Anti-strike bill: Ambulance unions ‘put people’s lives at risk’ by refusing minimum levels of service, Business Secretary Grant Shapps says
Ambulance unions placed people’s lives at risk when they refused to introduce countrywide minimum levels of service during strikes last month, the business secretary has said.
Grant Shapps hit out at ambulance workers for only agreeing on a local level to minimum service levels after he earlier told Sky News it was a “regional or postcode lottery”.
The business secretary introduced a bill to parliament on Monday afternoon that will mean unions representing key workers will have to agree to minimum levels of safety and service when their members go on strike.
Mr Shapps praised nurses for ensuring safe levels of cover were in place on a national level during pre-Christmas strikes.
He earlier told Sky News the bill would protect people’s lives while respecting workers’ rights to stage walkouts.
The bill, if it gets made into law, will mean some trade union members would be required to continue working during a strike.
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Mr Shapps told MPs: “A lack of timely co-operation from the ambulance unions meant employers could not reach agreement nationally for minimum safety levels during recent strikes and health officials were left guessing at the likely minimum coverage, making contingency planning almost impossible and putting everyone’s constituents lives at risk.
“The ambulance strike plans for tomorrow still do not have minimum safety levels in place and this will result in patchy emergency care for the British people.
“And this cannot continue.”
Nurses were praised for ensuring minimum levels of service during December strikes
The GMB union, whose ambulance worker members are going on strike on Wednesday, said it was an “extraordinary attack”.
“He surely knows that across NHS trusts, GMB members who care for the public every single day, work closely with employers to provide appropriate cover on strike days and have left picket lines to help out on urgent calls,” a spokesman said.
“The public know who is to blame for the crisis in our NHS – this government. And, people will be disgusted that in a matter of months, they have gone from clapping health workers to legislating to sack them.”
Labour has said it would repeal the bill, with Deputy Leader Angela Rayner telling the Commons the proposal will lead to nurses being sacked and is an “outright attack on the fundamental freedom of British people”.
She accused the government of “playing politics with nurses’ and teachers’ lives because they can’t stomach the cooperation and negotiation that’s needed”.
Unions have said the bill is “an attack on the right to strike”.
Mr Shapps told Sky News’ Kay Burley at Breakfast: “It works in places like France and Italy and Spain, Germany.
“Other places have minimum service or in some cases with the NHS safety type levels, which mean that if you call an ambulance, for example, you know that it will turn up if it’s a heart attack or stroke.”
Conservative MP Stephen McPartland said it was “shameful, shameful, shameful to target individual workers and order them to walk past their mates on picket line or be sacked”.
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Business Secretary Grant Shapps said there can be minimum service levels while respecting people’s right to strike
Minimum services law extension
The Conservative party’s 2019 election manifesto already promised a minimum service law for public transport, with a bill introduced to parliament in October.
Now, the government wants to extend that requirement to five other areas – the NHS, education, fire and rescue, border security and nuclear decommissioning.
Under the law, employers could issue a “work notice” laying out the workforce they need so employees on the list would lose their right to protection from unfair dismissal if they went on strike.
Consultations over what exactly the minimum levels would be are set to begin soon and further details are due to be published next week when MPs will get a chance to debate the bill during its second reading in parliament.
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Unite: Strikes will go on
Proposals ‘unworkable’
The Trades Union Congress (TUC), which represents all unions, said the bill is the “latest attack on the right to strike” and said it would make it harder for disputes to be resolved.
Paul Nowak, TUC general secretary, said: “That’s undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal.”
Mr Shapps’ bill is being introduced the day before ambulance workers – who are members of the GMB and Unison unions – go on strike after talks with Health Secretary Steve Barclay broke down on Monday.
Ambulance workers from Unison and Unite are set to strike again on 23 January, while nurses with the Royal College of Nursing union have said they will strike on 18 and 19 January.
A British couple have been found dead in Spain after being caught in the floods last week, their daughters have said.
At least 217 people have died after heavy rain in eastern Spain caused flash floods, with thousands of cars left wrecked in the streets and an unknown number still missing.
Ruth O’Loughlin and Renee Turner told Sky News their parents Don, 78, and 74-year-old Terry Turner, from Pedralba, about 20 miles (33km) west of central Valencia, went missing during the floods – only for their bodies to be found in their car days later.
An FCDO spokesperson said it is “supporting the family” and is “in contact with the local authorities”.
It comes as a red alert warning of “extreme danger” from torrential rain has been issued for Barcelona today, with 180mm of rain set to fall in 12 hours according to the national weather agency Aemet.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms O’Loughlin said she last spoke to her mother on Monday last week, and a day later saw her messages to Mr Turner were not delivering on WhatsApp.
