Lower-paid NHS workers face a cut in their income next year with the end of the universal credit uplift and new health and care tax wiping out their 3 per cent pay rise, House of Commons data shows.
Boris Johnson originally offered NHS staff in England a pay hike of 1 per cent, before increasing it to 3 per cent following a backlash from across the political spectrum.
But research from the Commons Library suggests that for the average healthcare assistant, the effect of the higher salary will be more than cancelled out by the £20-a-week benefits cut introduced this autumn and 1.25 percentage point tax rise which takes effect in the spring, leaving them more than £900 worse off every year.
Boris Johnson was accused of “taking NHS heroes for granted” by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who will attempt to put the social care crisis at the heart of his party conference speech on Sunday.
The Commons Library calculated that the average NHS healthcare assistant who has been working for more than two years and has two children at school currently gets take-home pay of £16,811, as well as a monthly universal credit entitlement of £849.
Next year, their net salary will rise to £17,077 – less than it would have done without the new health and social care levy – while their universal credit payments will drop to £748 thanks to the imminent expiry of the £20-a-week uplift which took effect at the start of the pandemic. The overall impact is a reduction in income of just over £940 a year or almost £80 a month.
Sir Ed said: “These figures show that many NHS workers will see their meagre pay rise wiped out by the Conservatives’ heartless proposals. For a working parent with children struggling to make ends meet, the impact of this could be devastating.
“It is a slap in the face for our NHS heroes and all those working families who Boris Johnson is taking for granted. The Liberal Democrats will keep fighting this unfair tax raid on nurses and others on the frontline of the pandemic.”