Health secretary claims many junior doctors don’t support BMA leadership organising latest strike – UK politics live

Victoria Atkins says she wants to look at ‘pay and conditions’ for junior doctors but also says ‘many, many’ of them do not support BMAWhen British troops were fighting in Afghanistan, it was usual for the prime minister to make a brief visit just before Christmas to show the government’s support for what they doing, and for the armed forces generally. The army is not fighting any wars at the moment, but Rishi Sunak honoured this tradition on Monday when he visited a military base in northern Scotland.Today Keir Starmer is doing his own version, visiting British troops at a Nato base in Estonia. At least in photo opportunity terms, he has upstaged Sunak. In their advance briefing, Labour stressed Starmer would be near the border with Russia And the pictures are more dramatic than the ones of Sunak at RAF Lossiemouth. Starmer’s longish visit to Cop28 was a good example of how Labour is keen to present him as looking and acting prime ministerial, and today is another move from the same playbook.I think we have to be mindful of that threat from Russia to Europe, to ourselves in the UK and the interference that goes on.And that’s why there’s a real sense of purpose here at this base, particularly since the conflict in Ukraine. This is a real and constant threat from Russia, measured in years, and measured back home in the UK as well.The junior doctors committee decided the date of their strikes. They decided to do it three days in the run-up to Christmas and they have also now picked the worst week in the NHS’s calendar [the first week in January] to be on strike.There will be many, many doctors listening to this who will be deeply uncomfortable that their committee has called these strikes at this time. And I would encourage anyone who feels like that, quietly, to consider whether this committee is representing their views.Having managed to find fair and reasonable offers for consultants and for specialty doctors, I would say the proof is in the pudding, if you see what I mean. I have shown that I’m willing and keen to find agreements.It’s not just about pay, of course this is really important and indeed this year alone, junior doctors have already had a pay rise of around 8.8%, the most-junior of doctors, the first and second year of doctors, they’ve had the highest pay rises within the range up to 10.3% because we understand as a government, we’ve heard what the doctors are saying to us.But I also want to do more than that, I don’t just want to look at pay, I also want to look at their conditions because when I walk around hospitals, when I talk to doctors, they tell me one of the things they want to feel is valued. And I absolutely understand that and I want to work with them to enable that to happen.We have always said if there are strikes happening at the moment affecting patients, affecting the public, we will not negotiate but the moment they call them off, I will be back round that table. Continue reading...