Health secretary claims many junior doctors don’t support BMA leadership organising latest strike – UK politics live | Politics

Keir Starmer has said that he thinks there are “grounds for changing the law” to allow assisted dying – while stressing MPs should have a free vote on any legislation.

He was speaking after the TV presenter Esther Rantzen, who is dying of cancer, reignited the debate about the issue with an interview this week in which she said she would like the option of being able to kill herself, but was worried her relatives might be prosecuted if they helped her under the current legislation.

Speaking on his visit to Estonia, Starmer said he voted in favour of changing the law to allow assisted dying when MPs last debated this in 2015. He told reporters:

On the question of assisted dying, there are obviously strong views both ways on this, which I respect.

And that’s why traditionally, this has always been dealt with a private member’s bill and a free vote and that seems appropriate to me.

I personally do think there are grounds for changing the law, we have to be careful, but it would have to be, I think, a free vote on an issue where there are such divided and strong views.

In 2015 the Commons rejected by 330 votes to 118 – a majority of 212 – a bill proposed by Labour MP Rob Marris that would have allowed assisted dying under strict conditions.

It would have allowed a terminally ill person diagnosed as having less than six months to live to request help with dying. But a judge would have to declare the person had full capacity, based on a declaration signed by two doctors.

Earlier this week Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, said he thought it was now “appropriate for the Commons to revisit” this issue. Kit Malthouse, the former Home Office minister who co-chairs all-party parliamentary group on choice at the end of life, has said there may soon be a majority of MPs in favour of changing the law.

But the government has shown no indication that it intends to make time for a debate on this issue soon. In her interview on the Today programme this morning, Victoria Atkins said that, given that she was health secretary, she did not feel it appropriate to express her personal view. “If there is a will in parliament [for the law to be changed], it will happen,” she said.

In the past the law on so-called “conscience issues” like assisted dying has been changed by private members’ bills, subject to a free vote. There is no private member’s bill on assisted dying due to be debated before the election.

But, regardless of which bills come top in the private member’s ballot, the government does have the option of setting aside time for a debate on a matter like this if it wants.

When British troops were fighting in Afghanistan, it was usual for the prime minister to make a brief visit just before Christmas to show the government’s support for what they doing, and for the armed forces generally. The army is not fighting any wars at the moment, but Rishi Sunak honoured this tradition on Monday when he visited a military base in northern Scotland.

Today Keir Starmer is doing his own version, visiting British troops at a Nato base in Estonia. At least in photo opportunity terms, he has upstaged Sunak. In their advance briefing, Labour stressed Starmer would be near the border with Russia And the pictures are more dramatic than the ones of Sunak at RAF Lossiemouth. Starmer’s longish visit to Cop28 was a good example of how Labour is keen to present him as looking and acting prime ministerial, and today is another move from the same playbook.

Starmer is also using the visit to stress Labour’s support for Nato and its willingness to stand firm against Russia. Speaking to broadcasters this morning, he said there was a “real and constant” threat to Europe from President Putin. He said:

I think we have to be mindful of that threat from Russia to Europe, to ourselves in the UK and the interference that goes on.

Stamer said the UK and its allies “need to be prepared, we need to deter”. And he went on:

And that’s why there’s a real sense of purpose here at this base, particularly since the conflict in Ukraine. This is a real and constant threat from Russia, measured in years, and measured back home in the UK as well.

Good morning. Junior hospital doctors in England are on the second day of a three-day strike. And they are planning a six-day strike in January. Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has been doing a broadcast round this morning and, as well as stating her willingness to resume talks on pay and conditions if the strikes are called off, she also sought to drive a wedge between the BMA’s junior doctors committee and the thousands of medics it represents.

She said “many, many” doctors do not support what the BMA is doing, and she encouraged them, in effect, to make this clear to their union leadership.

(It is worth stressing, of course, that “junior doctors” is a misnomer. The term covers hospital doctors below consultant level. Mostly they are not people just out of medical school. Many have years of experience, and they provide the backbone of medical staff in hospitals.)

In an interview with the Today programme, Atkins said:

The junior doctors committee decided the date of their strikes. They decided to do it three days in the run-up to Christmas and they have also now picked the worst week in the NHS’s calendar [the first week in January] to be on strike.

There will be many, many doctors listening to this who will be deeply uncomfortable that their committee has called these strikes at this time. And I would encourage anyone who feels like that, quietly, to consider whether this committee is representing their views.

I know, for example, that consultants and nurses and other doctors who aren’t on strike are today, yesterday, and will be over January, coming in, doing extra shifts to ensure that that level of care is provided for patients. And they are being expected by the junior doctors’ committee to pick up the slack of their strikes.

Atkins said that she had shown she was prepared to be “fair and reasonable” in pay negotiations. Referring to a deal agreed with speciality doctors last week, she told the Today programme:

Having managed to find fair and reasonable offers for consultants and for specialty doctors, I would say the proof is in the pudding, if you see what I mean. I have shown that I’m willing and keen to find agreements.

She said she wanted to make an offer that covered conditions, as well as pay. She told BBC Breakfast:

It’s not just about pay, of course this is really important and indeed this year alone, junior doctors have already had a pay rise of around 8.8%, the most-junior of doctors, the first and second year of doctors, they’ve had the highest pay rises within the range up to 10.3% because we understand as a government, we’ve heard what the doctors are saying to us.

But I also want to do more than that, I don’t just want to look at pay, I also want to look at their conditions because when I walk around hospitals, when I talk to doctors, they tell me one of the things they want to feel is valued. And I absolutely understand that and I want to work with them to enable that to happen.

But she also said that, for talks to resume, the strikes would have to be called off. She told Sky News:

We have always said if there are strikes happening at the moment affecting patients, affecting the public, we will not negotiate but the moment they call them off, I will be back round that table.

Parliament is in recess and, politically, we should be in for a quiet day. But Keir Starmer is in Estonia, near the border with Russia, visiting British troops at a Nato base, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is going to Switzerland to sign a mutual recognition deal for financial services and Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, is taking FMQs for the final time this year in the Scottish parliament.

If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.