Welsh government says it is offering health staff extra 3% – half one-off, half consolidated – on top of existing pay rise offer
The Welsh government has given details of the revised pay offer to NHS staff that has led to the GMB union suspending its proposed strike by ambulance staff. (See 2.27pm.) A 4.5% pay increase has already been paid, but the Welsh government is offering an extra 3%, of which half is one-off, and half consolidated (ie, permanent, and rolled over for future years).
The spokesperson said:
Following continued discussions over the last week, we are pleased to announce that an enhanced pay offer has been made to our health trade unions.
On this basis, we are hopeful that the planned industrial action over Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 February will be postponed, allowing trade unions to discuss the proposals further with their members.
Individual trade unions will confirm their intentions regarding next week’s action, prior to further talks with their members.
This revised pay offer comprises an additional 3%, of which 1.5% is consolidated so will be in pay packets year on year, on top of the pay review body recommendations, which have already been implemented in full.
This offer will be backdated to April 2022. Included in this revised package are a number of non-pay commitments to enhance staff wellbeing, on which negotiations will continue next week.
Whilst there is currently no improved pay offer on the table for NHS staff in England, it was also agreed that any resulting Barnett consequential following any improved offer to staff in England would result in a further pay offer to staff in Wales.
We would like to thank those that have participated in the negotiations for their positive engagement and goodwill. We are awaiting a formal response from each of the individual trade unions.
Key events
Afternoon summary
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The RCN and the GMB have called off strikes in Wales by nurses and ambulance staff planned for next week. But Unite says its ambulance staff in Wales will go ahead with their strike on Monday. The RCN and GMB acted after the Welsh government tabled an improved pay offer. (See 3.17pm.)
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The RCN and Unison have said that the Scottish and Welsh government have left Rishi Sunak looking unreasonable because they have shown a willingness to revise their pay offers to NHS staff. (See 3.37pm and 4.36pm.)
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Downing Street has said Rishi Sunak continues to have confidence in Simon Case, the cabinet secretary – despite a report suggesting that Case may have failed to fully alert Sunak to a complaint made about Dominic Raab before Raab was appointed to the cabinet. (See 1.15pm.)
Government accused of repeatedly blocking Hillsborough public advocate law
The government was accused of repeatedly blocking a bill aimed at introducing a public advocate for families like those who lost loved ones in the Hillsborough dipaster, PA Media reports. PA says:
The public advocate (No 2) bill would introduce an independent representative for the bereaved and survivors of disasters involving public authorities.
But the bill was effectively denied a second reading at the end of Friday’s Commons sitting, a day when backbench MPs are conventionally given a chance to make laws outside of the government’s legislative agenda.
Following the objection, Labour former minister Maria Eagle questioned whether ministers cared about “righting the terrible wrongs” of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
The Garston and Halewood MP told the Commons: “We have seen five bills proceed today. The public advocate (No 2) bill has been introduced repeatedly into parliament since 2015.
The objection today from the government is the 12th time they have objected in the last two years, despite a proposal for a public advocate being in the government’s own 2017 manifesto.
MPs back private member’s bill to give workers right to request predictable working hours
Giving workers and agency employees the right to request more predictable terms and conditions of work could help the government in its quest to get the over-50s back to work, MPs were told. PA Media says:
Conservative MP Scott Benton’s workers (predictable terms and conditions) bill cleared its first parliamentary hurdle after receiving an unopposed second reading and support from across the House of Commons.
The bill makes new provisions in Part 8A of the Employment Rights Act 1996, to introduce a new statutory right for workers to request a predictable working pattern.
Business minister Kevin Hollinrake said the government was “very keen to find solutions” to get more over-50s back into work.
He told the Commons: “It is very important we try and attract more people who have left the workforce, over-50s, back into the workplace. We know that around 575,000 people since the start of the pandemic have left the workforce. Those people are of working age.”
Stressing that part of the solution was creating a “more flexible” workplace, Hollinrake gave the government’s backing to the bill.
Liz Truss to break post-premiership silence with media appearances planned over coming week
Liz Truss is preparing to return to the political spotlight before making a “hawkish” speech on China that could add to the pressure on Rishi Sunak, PA Media reports. PA says:
She is expected to make a number of media appearances in the coming week, having kept a low profile since becoming the shortest-lived prime minister in history.
The Conservative backbencher will later this month address a conference of international politicians in Japan, with her speech billed as centering on Beijing’s threat to Taiwan.
Her allies, including the former cabinet minister Simon Clarke, have recently formed the Conservative Growth Group to push for her tax-cutting agenda.
My colleague Jennifer Rankin, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, is staggered that David Davis feels entitled to criticise the civil service for what went wrong with Brexit. (See 4.09pm.)
Wow, those David Davis comments. From the man who promised Brexit would mean the “exact same benefits” of being in the EU and “a free trade area massively larger than the EU” before Britain had even left.
