PMQ: Johnson's Phone Scandal and NHS

The United Kingdom Parliament met together for the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions Time. Labor Party and Opposition Leader Sir Keir Starmer asked multiple questions to Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader Boris Johnson about his recent phone scandal with lobbying partners.

Starmer opened up by accusing Johnson of exchanging texts with a billionaire conservative donor about tax breaks.

“The Prime Minister was lobbied by a wealthy businessman and a close friend for a change in the tax rules.” Afterwards, Johnson gave a response to him that he will fix it. Once he had a discussion with the Chancellor, he sent him a text that it was fixed.

Johnson responded by saying that he would not apologize for what happened. Although he did not directly confirm nor deny the validity of the texts, he said that he did what he had to do to secure ventilators.

“We had 9,000 ventilators in this country, Mr. Speaker. We secured 22,000 as a result of that ventilator challenge.” He said that was appropriate to work with every business that produced ventilators.

Starmer acknowledged that thousands of businesses stood up during the pandemic. However, not every business has Johnson’s personal number to text. This problem was what the scandal is all about.

“At the heart of this scandal are people’s jobs and wasted tax payer’s money.” A lot of steel businesses are at risk of losing jobs. Liberty Steel in one example where thousands of jobs are on the line. However, as Starmer pointed out, these workers do not have access to Johnson’ number, unlike other very powerful and rich lobbyists.

Johnson said that he did have a concern for steel workers. This is why his Business Secretary had met with unions and Liberty Steel. He also said that under the Labor Party, jobs in steel decreased by 50%, but under the Conservative Government, there had been massive infrastructure investment that has created a 5 million ton British steel pipeline.

“We intend to use our new freedoms under Brexit to make sure that procurement goes to British companies.”

Starmer told Johnson that if he genuinely cared for steel workers, then he needs to act. He also went on to say that the currency behind the Conservative Government is “favors, privileged access, tax breaks for mates.” This was especially seen since the conservative government had not given their support to the 3 million self-employed people in the country.

Johnson responded quickly by saying that he had supported self-employed people through a 14 billion pound package. He also said that Starmer had attacked the ventilators that the conservative government has been able to produce, and had also attacked the vaccine task force.

Starmer simply reiterated what he had said about the 3 million self-employed people. He asked Johnson if any nurse within the NHS that needed support would have access to his personal phone number for texting.

As in previous PMQs, Johnson said that the conservative government had shown a great support towards the nurses. That has included a 92 billion pound package to the NHS, 5,000 pounds of bursary, 3,000 pounds for training and child care costs. Furthermore, there has been a 12.8% raise in their payments. Not only that, but there will be 50,000 more nurses entering into the NHS for training.

However, Starmer responded by saying that nurses are upset by their pay cuts. This is not just true for the NHS, but he said that there is a lot of scandal around the government. This includes dodgy deals and tax breaks for Johnson’s friends.

Other questions by members of Parliament were asked in the remaining PMQ session.