.”
Sir Keir also mentioned the case of Alex from Chester, who he said had been waiting for a gallbladder operation for nearly six months and was in so much pain he has been off school.
He added: His operation has already been cancelled twice. His mum, who I spoke to this morning, is worried sick, when she heard that strikes could be called off she was massively relieved.
“She’s desperate for the Prime Minister to resolve this. All he needs to do is simply meet the nurses.”
