NHS Strikes

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

Of course I am happy to do that, and I think these things are put on the public record in any event. I do not know when the Secretary of State met specifically with the RCN, but I can tell the House that I have met the unions, I believe, on 9, 12, 25 and 31 January.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I have just come from the nurses’ picket outside St Thomas’s Hospital, on the other side of Westminster bridge, where nurses made the point that they were not striking against the NHS but to save the NHS. They have been underpaid and overworked for too long; their pay is down 20% on what it was when the Tories came into power, and now there are a record 50,000 nursing vacancies in England. That is not just unfair but incredibly unsafe. As one nurse said, “Patients aren’t dying because nurses are striking. Nurses are striking because patients are dying.” Will the Minister finally listen to NHS staff, get around the table to talk about pay and give them the pay rise they deserve?

[Will Quince]

Despite what the hon. Lady says, there are 47,100 more nurses this year than there were in 2010 and 10,500 more than last year, and we have 72,000 nurses in training. The Government hugely value the work not just of nurses—I remind the hon. Lady that she is also talking about the 1.245 million people who work on the Agenda for Change contract. She is right that we have to get pay and other matters right, and that is why we have an independent pay review body process where we look at affordability, reward and recognition, and pay, alongside recruitment and retention and achieving a package that is fair to taxpayers. That independent pay review body will make a recommendation, and it is then for the Government to look at it and accept it or reject it.