Boris Johnson has announced a new £3,000 ‘levelling up premium’ for talented maths, physics and chemistry teachers.
The Prime Minister unveiled the policy during his Conservative Party conference speech in Manchester, saying the teachers would work in areas that need them.
It forms part of the Conservative’s ‘levelling up’ agenda, which Mr Johnson claims will see £14 billion pumped into education, and teacher salaries starting at £30,000.
The PM delivered a rousing speech to a room packed full of Tories, congratulating them on the ‘sheer scale of their achievements’ while ignoring the devastating crises facing Britain.
He claimed his party had ‘got Brexit done, got the vaccine rollout done’ and was well-placed to tackle the social care crisis.
But there was little mention of the ongoing fuel chaos, food shortages, warnings of empty shelves at Christmas and a looming cull of 100,000 pigs.
‘Millions’ are also set to face hardship this winter with a £20-a-week Universal Credit cut that starts from today.
Mr Johnson defended the impending hike in national insurance to pay for the NHS and social care, arguing the country is in a ‘hole’ after the Covid pandemic.
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But he said he believed in a ‘low tax economy’, achieved through growth driven by a high-wage, high-skilled workforce.
Setting out the need for the health tax hike, which will fund £12 billion of investment each year, the PM said a ‘tide of anxiety’ is washing into A&E departments and GP practices.
He recalled lying in a hospital bed last year and seeing a hole in the ground, noting: ‘They seemed to be digging a hole for something or indeed someone, possibly me.
‘But the NHS saved me and our wonderful nurses pulled my chestnuts out of that Tartarean pit and I went back on a visit the other day and I saw that the hole had been filled in with three or four gleaming storeys of a new paediatrics unit.
‘And there you have a metaphor for how we must build back better now.
‘We have a huge hole in the public finances, we spent £407 billion on Covid support and our debt now stands at over £2 trillion, and waiting lists will almost certainly go up before they come down.
‘Covid pushed out the great bow wave of cases and people did not or could not seek help, and that wave is now coming back – a tide of anxiety washing into every A&E and every GP.
‘Your hip replacement, your mother’s surgery, and this is the priority of the British people.’
The rising tax burden has caused concern among the Tories, but Mr Johnson told activists in Manchester: ‘I can tell you – Margaret Thatcher would not have ignored the meteorite that has just crashed through the public finances.
‘She would have wagged her finger and said “more borrowing now is just higher interest rates, and even higher taxes later”.’
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Source: Metro
