Sunak invites unions to talks on Monday but does not deny nurses face sack for striking – UK politics live | Politics

In his interview Rishi Sunak was also asked if he was worried about reports that people are almost certainly “unnecessarily dying” because of the crisis in the NHS. At the weekend the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, said that between 300 and 500 people were dying every week because of delays and problems with A&E. And yesterday the Office for National Statistics revealed that, in the week ending 23 December, there were almost 2,500 more deaths than you would expect from the five-year average for this time of year.

After saying that people were dying unnecessarily, the interviewer asked: “Does that trouble you?” In his response, Sunak insisted that he was putting extra funding into the NHS, but he did not engage with the particular point about excess deaths at all. For the record, this is what he said:

The NHS is obviously under enormous pressure as we recover from Covid and I have enormous admiration for all the people working incredibly hard in the NHS right now to help get us through that.

Now we are supporting them with billions of pounds of extra funding, but in particular this winter what we want to do is make sure that we move people out of hospitals, into social care, into communities. That’s one of the most powerful ways we can ease some of the pressures on A&E departments and ambulances that are waiting too long … We need to make sure that money reaches the frontline and makes a difference.

And there’s various other initiatives that we’re rolling out that will also help ease some of the burdens.

But people should rest assured. One of my promises that I made this week was to tackle NHS waits, and I’m fully committed to doing that.

The interviewer did not try a second time to get an answer on excess deaths. But in pooled broadcast interviews like this, it often isn’t possible to press a politician when they avoid a question because the reporter is expected to cover a range of topics in limited time.

In his interview Rishi Sunak said he hoped talks with the unions about pay could start on Monday. Yesterday the government proposed talks with the public sector unions on their pay settlement for 2023-24, and Sunak revealed this morning that the government would like those talks to start within days. He said:

The government has written, all departments have written to all their unions inviting them for talks on Monday so that we can have those conversations talking about what’s affordable, what’s reasonable, what’s responsible for our country.

I think everyone agrees that the most pressing economic priority we have is reducing the cost of living and getting a grip of inflation is the best way we can do that to ease the cost of living, not only for nurses, but for everyone.

But the government does not want to talk about the pay settlement for the current financial year, 2022-23, at these talks, and the unions have said this means they won’t offer a solution to the current disputes, which are about this year’s pay offer, not next year’s.

And when Sunak was asked if he was willing to respond to the olive branch offered by the Royal College of Nursing, and meet them “halfway” on pay, as Pat Cullen has proposed (see 9.19am), he indicated that the government was not minded to budge. Asked if he would extend the pay offer to nurses, or meet them halfway, he replied:

We’ve always been clear that we want to have a grown-up on conversation, a two-way conversation with union leaders. And that’s why all departments have written to all their unions inviting them room for talks on Monday so that we can have those conversations, talking about what’s affordable, what’s reasonable, what’s responsible for our country.

I think everyone agrees that the most pressing economic priority we have is reducing the cost of living, and getting a grip of inflation is the best way we can do that to ease the cost of living, not only for nurses, but for everyone.

Asked if the talks would cover this year’s pay offer, as well as next year’s, Sunak just repeated what he said earlier about wanting a “grown-up conversation”.

In his interview, Rishi Sunak implied that the government’s anti-strike law was primarily about maintaining safety standards, not service standards. He said:

In common with countries like France, Italy, Spain and others, that ensure that we have minimum levels of safety in critical areas like fire, like ambulance, so that even when strikes are going on you know that your health will be protected.

I think that’s entirely reasonable and that’s what our new laws will do.

But in fact the legislation is actually about minimum service levels (although in its press notice yesterday the government used both terms, apparently interchangeably – it helps that the acronym, MSL, is the same).

And the bill covers areas like education, where a strike does not pose an obvious safety risk.

This distinction could become important if the legislation ends up in court because there is a difference between what is justified on safety grounds and what is justified on service grounds.

Rishi Sunak has recorded a broadcast interview on a visit to a school in Battersea, south London, this morning. In one of his answers, he did not deny that nurses could be sacked for not working during a strike under the anti-strike law announced by the government yesterday.

Asked if it was correct that people could be sacked for not going to work in the NHS under these plans, Sunak replied:

I fully believe in the unions’ role in our society and the freedom for them to strike. I also believe that that should be balanced with the right of ordinary working people to go about their lives free from significant disruption.

That’s why we’re going to bring forward new laws, in common with countries like France, Italy, Spain and others, that ensure that we have minimum levels of safety in critical areas like fire, like ambulance, so that even when strikes are going on you know that your health will be protected.

I think that’s entirely reasonable and that’s what our new laws will do.

I will post more from the interview shortly.

And Mick Lynch, the RMT general secretary, has also been giving interview this morning. Asked about the anti-strike legislation unveiled by the government yesterday, he said the announcement showed the government had “lost the argument” on pay. He told BBC Breakfast:

What this is a symbol of is that the government are losing the argument. They’ve lost the argument on austerity and pay, and the state of our national public services.

And instead they want to close that argument down by closing down the unions and stopping us from campaigning against poverty.

Good morning. Yesterday the government launched two initiatives to address the problem of striking Britain: on the “stick” side, it announcing plans for a far-reaching anti-strike law (although not as far reaching as it might have been if Jacob Rees-Mogg was still in charge, as Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey point out in their story), and on the “carrot” side they offered talks on next year’s pay settlement. The stick is a lot bigger and more sturdy than the carrot, but the carrot came as a surprise, and it suggests that minister are worried about the danger of being seen as unreasonable.

The unions are also keen to retain public support, and in an interview with Times’s Past Imperfect podcast Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said explicitly that she would meeet the government “halfway” on the RCN’s pay demand.

The RCN has been asking for 5% above the RPI level of inflation. Calculations of RPI inflation vary over time, but the government is currently intrepreting that as a demand for a 19% pay rise. In her interview, Cullen indicated she would settle for roughly half of that. She said:

There is a rhetoric out there that says the Royal College of Nursing is unrealistic, it’s looking for something that’s totally unachievable, it’s looking for 19%.

Now I could sit here all day and tell you nurses’ pay has dropped by 20% over the last decade. Do I believe those nurses are entitled [to 19%]? Absolutely, I believe they’re entitled to 19%. But we also understand the economic climate that we’re working in.

And what I would say to Steve Barclay [the health secretary] and to the prime minister is get into a room and meet me halfway here and do the decent thing for these nurses.

In its write-up, the Times says the RCN would settle for a pay rise of around 10%.

Cullen has for weeks been urging the government to reopen talks on the pay offer and in public comments she has always accepted that, in a negotiation, the RCN would not necessarily get everything it wanted. But in the past she has not been as blunt as this about being willing to split the difference with the government.

The RCN development comes as the RMT rail union starts another 48-hour strike. My colleague Gwyn Topham has the story here.

It looks like a relatively quiet day in politics (other news is available, if stories about dysfunctional family relationships in anachronistic institutions are your thing), but Rishi Sunak is expected to be on a visit this morning. And in Scotland Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, is giving a speech.

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