Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Rishi Sunak said that his government had “consistently spoken to all the unions involved in all the pay disputes”, denying accusations from the opposition benches that ministers had stood idly by and let industrial action happen.
Sunak told MPs that he wanted to “put on record what we’ve done for nurses”, explaining that they were awarded a three per cent pay rise in 2021 when public sector pay across other industries was frozen.
The PM also insisted that nurses already had a “fair” pay rise offer on the table.
His comments were in response to Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, who called the strike action by NHS nurses a “badge of shame” for the government to wear.
Accusing ministers of being in “hibernation” rather than negotiating with unions, Sir Keir added that the government was “playing games with people’s health” and needed to “open the door and discuss pay” to find a settlement and stop the strikes.
He said: “After 12 years of Tory failure, winter has arrived for our public services, and we've got a prime minister who has curled up in a ball and gone into hibernation.”
Members of nurses’ union The Royal College of Nursing [RCN] will stage walkouts on December 15 and 20, as it pursues a 19.2 per cent pay rise.
Health secretary Steve Barclay has already dismissed the union’s demands over their affordability, highlighting that the government had raised nurses’ salaries in accordance with the independent NHS pay review body.
Sunak reiterated the words of his health secretary during Wednesday’s session in the Commons, reaffirming that the government would abide by the recommendations set by the independent pay review body.
The prime minister told the chamber that the government had “engaged fully, not just with the unions but with an independent pay-setting process”.
He also moved to allay fears that the nurses’ strike would exacerbate the Covid backlog, telling MPs that available data from the most recent months around cancer treatment rates showed that they are “now back at pre-pandemic levels.”
But Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader in Westminster, urged the PM to follow “the Scottish government’s lead” in averting strike action.
Flynn's comments came after the Scottish government at Holyrood struck a deal with the Unite and Unison unions this week. Members of both unions agreed to a 7.5 per cent pay rise for NHS nurses and will no longer stage their strikes.
Image by Number 10 - The Prime Minister meets the Elective Recovery Taskforce, on Wikimedia Commons
