Resident Doctors: Industrial Action

Debate between Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Baroness Merron

Monday 15th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I certainly understand the noble and right reverend Lord’s point. The offer we made—which covered a number of the areas that the noble and right reverend Lord referred to, plus more—is not applicable because it was not accepted. We put it forward, developed it further and did all we could that was realistic. The noble and right reverend Lord asked whether it is funded, but I will change the tense of his question: it would have been funded, but the offer was rejected and therefore is no longer on the table. That is why it is not going ahead.

On waiting lists, as I mentioned to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, we have proved that we can maintain a near full programme of elective work, with 95% of planned care being maintained—and, again, let us pay tribute to the NHS staff who have done that. But let us not suggest that there are no effects. It affects the staff who step in to cover for their colleagues. We have an NHS in desperate need of reform. We are turning it around, but these strikes get in our way. As I mentioned, we cannot underestimate the amount of effort, finance, direction and morale—the list could go on—that these strikes take up. I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord for raising those points.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I share the outrage, fury and frustration about this industrial action. My noble friend the Minister and others around the Chamber are absolutely right to pay tribute to the workforce, and I give a particular shout-out to nurses. We are always focused on doctors—I hope noble Lords present who are doctors will forgive me—but nurses do a splendid job, and too often we forget that they work for relatively little pay as well.

I was glad that when the Secretary of State was negotiating, he was talking about the training places, because the training bottleneck is absurd. I know many brilliant young resident doctors who are so frustrated and have a terrible deal, so I urge my noble friend to pass on to the Secretary of State my view that, when he is next around the negotiating table, training places should be there in the negotiations.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My noble friend rightly refers, as I did earlier, to the training bottleneck. The Secretary of State was glad to acknowledge the need to tackle training. While he felt that there was no point on pay to be accepted, he certainly felt that the BMA resident doctors committee had a good point on jobs. To be honest, that is why it is so disappointing to be where we are today.

I will pass on my noble friend’s generous comments to the Secretary of State. He offered to introduce emergency legislation in the new year to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors with significant experience of working in the NHS in speciality training posts. That would have made a huge difference, but it has been rejected. He also offered to increase the number of training posts over the next three years, from the 1,000 that was originally announced to 4,000, bringing forward 1,000 of those training posts to start next year—that would have made a huge difference. I could go on, but I have made my point.

I agree with my noble friend’s point about acknowledging the role of nurses. In fact, if my noble friend will allow me, I will go further: we are talking about the whole healthcare team. That is another point to the issue on pay: while the BMA doctors committee continues to press for a pay deal far in excess of anything that anyone else is getting, the impact across the NHS, both on staff and on services, continues to be under threat—and we cannot allow that.