Court defeat on nurses’ strike date could lead to vote for more disruption, says RCN leader – UK politics live

RCN chief claims court defeat on strike date could make nurses more likely to vote for further action

Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has said the government’s decision to take the union to court, leading to a ruling that it must shorten its planned 48-hour strike by 20 hours, could make nurses even more determined to vote for further strike action.

In a statement, she described it as “the darkest day of this dispute so far”. She said:

The full weight of government gave ministers this victory over nursing staff. It is the darkest day of this dispute so far – the government taking its own nurses through the courts in bitterness at their simple expectation of a better pay deal.

Nursing staff will be angered but not crushed by today’s interim order. It may even make them more determined to vote in next month’s re-ballot for a further six months of action. Nobody wants strikes until Christmas – we should be in the negotiating room, not the courtroom today. Our strike will now finish at midnight on the Monday as we have ensured safe and legal action at all times.

Pat Cullen outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London today.
Photograph: James Manning/PA

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Public won't support government decision to take nurses' union to court, says RCN chief

Here are some more lines from what Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary, said to the media after the government won a court ruling saying the final day of the union’s proposed strike would be unlawful.

• Cullen claimed that the public would not support the decision by the government to take the RCN to court. She said:

Today, what I have said is this is no way to treat the nursing staff in England. It’s no way to drive a wedge between government and the very people that are holding this health service together …

[The government] have won their legal [case] today. But what this has led to is they have lost nursing and they’ve lost the public.

They’ve taken the most trusted profession through the courts, by the least trusted people.

• She said the RCN would go ahead with the strike, starting on Sunday 30 April, and that it would continue into Monday 1 May – but not into Tuesday 2 May, as originally planned, as a result of the court decision.

• She urged Steve Barclay, the health secretary, to reopen talks on pay. She said:

He can continue, if he wishes, to drag [nurses] through court proceedings. But what he needs to do is get into a negotiating room and start to talk to the nurses of England, sort out this dispute and allow them to get back to their work.

• She said the RCN was sorry for the disruption caused by the strike to patients – but she said the government was to blame. She said:

Every day that we have taken strike action we’ve said we’re sorry. We’re sorry for those 7.2 million people-plus that are sitting on waiting lists.

We’re sorry that we haven’t been able to fill the tens of thousands of vacant posts by getting this government into a room and negotiating properly and decently for nursing.

That’s what our aim is, to address those waiting list to make sure people get a decent NHS in this country and they just continue to crumble under this government.

Pat Cullen with RCN colleagues outside the Royal Courts of Justice today. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

No 10 says it is 'regrettable' it had to go to court to get RCN to accept its second strike day would be unlawful

Downing Street has said it was “regrettable” that it had to take the Royal College of Nursing to court to get it to halt the second day of its 24-hour strike.

Asked about the high court ruling that strike action on 2 May would be unlawful, the PM’s spokesperson told reporters:

I think, firstly, it is obviously regrettable that it had to come to court action in the first instance.

The government never wanted to take this to court. We did indeed try every possible way to avoid a court case.

The NHS presented the RCN with clear legal evidence that their planned strike for 2 May was unlawful. We asked them to call it off. The RCN refused. That’s why the NHS asked the government to intervene and seek the view of the court.

Late yesterday, Steve Barclay wrote to the RCN, to[its leader] Pat Cullen again, and asked them to call off their final day of the strike given we were confident that it was not legal. They refused again.

The RCN did at least win a minor victory at the high court on costs, my colleague Daniel Boffey reports.

RCN chief claims court defeat on strike date could make nurses more likely to vote for further action

Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has said the government’s decision to take the union to court, leading to a ruling that it must shorten its planned 48-hour strike by 20 hours, could make nurses even more determined to vote for further strike action.

In a statement, she described it as “the darkest day of this dispute so far”. She said:

The full weight of government gave ministers this victory over nursing staff. It is the darkest day of this dispute so far – the government taking its own nurses through the courts in bitterness at their simple expectation of a better pay deal.

Nursing staff will be angered but not crushed by today’s interim order. It may even make them more determined to vote in next month’s re-ballot for a further six months of action. Nobody wants strikes until Christmas – we should be in the negotiating room, not the courtroom today. Our strike will now finish at midnight on the Monday as we have ensured safe and legal action at all times.

