Labour could not afford nurses' pay demands, admits Wes Streeting

Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has suggested he could not meet the pay demands of striking health workers.

Mr Streeting said this morning that he could not "in all honesty" pledge to deliver nurses' pay demands if he was the health secretary, but stressed he would be "prepared to negotiate".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I have got to be really honest with you. I looked at the RCN’s headline claim of inflation plus five per cent.

"I can’t say in all honesty if I were the secretary of state for health today that I would be able to give that kind of pay award but I would be prepared to negotiate."

However, he added that he understands why people have voted for industrial action as they feel "their backs are against the wall".

Next month, up to 100,000 nursing staff will take part in strikes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, in the first national nurses' strike in history.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has said the demands from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) for a 19 per cent pay rise are "obviously unaffordable".

The RCN says that experienced nurses are worse off by 20 per cent in real terms due to successive below-inflation awards since 2010.

Mr Streeting said "there hasn't been a single minute of negotiation from the Government with the unions" because he assumes ministers are counting on the public to "turn against the unions and back the Government".

The shadow health secretary branded this a "reckless" strategy and added that the "starting point" for fixing issues in the NHS should be on how money is spent, rather than the scale of investment.

He told the Today programme: "Our starting point should be how do we deliver fast, safe, great outcomes for patients utilising the technology and the scientific breakthroughs that are available to us in our country today, which we're not harnessing."