Resident Doctors: Industrial Action

Debate between Wes Streeting and Amanda Martin

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on all his campaigning to secure investment in his constituency. One thing I can assure everyone in our country is that NHS leaders, frontline staff and I will do everything we can to mitigate harm during these strikes; I am afraid what I cannot do is guarantee that there will be no harm. That is the thing that keeps me awake at night at the moment, and that is the thing that the BMA should keep foremost in their minds when deciding whether or not, even at this late stage, to take up the offer to postpone strikes until January and take the mandate extension.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

As a proud trade unionist, I know that trade unions are there to represent their members’ interests and views, yet by pushing ahead with this strike action, the BMA appears set to ignore its members. The offer on the table is real and comes from a Government who are listening and making positive change. Would the Secretary of State urge the BMA to take stock, think again about patients and its colleagues, and pause action while its members are consulted on the new terms? It has nothing to lose from pausing, yet the NHS and the population have so much to lose.

[Wes Streeting]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The BMA has put the offer to its members in neutral terms, but the fact is that it is now going to run a hasty survey over the next few days in order to give us what will still be less than 48 hours’ notice of whether or not these strikes will go ahead. If it took up the mandate extension, it could run a referendum properly and give its members more time to consider and discuss the offer in the workplace and with their families and reps. I do not see how more participation in the conversation and in the ballot could possibly be a bad thing.

As I have made clear to resident doctors, there are no downsides for the BMA in this. In fact, the only person who risks having a downside is me if, even after accepting the mandate extension, the deal is rejected and the doctors go out on strike again in January. This is not even a win-win scenario; this is a potential win-lose scenario, so I do not know why the BMA would not take it up.

This is a great offer for doctors. I know there will still be more to do, whether that is the implementation of the 10-point plan that Jim Mackey has come up with, my offer to work with the BMA trust by trust and employer by employer to see progress, or any of the other things we can do together. If we work together, we can get more done together. If we are working as partners rather than adversaries, we will all enjoy it a lot more and we will make more progress, and that is the opportunity that is available.

NHS Performance: Darzi Investigation

Debate between Wes Streeting and Amanda Martin

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

Honestly, Madam Deputy Speaker, “brass neck” springs to mind. Once again, the hon. Member gets to her feet and fails to say the word “sorry”. If she wants to correct the record, how about she stands up and corrects the abysmal record that she and her predecessors lumbered this country with? They took the NHS from being the very best—that is how it was left in 2010—to being the very worst; that is how she inherited it. If she wants to talk about humility, she might like to start demonstrating some before her time in Parliament comes to an end.

If the hon. Member wants to distance herself from her former dentistry Minister, let us turn to the candidate seeking to lead her party who is head and shoulders above the rest with its membership, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch). She wants to go even further. On whether the NHS should be free at the point of use, she told The Times last month:

“I think we need to have a serious cross-party, national conversation.”

That is what she said about whether the NHS should be free at the point of use. I suspect that she has blamed the journalist for her own words since, but just so that Government Members are clear, that will happen over my dead body. This Labour Government will always defend our NHS as a public service that is free at the point of use, so that whenever someone falls ill, they never have to worry about the bill.

The problem is not, and has never been, the fair, equitable model of funding. It is the same model that we had in 2010, when the last Labour Government delivered the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction in history. A universal, single-payer health service is the fairest, most equitable way to provide healthcare. More than that, in a way that could never have been predicted in 1948 by Attlee and Bevan, it makes the NHS the best placed healthcare system in the world for the revolution taking place in genomics, technology and life sciences. The NHS has the right funding model, but it is not taking advantage of the opportunities in front of it. That is what we need to change.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Under the previous Government, poor investment and a lack of respect for NHS workers, particularly in primary care, resulted in Portsmouth North having over 3,000 patients per GP. That has resulted in over 1,800 people waiting more than a month to see a GP. Despite that, Lord Darzi notes that many of the solutions can be found in parts of the NHS in our constituencies. Will the Secretary of State acknowledge the fantastic initiative and hard work of GPs in Portsmouth North, as they work alongside trainee GPs from King’s College London, and look to push that across the country?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is right. In Portsmouth and right across the country, there are people who, against the backdrop of the previous Government, have none the less tried to innovate, do things differently and improve services for patients. Especially given that they sent her to represent them here in Parliament, I am sure they are relieved that they now have a Labour Government on their side.