Pat Cullen outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London today.
Photograph: James Manning/PA

Nurses to cut short strike as court rules second day of action unlawful

A strike by tens of thousands of nurses starting this Sunday will be cut short after a high court judge ruled the plans as being partly unlawful, Daniel Boffey reports.

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Defence minister rejects Labour's claim that British support for Ukraine is 'flagging'

Labour has claimed that British support for Ukraine is “flagging”. John Healey, the shadow defence sectetary, made the claim in a Commons urgent question, telling MPs:

The government has got to be able to do more than one thing at once, and the defence secretary [Ben Wallace] has 60,000 MoD [Ministry of Defence] staff.

I am concerned that the momentum behind our military help is faltering and that our UK commitment to Ukraine is flagging. No statement on Ukraine from the defence secretary since January, no new weapons pledged to Ukraine since February, no 2023 action plan for Ukraine first promised last August, no priorities set for the Ukraine recovery conference in London in June.

Now, the prime minister said in February that the UK ‘would be the first country to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons’. What and when?

Healey ended by saying:

The British public are strongly behind Ukraine. They want to know that the government is not weakening in its resolve to support Ukraine, confront Russian aggression and pursue Putin for his war crimes.

In response, Andrew Murrison rejected the Labour claim. He said 14,000 Ukrainian troops had been trained in the UK and that Britain was ‘“leading in Europe” in support for Ukraine.

While he said he understood why Labour wanted to attack the government, he went on:

The UK is more than playing its part – we are leaders and I’m really proud of that, and so should the British people be …

The UK will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes and will spend another £2.3bn on military support to Ukraine this year.

Starmer says his 'gut feeling' on reading Diane Abbott's race letter was 'it's shocking' and 'antisemitic'

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Labour has refused to give any clue as to whether she is likely to be readmitted soon, or whether this might be used as an excuse to stop her standing for the party at the next election. Garraway asked if Abbott might receive more lenient treatment in light of the fact that she herself has endured a huge amount of racist abuse throughout her career.

Starmer acknowledged this. He said:

Let me acknowledge what Diane has had to put up with for many, many years, because I think she probably suffered more abuse, obviously racial abuse, than any other person in public life, certainly any other politician. And that is terrible, and it should be condemned and called out. And she should be supported in that.

But Starmer also repeated his condemnation of what she said in her letter, and how it implied a “hierarchy of racism”.

When Garraway asked again if Abbott might be “forgiven” because she was a victim of racism herself, Starmer just said an investigation was under way. But when Garraway asked Starmer what his “gut feeling” was, Starmer replied:

My gut feeling is it’s shocking. My gut feeling is that it’s antisemitic, and that I’m determined to change the Labour party so that the Labour party and antisemitism are not mentioned in the same sentence.

We’ve done a huge amount of work on that, and I was really pleased that many in the Jewish community feel much more confident in the Labour party than they did. But this battle against antisemitism is never over.

Minister criticised by MPs after failing to give clear answer about how photo ID voter data will be recorded

In the Commons Rachel Maclean, the levelling up minister, has still refused to give a clear answer to Clive Betts’ question about whether a record will be made of the number of people who leave after being told at the door of a polling station by a “meeter and greeter” that they won’t be able to vote without photo ID.

Pressed again for an answer on this, she says that data on people who are turned away because they don’t have the right ID, and who then return with the right ID, will be recorded by the clerk at the desk where ballot papers are issued.

Labour’s Stephanie Peacock asks what will happen if people are turned away before they reach the issuing desk, and if they do not return. Will those figures be recorded.

Maclean claims she has already addressed this.

Labour’s Matt Western says the obvious solution would be to have a clerk collecting data outside the polling station, as people arrive.

Maclean does not address the question, but says she disagrees with what Western said about the system being flawed.

The SNP’s Pete Wishart says Maclean’s answers show what a “mess” the system is. The government is not even recording data on the people it is disenfranchising, he says.

He says he is glad Scotland has nothing to do with this system.

(The photo ID law applies in Scotland for general elections, but not for local elections, as in England.)