WATCH: Free parking should continue through pandemic, says Burnham

Andy Burnham has said that free parking for NHS workers should continue “for the duration of the pandemic”, arguing that the coronavirus crisis is still an “ongoing situation”.

In an interview with Sky News this morning, the mayor of Greater Manchester discussed government plans to make health workers pay for parking at their own hospitals again.

Burnham said that the government “seem to have a bit of a downer on measures like this, but having done it in the first place they should see it through – through the course of the pandemic”.

He argued that the government should “certainly make it last for the duration of the pandemic – that would seem to me to honour the spirit of what was done at the start”.

He added: “This is still an ongoing situation. Staff are still battling into work everyday. I think it undermines the initiative in the first place to withdraw it now.”

The Department of Health and Social Care announced it March that it would provide NHS trusts with funds to abolish the parking charges for staff, encouraging their workers to drive to work instead of using public transport.

But health minister Edward Argar has said that the measure was “only made possible by support from local authorities and independent providers”, and that it “cannot continue indefinitely”.