Teaching union says it hopes future strikes won’t disrupt exams but won’t rule it out – UK politics live

Latest updates: Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of National Education Union, says union hopes to ‘reopen negotations’

Good morning. There are signs that the public sector strikes that have disrupted many services over the last few months, particularly in England, are coming to an end. The Royal College of Nursing is starting to ballot its members in England on whether they should accept a pay off, and RMT members recently voted to accept a pay deal from Network Rail. But last night it emerged that the National Education Union, the biggest teaching union in England, is urging its members to reject the latest pay offer from ministers.

In an interview this morning Mary Bousted, the NEU joint general secretary, would not rule out future strikes disrupting exams. Asked if that could happen, she told Radio 4’s Today programme:

We really hope that that doesn’t take place.

What we hope is that if the members do reject the offer, we want to go back to the government and say: ‘you have to do better’, reopen negotiations, and let’s see if we can get an offer that members will find respectable.

We will plan more strike dates. We don’t want to disrupt exams and we will try to ensure that we do reopen negotiations.

We have conference next week, and conference will decide the plan of action, but no teacher wants to disrupt exam dates at all, so it’s up to the government.