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) February 3, 2023
And nearly six years on from “the row of the summer” he still does not see that the UK had become the demandeur and was in no position to set terms. pic.twitter.com/PXspSTZrwp
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) February 3, 2023
Scottish and Welsh governments making Sunak look ‘mean and out of touch’ on NHS pay, says Unison
Echoing what the RCN’s Pat Cullen said (see 3.37pm), Sara Gorton, the head of health at the Unison union, said the Scottish and Welsh governments were making Rishi Sunak look “mean and out of touch”. She said:
[The pay offer in Wales] ramps up the pressure on the prime minister significantly. Political leaders in Scotland and now in Wales are making the Westminster government look decidedly mean and totally out of touch.
Rishi Sunak says he’d love to give health workers a pay rise yet claims he can’t. But he can and he should. If he doesn’t, NHS strikes will continue across England for months.
Both Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford have chosen to do more for their NHS staff this year. The prime minister should stop with the lame excuses and follow the lead of Holyrood and the Senedd.
Unite says it regards pay talks with Welsh government as ongoing and its ambulance strike on Monday still happening
Unite says its ambulance service members in Wales will still strike on Monday. Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, said that as far as she was concerned, negotiations with the Welsh government were ongoing. She said:
It would be wholly premature for Unite to talk about any deals being done in relation to the Welsh ambulance dispute.
As far as Unite is concerned, negotiations are continuing. Unite will be available all weekend in the hope that a satisfactory offer can be put together to avert strikes next week.
However, we are not in that place now. So, at the moment Unite’s ambulance workers will be on strike on Monday.
David Davis says civil service was ‘crap’ at negotiating Brexit and ‘Whitehall lawyers generally useless’
David Davis was Brexit secretary between 2016 and 2018, and as such it was often assumed that he was in charge of the Brexit negotiations with the EU. In truth, No 10 was in the lead. But, in an interview with the Institute for Government for its “ministers reflect” series (ex-ministers talking about what they learned in government – mostly very interesting, but generally very, very long too), Davis stresses the importance of the civil service in the talks, and says they were “crap”. He says:
Whitehall did a really crap job of negotiation. I mean, really crap. I think it’s partly because they sympathised with the European view and assumed that was reciprocated. It wasn’t.
You know, if you feel the person on the other side of the table is a nice person, and you really understand their point of view, there is a tendency to think that they’ll be friendly to you – which is naive on a grand scale and also doesn’t take into account the psychology, if you’ve got a negotiation where going in you’ve got an antagonism on the other side… and we plainly did, with the French at least.
Since Gina Miller has been in the news today (see 10.29am), it is worth pointing out that Davis also says in his interview that she was right to take the UK to court to insist MPs should vote on the decision to trigger article 50 (commencing the formal process of withdrawal from the EU). That is not something Davis said publicly at the time. He says:
I think, actually, Gina Miller was right. The government was wrong. I mean, why the hell we just didn’t take it through the original piece of legislation, I don’t know.
But Theresa [May] had come from the Home Office, where they resist everything, and I thought: ‘Well, I’ll go with it’.
The truth was Gina Miller had the right of the argument and I thought she would win it. Whitehall lawyers said she wouldn’t. Whitehall lawyers are generally useless. Sometimes they just give the advice they think they’re expected to give.
Richard Adams
The Department for Education has lost at least £10m after selling the buildings of proposed schools to mostly private property developers, according to an investigation by Schools Week. It also found the DfE also spent a further £10.9m on maintenance on the empty sites, which were intended to become free schools.
A former police station in Hampstead, north London, was bought by the DfE for £14m in 2015 but sold in 2021 for a loss of £5m to a housing developer after planning permission for a new school fell through. The DfE also paid £1.4m in upkeep on the vacant site, including £700,000 on security, although the Camden New Journal reported the building was vandalised during an illegal rave in 2020.
The DfE said it did not pay in excess of what a site was worth, or purchase expensive sites, if there were better-value choices in the area. It would also aim to recover assets and identify an alternative educational use for a site.
RCN chief says Sunak has ‘no place to hide’ as Edinburgh and Cardiff show revised pay offers for health staff possible
Pointing out that the Westminster government is an outlier in Britain in not making revised pay offers to health staff, Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary, said:
If the other governments can negotiate and find more money for this year, the prime minister can do the same. Rishi Sunak has no place left to hide. His unwillingness to help nursing is being exposed as a personal choice, not an economic necessity.
Again, we are making good on our commitment to cancel strikes when ministers negotiate and make pay offers to our members. First in Scotland and now in Wales too.
If the prime minister decides to leave England’s nurses as the lowest-paid in the UK, he must expect this strike to continue. He can still turn things around before Monday – start talking seriously and the strikes are off.
