Industrial Action

Colum Eastwood Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. May I gently remind Members that Mr Speaker has determined that anybody who came in five minutes after the start of the session will not be called?

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I know that the Secretary of State likes to fly around in his own private plane, but I can tell him for a fact that while he has been doing that, many nurses in my constituency have been accessing food banks. This Government seem very uncomfortable with nurses standing on picket lines but totally relaxed about them lining up to get food for their families at food banks. If this Government are serious about stopping the strikes, surely now is the time to pay these essential workers properly.

[Grant Shapps]

I would be interested to hear from those on the Labour Front Bench whether it is their policy to pay a 19% pay rise and, if so, whether they can explain how they will raise the extra money. Will it be extra taxation? Will they be putting it on borrowing, with all the hikes in interest rates, mortgage rates, car loans and the rest of it that that would bring? That is the question they need to answer, and the more they waffle around the subject, rather than bringing forward serious measures to limit the impact of these strikes at the most serious point—the life and death point—the less they will get the respect of the general public.