Industrial Action

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I pay tribute to those in the NHS: there is a very good reason why, when the public sector in this country got a zero pay rise last year because of covid, over 1 million people in the NHS did receive a pay rise. At the moment it is worth about £1,400 per individual. I appreciate that in these times, with Putin’s evil war and the impact that has had on inflation, everyone would like more money as a pay rise, but the Government must consider what that would do to people’s taxes, to interest rates and to mortgage rates. We would get into a circle where we are never able to get inflation down. Inflation is the biggest evil of all. We are taking sensible steps to address it. That lot over there simply want to roll over and not address the difficult problems.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

With the Royal College of Emergency Medicine highlighting more than 300 excess deaths every single week, where is the Government’s minimum service level agreement to the public? The best way to avert a strike is to negotiate. Within the Secretary of State’s legislation, what obligations will there be on Government to enter meaningful negotiations, and how does he describe “meaningful”?

[Grant Shapps]

I want to pick up the hon. Lady on those figures, because the NHS itself says that it does not recognise those numbers. When we have a strike such as the one on Wednesday by ambulance workers, there is no way that she or anyone else in this House can realistically argue that people will somehow be better off without a national minimum safe level of service. That is what we will focus on, and that is why she and Opposition Members should support this Bill.