NHS Strikes

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I stand in solidarity with nurses and other NHS workers who are taking action in their fight for fair pay and improved patient safety. Miriam Deakin, the director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, has said that its key ask is that

“the Government does sit down around the table with the unions for formal negotiations on pay, and for that to be applied to pay this year.”

She has described the absence of formal negotiations as “very worrying”. Does the Minister accept that responsibility for the continuation of strike action by NHS staff lies firmly with the Government? Does he agree with Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the RCN, that

“this government has chosen to punish the nurses of England instead of getting round a table and talking…about pay”?

[Will Quince]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but nothing could be further from the truth. We accepted the independent pay review body’s recommendation of an average of 4.75% in full. That is over and above a 3% pay award last year, when the rest of the public sector saw a freeze. The hon. Lady, like me, will have lots of other public sector workers, and indeed private sector workers, in her constituency who will also earn between £30,000 and £50,000 a year. They will also have seen pay awards this year of between 4% and 6%, but they will not have 20% pension contributions or up to 33 days of annual leave a year. We have to keep these things in context, and any award also has to be fair to taxpayers more broadly, which is why we have an independent pay review body process. I want to address many of the issues that the hon. Lady has raised. We have that process; it is important that we use it, and I hope that the unions and others, including providers, will engage with it.