Corbyn vows to end parking fee “tax on sickness” as he visits target seats

Jeremy Corbyn will today step up Labour’s assault on outsourcing as he renews the party’s pledge to scrap hospital car parking fees when he visits key seats in the south east.

Corbyn will say that patients and visitors have been forced to “subsidise” the profits of the “outsourced private contractors” who operate the car parks.

He will visit Milton Keynes University Hospital where the two local seats are each narrowly held by the Tories.

It is the latest salvo in Labour’s war on outsourcing following the collapse of Carillion last month.

“It’s fundamentally wrong that out-patients, NHS workers and those visiting their loved ones are being forced to pay a tax on sickness,” Corbyn is due to say.

“Patients and visitors should not be subsidising the profits of outsourced private contractors who run almost half of these hospital car parks or make up for Tory underfunding of our NHS.

“Labour is committed to ending NHS hospital car park charges in England by making those who can afford private healthcare pay a bit more in tax.”

More follows shortly…