NHS pay: Sophy Ridge grills Lisa Nandy on Labour's stance
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UP NEXT
Sky News' Sophy Ridge called out Labour's Lisa Nandy in a fiery interview, as she claimed the MP was "trying to have your cake and eat it" on her party's Budget response. She told the shadow foreign secretary Labour was criticising the Government without providing an alternative. This comes after another Labour U-turn, as Ms Nandy confirmed Labour would now be opposing Rishi Sunak's income tax personal allowance freeze and voting against it.
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This marks a U-turn from shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds, who said on Thursday Labour was "not going to oppose change to that personal allowance, the freezing of it that the Chancellor set out for the future".
Ms Ridge said: "It sounds like you are trying to have your cake and eat it approach.
"You're voting against tax rises. But you want to see more public spending on nurses pay, for example, because you said the Government's planned 1 percent pay rise is not enough.
"What do you want to see?"
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Ms Nandy responded: "I don't think it's a have your cake and eat it approach.
"There's an economic consensus that the way in which we're going to get through this is to make sure that we protect businesses and workers right now.
"This is entirely in-step with other major economies. said If you look over at the USA, Joe Biden is putting in a fiscal stimulus package worth trillions. The EU is following suit."
Ms Ridge fired back: "The question was about nurses pay. You say the 1 percent pay rise wasn't enough. What pay rise do you want to see?"
© SKY NEWSlisa nandy
When Ms Nandy again criticised the Government, Ms Ridge stepped in: "I'm sorry but what do you want to see? What is Labour calling for?"
The shadow foreign secretary, who called the 1 percent pay rise for buses a "real-terms pay cut," said that the Government should go into negotiations offering at least a 2.1 percent rise.
She added: "We think that nurses deserve a pay rise this year and that should never have been something up that was up for negotiation."
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Social media users hit out as Ms Nandy's performance in the interview.
One person tweeted: "Lisa Nandy is out of touch and seriously awful to listen to!"
Another person added: "Lisa Nandy should explain Labour's economic position. They have no manifesto economic plan."
On BBC's Andrew Marr, the shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth would not say what pay rise Labour would implement.
He instead said Labour would respect the conclusion of the independent pay review body.