Labour have blasted a Tory minister for suggesting NHS staff should see their job as a “vocation” instead of striking for better pay.
Lord Markham - a businessman who was made a minister last month - drew groans in the House of Lords for the remark on Wednesday.
He was asked what advice he would give a nurse “working in theatre, and at the top of her pay band, alongside agency nurses who are paid two to three times as much as she is.”
Asked if she should quit to join an agency “or vote to strike”, he replied: “I would hope and trust that such a respected person would see this position as the vocation that it is.”
The peer, who co-founded Covid test firm Cignpost Diagnostics, added the government was trying to hire more nurses to cut down on agency staff.
It came as 350,000 health service members of Unison started voting on Thursday on whether to strike over pay.
NHS staff have been offered pay rises worth at least £1,400, but for some it is as little as 4% while inflation tops 10%.
Therese Coffey, who was moved aside from Health Secretary in Rishi Sunak ’s reshuffle, previously admitted “it is their choice” if nurses want to move abroad.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting claimed Tory ministers were “pouring petrol on the fire of the shortage of nurses”.
He added: “Nurses work their socks off day after day in difficult conditions.
“And the message they get from the Government is either ‘aren’t you lucky’, or ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out’.
“ Labour ’s message to nurses is very different: the cavalry is coming.
“We will train the nurses needed to treat patients on time as part of the biggest expansion of medical training in history, paid for by abolishing non-doms.”
Lord Markham said in the Lords debate: “We accept that there are some agency workers being used in this space.
“Because obviously, in terms of safety, we need to make sure we cover that number of people.
“The whole recruitment plan - which, again, we are on target to achieve - is all about making sure we have enough nurses so that we do not have to use agency workers.
