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Sunak Says UK Can’t Raise Taxes to End Dispute With Nurses

  • Sunak says National Health Service spending at historic high
  • Nurses, ambulance workers set to strike on Feb. 6 over pay
Nurses and ambulance workers will strike together for the first time on Feb. 6.

Nurses and ambulance workers will strike together for the first time on Feb. 6.

Photographer: Dominic Lipinski/Bloomberg
Updated on

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he cannot raise UK taxes to fund pay rises for workers in the state-run National Health Service. 

“Where we are with taxes at the moment, we can’t put them up,” Sunak told an audience of health-care workers in northeastern England, adding that government spending on the NHS is at a historical high. “The pie is as big as it’s ever been” and the balance to strike is “about what’s affordable within that pie.”