Rail strikes to go ahead after RMT refuses latest pay offer; nursing body to meet Steve Barclay over pay dispute – live

Good morning. Steve Barclay, the health secretary, was on BBC Breakfast this morning for an interview that was primarily about an announcement that the government is spending £50m on motor neurone disease (MND) research. But he was also asked about the nurses’ strike, of course, and he stuck to his position that, while he is happy to meet the Royal College of Nursing, he will not reopen talks on their pay offer.

He claimed that there were 7 million people waiting for an operation, and he said that if the nurses got more money, there would be less available to bring down the waiting list backlog. He said:

I don’t want to be taking money away from clearing the … backlog, which is what we would have to do, we’d have to take money away from patients waiting for operations to then fund additional pay.

And if everyone on the public sector were to get an increase in line with inflation, that would be costing £28bn at a time when the government has to get inflation under control, because that is the biggest factor in terms of people’s cost of living.

Both of the figures quoted by Barclay were misleading. It is not surprising that he claimed giving all public sector workers a pay rise in line with inflation would cost £28bn; although widely criticised by experts as misleading, it is an agreed figure ministers have been using. But Barclay also claimed the hospital waiting list figures show 7 million people are waiting for an operation, when journalists who cover these statistics are routinely told not to use that description. These are people waiting for an appointment related to treatment, and many of them won’t need an operation.

But Steve Brine, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, also gave an interview this morning, and he told the Today programme that, in refusing to meet the RCN, Barclay was making a mistake. Referring to the offer by the RCN to pause the strikes if Barclay were willing to reopen talks on pay, Brine said:

I started by saying it was 1-0 to the RCN with the move they made yesterday. I would suggest that the secretary of state could get to 1-1 by inviting them in and actually I’m not sure that he’s got an awful lot to lose.

You know, draw-draw better than war-war, and at the moment we’re in a media war-war and the patients, the public who pay for this service are just sort of left bemused in the middle.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Keir Starmer holds his LBC ‘Call Keir’ phone-in.

10am: James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, gives a speech. As my colleague Patrick Wintour reports, he will say the government will target a group of about two dozen middle-level countries for long-term diplomatic partnerships in what marks a downgrade of a commitment to human rights as a prerequisite for close relations with the UK.

11.30am: Downing Street holds its morning lobby briefing.

After 3.30pm: MPs debate the remaining stages of the trade (Australia and New New Zealand) bill.

4pm: Tracy Brabin, mayor of West Yorkshire, Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, and Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands, give evidence to the Commons levelling up committee about levelling up funding.

At some point today Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office meeting, will be chairing a Cobra meeting to discuss government contingency planning for the strikes taking place this week.

And Kemi Badenoch, the international trade secretary, will be in India for talks on the proposed free trade deal with India.

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