Doctors being ‘unreasonable’ and should accept 6% pay offer – cabinet minister
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
We start the day with comments made by the education secretary urging the British Medical Association (BMA) to accept the recommended pay offer to public sector workers.
The chair of the BMA’s UK council said Rishi Sunak’s pay increase offer “fails to address” years of below-inflation pay deals. Prof Phil Banfield added that the government’s offer “is exactly why so many doctors are feeling they have no option but to take industrial action”.
But this morning Gillian Keegan said the organisation is being “unreasonable” and called on junior doctors to “look at” the 6% pay offer.
She told LBC radio:
Their starting position is an unreasonable position. We all understand there’s been inflation and there’s been a huge spike in inflation. And that’s impacting all of us.
That’s why the main goal is to halve inflation. You can’t chase it. I would urge them to take the same approach as everybody else actually.
Keegan also told Sky News:
I would urge the BMA, the independent pay review bodies have done a very thorough analysis and they look at rates of recruitment, retention, they look at all the other sort of professions or similar professions so they do a very thorough job.
Key events
Kiran Stacey
In case you missed it earlier, a senior cabinet minister has urged health unions to take the government’s pay offer “seriously”, after union leaders said the proposed deal would drive doctors out of the profession and could lead to further strikes.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, defended the offer of a 6% pay rise for junior doctors, a day after the government accepted the recommendations of the public sector pay review bodies.
Keegan said the pay review bodies had taken into account how much money would be needed to recruit and retain NHS staff without adding to the UK’s stubbornly high inflation rate.
The British Medical Association however called the offer “a huge missed opportunity”, while the Royal College of Nursing said it highlighted the unfairness of the separate offer to nurses of 5% plus a one-off payment.
Rishi Sunak continues to trail Keir Starmer in the polls as his personal favourability rating slides further into negative territory.
The prime minister’s net favourability rating has fallen to -21, according to a poll published by Ipsos UK on Friday, with 47% of people saying they had an unfavourable view of him, PA reported.
The figures are Sunak’s worst since he quit as chancellor in July 2022, helping topple Boris Johnson, when Ipsos found 50% of people had an unfavourable view of him.
The poll, carried out between 30 June and 3 July, found Labour leader Starmer’s ratings had improved slightly over the past month, with 32% saying they had a favourable view of him and 39% saying they had an unfavourable one.
There was more bad news for Sunak when Ipsos asked about the qualities people look for in a prime minister.
On the factors people said were most important to them, Sunak received overwhelmingly negative ratings while impressions of Starmer were more mixed.
Half of the 1,000 people polled by Ipsos said they had a negative view of Mr Sunak’s policies for dealing with the cost of living and his understanding of the problems facing people in Britain.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that ministers were not planning to make further compromises, after peers pressed for further changes to the Illegal Migration Bill.
Members of the Lords want further concessions on limits to the detention of children, modern slavery protections and the provision of safe and legal routes for refugees to the UK.
The Lords inflicted a string of fresh defeats on the government this week over the much-criticised Bill, which ministers insist is integral to efforts to tackle small boats crossings in the Channel, PA reported.
It means the continuation of the parliamentary tussle over the bill, known as ping-pong, where the legislation is batted between the Lords and Commons, until agreement is reached.
The Commons had overturned a raft of earlier revisions by the unelected chamber, despite rebellions by Tory MPs concerned about the flagship reforms.
But Jenrick told the BBC that critics of the Bill had not put forward any “credible alternative”, adding:
It’s incumbent on those who choose to criticise our approach to provide an alternative.
It’s not a serious or grown-up way to conduct a debate to say, ‘well we have concerns about Rwanda’, ‘we don’t like the compliant environment’ – ‘We don’t want this, we don’t want to’, but not to come up with an alternative.”
The bill now heads back to the Commons where MPs will consider the latest changes made by peers.
Gatwick airport workers to strike amid pay dispute
Gwyn Topham
Around 950 workers at Gatwick airport will take eight days of strike action beginning later this month in a dispute over pay.
Unite said that members who carry out roles including baggage handling and check-in would strike. There are employed by ASC, Menzies Aviation, GGS and DHL Services.
The workers will strike initially for four days beginning on Friday 28 July ending on Tuesday 1 August. Then a further four days from Friday 4 August until Tuesday 8 August.
The union’s general secretary Sharon Graham said:
Our members at Gatwick airport undertake incredibly demanding roles and are essential to keeping the airport and airlines working, yet their employers somehow think it is acceptable to pay them a pittance.
As part of Unite’s unyielding focus on the jobs, pay and condition of its members, the union has drawn a line in the sand and is committed to eradicating the scourge of low pay at the airport.
Pupil absences are at “crisis” level, the education secretary has said, as she endorsed headteachers driving children to school if necessary.
Gillian Keegan told Sky News that headteachers had a “duty” to get children to school.
Figures released earlier this year showed that about 125,000 pupils last year were severely absent, effectively meaning they were absent more often than they were in classrooms, PA Media reported.
Keegan, who rejected the suggestion that the government did not have a grip on the problem, was asked about examples of headteachers driving to children’s homes to pick them up and bring them to school.
“They have a duty,” she said. “We all have to play our part.
“I have a number of headteachers who work with me on policy and sometimes you just have to do that – sometimes you have to go or you have to text the parent in the morning … you do whatever is possible.”
Pressed on whether that was a good use of headteachers’ time, Keegan said:
It is a good use to have all kids in school.
That’s not what we want headteachers doing all of their days. But to be honest, right now, if that works to get somebody in school, it’s worth it.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan also said this morning that the government would honour the 6.5% pay rise offered to teachers into the long term.
She told Times Radio that the process of ensuring the pay cost could be covered and paid for without affecting frontline budgets had been “tricky” and “hard”.
She also rejected suggestions that the prime minister had caved in to union demands, adding:
No, I think Rishi has shown great leadership.
It isn’t easy to do, and what you have to do is try and set expectations, to make sure people have reasonable expectations.
Doctors being ‘unreasonable’ and should accept 6% pay offer – cabinet minister
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
We start the day with comments made by the education secretary urging the British Medical Association (BMA) to accept the recommended pay offer to public sector workers.
The chair of the BMA’s UK council said Rishi Sunak’s pay increase offer “fails to address” years of below-inflation pay deals. Prof Phil Banfield added that the government’s offer “is exactly why so many doctors are feeling they have no option but to take industrial action”.
But this morning Gillian Keegan said the organisation is being “unreasonable” and called on junior doctors to “look at” the 6% pay offer.
She told LBC radio:
Their starting position is an unreasonable position. We all understand there’s been inflation and there’s been a huge spike in inflation. And that’s impacting all of us.
That’s why the main goal is to halve inflation. You can’t chase it. I would urge them to take the same approach as everybody else actually.
Keegan also told Sky News:
I would urge the BMA, the independent pay review bodies have done a very thorough analysis and they look at rates of recruitment, retention, they look at all the other sort of professions or similar professions so they do a very thorough job.
