Coronavirus: Boris Johnson unable to say how much care home workers earn per hour

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Boris Johnson floundered under questioning from MPs today as he was unable to say how much a care worker earned.

The prime minister, who famously earned thousands of pounds an hour writing a newspaper column, was asked by Labour’s deputy leader Angela Ranyer if he knew what workers were paid.

“The prime minister once earned £2,300 an hour," he said. "So can the prime minister tell us what is the average hourly rate of a care worker in this country?”

Mr Johnson failed to respond directly to the question and instead asked why Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, was not in the chamber.

“The prime minister doesn’t know how much a care worker earns because that was my question,” Ms Rayner replied.

"The shameful fact is that the average wage in social care is barely more than £8 an hour and half of our social care workers earn less than the real living wage. 

"On his first day in office the prime minister said we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all that we have prepared – but still there’s not sign of the plan."

Mr Johnson revealed that the government would be announcing a “winter care home action plan” tomorrow.

“I pay tribute to all the care home workers in this country for what they’ve done to help us bring down the disease and we will make sure, as we have done over the last few months that they will get the PPE they need, the guidance they need, and the cash they need,” he said. 

As a columnist for the Daily Telegraph  newspaper the prime minister earned  £275,000 a year, on top of his MPs’ salary. He was previously criticised for describing his renumeration as “chickenfeed”.

The role took 10 hours a month,  amounting to  £2,291 an hour for the weekly column.

Matthew Bolton, executive director at campaign group Citizens UK, said: “We'd like to remind our Prime Minister that around half of care workers are on the frontline fighting this pandemic on the minimum wage. 

"This is why we at Citizens UK are campaigning to get a real Living Wage for care workers. They have worked tirelessly on the front lines of the fight against Covid-19 and it's time their hard work is recognised in their pay cheques."