NHS Industrial Action: Government Preparations

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on Government preparations for industrial action in the NHS.

[The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Will Quince)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his question, which I am taking on behalf of the Department as the Secretary of State is attending a Cobra meeting on contingency planning for industrial action in the NHS. He also came before the House on the subject twice last week: at departmental questions and for the Opposition day debate.

We are all hugely grateful for the hard work and dedication of NHS staff, so we deeply regret that some union members have voted for industrial action. Our priority must be to keep patients safe. That begins with keeping the door open. The Secretary of State wrote to the Royal College of Nursing on Saturday asking for further discussions as a matter of urgency. At the same time, we are working with the NHS to minimise the disruption to patients if the strikes do go ahead. We are engaged with providers, professional bodies and trade unions to agree safe levels of cover should any action take place.

In addition, this afternoon, Ministers—including the Secretary of State—are attending a Cobra meeting focused on our contingency plans. Our plans draw on extra support from a range of places, including service personnel and the private sector. While we aim to minimise disruption, with the NHS already under significant pressure from the covid pandemic and winter pressures, we remain deeply concerned about the risk that strikes pose to patients.

I want to be clear that, even at this moment of uncertainty, people must keep coming forward to get the care that they need. People should continue to use NHS 111 if they need medical help and dial 999 in the event of an emergency. For more routine treatment, hospitals will do everything they can to ensure that planned procedures go ahead, but it is inevitable that any strike would mean some patients would have their treatment delayed. People will be contacted if their appointments need to be changed.

It is our hope that patients can be spared from unnecessary and unjustified strikes. Industrial action is in no one’s best interests, especially in this difficult winter. We have had constructive meetings with the leadership of several unions, including the RCN, Unison, Unite and the GMB, and we look forward to further discussions to find a way forward together that is in the best interests of the patients we all serve.

[Wes Streeting]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. The power to stop these strikes likes squarely with the Government and the Secretary of State. The Royal College of Nursing and Unison have said that they will call off strikes this week if the Government are willing to negotiate with them seriously on pay. That reasonable offer of compromise is surely too good to refuse, so what on earth are the Government playing at? After 12 years of Conservative government, patients can no longer get seen on time and staff have been pushed to breaking point—and the Government cannot even be bothered to try to negotiate to prevent strikes from going ahead, at the worst possible time for patients and the NHS. The Government should ask themselves why, under a Conservative Government, nurses feel they have to take industrial action for the first time in more than 100 years and why ambulance workers are set to follow them for the first time since 1989.

It should be obvious by now what the Conservative agenda is. The Government know that patients are going to suffer this winter and they have no plan to fix the problems of their own making, so instead of taking responsibility for their failure they want to use nurses and paramedics as scapegoats to avoid the blame. It is a disgusting plan, it is a dangerous plan, and it is a plan that will not work. The public know that the power to stop these strikes is in the Government’s hands. If they fail to act now, patients will never forgive them.

How many operations have already been cancelled? How does the Minister expect those on the waiting list to feel if their operations are cancelled because of the Government’s gross negligence? Can he tell patients which services will be impacted if these strikes go ahead? Is the Secretary of State not embarrassed at Cobra today, asking the Army to come in to clean up the Government’s mess?

Even at this last minute, it is not too late to prevent strikes from going ahead. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the meeting with the RCN later today will involve discussions on pay. And if not, why not? Because that is all it takes: just a few minutes or a few hours of talk can avoid strike action. Why will they not do it?

[Will Quince]

The fact is that Labour is all over the place when it comes to strikes. They criticise Ministers while admitting that the unions’ pay demands are unaffordable. The hon. Gentleman and his party leader are too tied to their union paymasters to be on the side of patients. He knows that we have an independent pay review body, and is important that both sides respect that independent body. We accepted the independent body’s recommendations for this year’s increase in full, meaning that over 1 million NHS staff have been given at least a £1,400 increase in their pay. That is on top of a 3% pay rise last year at a time when pay was frozen across the wider public sector. The RCN, one of the unions taking action, is asking for an increase that is 5% above the retail prices index. Based on latest figures, that is an increase of 19.2%, or the equivalent of 6.5% of the NHS budget. To meet such demands, we would have to take money away from clearing the elective backlog that the hon. Gentleman referred to, something no responsible Government would wish to do.

Throughout this period, we have always sought to have a balanced process. Those in the private sector will not be getting a 19% uplift, and there is a clear need to be fair to the wider economy. We have to avoid inflationary pressures that would make us all poorer in the end.

We will continue to listen to colleagues’ concerns, not just about pay but many other issues affecting the working lives of those in the NHS. We will work with them to make improvements in a range of areas, from working conditions to patient safety, because we believe there is so much that we can agree on. Strike action is in no one’s best interest. We will keep working so that the NHS continues to be there for those who need it most.