Chief of nurses’ union says she would meet government ‘halfway’ on pay as rail strikes continue – live

RCN leader Pat McCullen suggests nurses would settle for roughly half the 19% rise demanded

Pat McFadden, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, was going an interview round this morning. Asked about nurses’ pay, and whether Labour would support them getting a pay rise of around 10% (see 9.19am), he said the nurses were “unlikely to get a pay rise of the size that they were asking [ie, 19%].” But, he went on:

Usually these things are resolved at the negotiating table with not everybody getting what they wanted at the start. The problem at the moment is that kind of discussion is not taking place.

There is a rhetoric out there that says the Royal College of Nursing is unrealistic, it’s looking for something that’s totally unachievable, it’s looking for 19%.

Now I could sit here all day and tell you nurses’ pay has dropped by 20% over the last decade. Do I believe those nurses are entitled [to 19%]? Absolutely, I believe they’re entitled to 19%. But we also understand the economic climate that we’re working in.