Piers Morgan has challenged Rishi Sunak over parking fees for NHS hospital staff during a fiery interview broadcast on TalkTV.
Car parking fees paid by hospital staff have soared more than eight-fold compared to the previous year, from £5.6 million in 2021/22 to £46.7 million in 2022/23.
The enormous jump is because of parking charges scrapped during the pandemic being reintroduced in March 2022.
Patricia Marquis, the Royal College of Nursing’s director for England, said: “For nursing staff and support workers, the soaring cost of parking takes too much of their low wage.
“Government and the NHS must rethink – leaving nursing staff out of pocket just for doing their jobs is wholly unfair.”
Lib Dem health and social care spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: “Hospital car parking fees are becoming a tax on caring for visitors and our hard-working NHS staff.
“This Conservative government is utterly failing to deliver on their promise to crack down on unfair hospital parking fees, and people are literally paying the price.”
Here’s what the prime minister had to say on the matter:
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