UK Edition
Tories to axe hospital car parking fees for millions
Boris Johnson is pledging to end NHS hospital car parking charges for millions of patients, relatives and staff as he prepares to unveil an election manifesto designed to take on Jeremy Corbyn on the health service and the cost of living.
Mr Johnson said the Conservatives would set out a programme to “get Brexit done and allow us to move on” and “unleash the potential of the whole country”. On Saturday night, he joked that Britain could be “Corbyn neutral” by 2020 if the Tories won the Dec 12 poll.
The Conservative manifesto will pledge to introduce free car parking at hospitals for the two million “blue badge” disabled drivers and passengers, as well as frequent outpatients, gravely ill patients, visitors to relatives in hospital for extended periods, and staff on night shifts who cannot use public transport.
The proposals will be funded with a £78 million-a-year pledge for hospitals in England and £216 million in capital funding for 19 hospitals to build multi-storey car parks.
The move is one of Mr Johnson’s most significant offers since promising to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers. It is intended to help the Conservatives take on Labour on the key battleground of the NHS. The party is also expected to reinstate a maintenance grant for nurses in training.
Mr Corbyn vowed to abolish hospital car parking fees altogether, but a Conservative source insisted that lifting charges for everyone would leave “fewer spaces” for people visiting sick relatives because car parks would fill up with additional vehicles, including those of local residents.
The Conservative manifesto will also pledge:
- A £2 billion scheme to repair roads in what the Conservatives describe as the country’s “biggest ever pothole-filling programme”;
- A “triple tax lock” ruling out any rises in income tax, national insurance and VAT under a Tory government;
- Billions of pounds’ worth of funding for insulation and other energy efficiency measures, aimed at cutting fuel bills in 2.2 million homes;
- A ban on the export of plastic waste to developing countries;
- The return of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to Parliament before Christmas if Mr Johnson gains a majority, allowing the country to leave the EU by the end of January;
- A review of a tax break that currently allows entrepreneurs to pay half the normal rate of capital gains tax, as well as a pledge to press ahead with a digital services levy targeting internet giants. The manifesto will confirm plans to raise the threshold at which workers pay national insurance to £9,500 next year, in a move the Tories claim will amount to a tax cut of around £100 for 31 million workers.
Mr Johnson’s manifesto will be designed to show that the Conservatives can provide sufficient investment and help with the cost of living, despite refusing to match spending splurges offered by Labour last week. On Monday, Sajid Javid, the Chancellor, is expected to face his opposite number, John McDonnell, in a hustings hosted by the Federation of Small Businesses.
Mr Johnson will state that NHS hospitals will have to provide free car parking facilities for “protected groups” after concluding that hospitals had ignored guidance which demanded that “concessions, including free or reduced charges or caps, should be available for staff working unsociable shifts, blue badge holders and visitors of gravely ill relatives”.
Those individuals will now be eligible for free parking. Robert Halfon, a former Conservative minister, has long campaigned for charges to be lifted after discovering that some hospitals were charging visitors and patients up to £500 per week to park.
“We cannot say in good faith that the NHS is free at the point of access if people with cars face extortionate and unfair parking fees to get to their hospital appointments or to visit sick relatives,” Mr Halfon has said.
The Conservatives’ manifesto launch, which will take place on Sunday afternoon, comes as a new poll of polls for The Sunday Telegraph puts Mr Johnson on course for a 64-seat majority, with Labour predicted to lose 55 seats. The analysis of five polls by Electoral Calculus claims the Conservatives are currently on course to win about 357 seats.
But amid an apparent fall in fortunes for the Liberal Democrats, Sir John Curtice, the leading poll analyst, warns today: “The Conservatives’ seemingly comfortable poll lead would soon be reduced if the Remain vote were to coalesce behind Labour.”
Mr Johnson said: “The Conservative manifesto, which I’m proud to launch today, will get Brexit done and allow us to move on and unleash the potential of the whole country.”