After seeing reports of the floods, she tried to contact her father and again received no response, before her nephew rang on Thursday to say her parents were reported as missing.
Despite social media campaigning and calls to the British Consulate, Renee Turner said it was Saturday when they found out Mr and Mrs Turner had died.
“My sister and I both got a phone call to say that they’d been found in their car, and unfortunately they had died,” she said.
Don Turner with his daughter Ruth O’Loughlin (right)
Ms O’Loughlin added: “We’d got told they’d nipped out for gas, as they do.
“Obviously, they weren’t aware of how bad the area was, and their friend said they were aware [the couple went out] as they used to talk all the time.
“And then they didn’t come home.”
The daughters said ‘everybody knew’ Terry – pictured here with her daughter Ruth (left)
Renee Turner insisted both Mr and Mrs Turner would have “without a doubt” heeded flood warnings, but told Sky News “there was no alert”.
“My parents would not have been out,” she added. “We are so angry at the slackness of the Spanish authorities in that respect.
“Not just our mum and dad [have died], there’s hundreds of people, hundreds, and they have to be held accountable for that.”
Ruth O’Loughlin (L) and Renee Turner
In their hometown of Burntwood, Staffordshire, Ms O’Loughlin said “everybody knows my mum and dad”. As kids, she recalled how people would come over when Ruth was baking.
She added that Mr Turner “was the clown – everyone loved Dad… he made our childhood absolutely wonderful,” before saying that when they moved to Spain, “everyone knew them there”.
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Terry Turner
Terry volunteered at a local dog rescue centre and adopted two kittens, Ms O’Loughlin said, which are currently being looked after by the couple’s friends in the area.
“We sort of knew [they were dead] because we knew that our mum would have done anything to get back to those pets,” Ms O’Loughlin added.
Both Renee Turner and Ms O’Loughlin had wanted to move their parents back to England, and the couple had been expected to return home permanently soon.
“We had plans,” Ms O’Loughlin said. “Mum was desperate to come back. She’s a shopper, she missed Morrisons.
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“We were looking at maybe getting a bigger house and moving mum and dad in with us. We could keep our eye on them, we could make sure they were okay.
“The thought of that: My mum said to me that ‘that’s more than I could ever wish for’.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy expressed the UK’s condolences on X, saying: “The UK government expresses its heartfelt condolences to those affected by the tragic floods across Spain – our thoughts are with those that have lost their lives, their families and all those affected. I have offered the UK’s full support to my friend @jmalbares.”
Don Turner
Meanwhile, the local government in Catalonia warned of “continuous and torrential” rain in two regions today, saying people should avoid travel and stay away from streams and ravines.
Authorities told those nearby the “extreme danger” warning issued for the Barcelona region: “Do not travel unless strictly necessary.”
Authorities have also suspended train services in northeast Catalonia on request from civil protection officials.
University tuition fees in England will increase for the first time in eight years, the education secretary has announced.
Fees have been frozen at an annual level of £9,250 since the 2017/18 academic year.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the maximum cap will now rise in line with inflation from April 2025.
That will increase the cost of tuition to £9,535 next year – a rise of £285.
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Ms Phillipson also announced a rise in maximum maintenance loans so they will now increase in line with inflation, giving an increase of £414 a year to help students with living costs.
The education secretary tried to ward off any panic from students as she said: “I want to reassure students already at university when you start repaying your loan, you will not see higher monthly repayments as a result of these changes to fee and maintenance loans.
“That’s because student loans are not like consumer loans, monthly repayments depend on earnings, not simply the amount borrowed or interest rates – and the end of any long term, any outstanding loan balance, including interest built up, will be written off.”
She said the decision had not been easy but added: “It is no use keeping tuition fees down for future students if the universities are not there for them to attend, nor if students can’t afford to support themselves while they study.”
Sir Keir Starmer had pledged to abolish tuition fees when he stood to be Labour leader in 2020.
However, the prime minister rowed back on that promise early last year, saying it was no longer affordable because of the “different financial situation” the country was in, and he was choosing to prioritise the NHS.
He said Labour would set out a “fairer solution” for students if they won the election – which they did with a landslide in July.
Bridget Phillipson announced tuition fees will rise up to £9,535 in England next year. Pic: Reuters
The change comes as universities have been dealing with a funding crisis, largely driven by a huge drop in overseas students.
Rules brought in by Rishi Sunak’s government made it harder for international students, who pay higher fees than British ones, to bring their families with them to the UK.
Universities have been pleading for more investment, but Ms Phillipson said recently institutes should seek to manage their own budgets before hoping for a bailout from the taxpayer.
When she was in opposition, she also touted the idea of reducing the monthly repayments “for every single graduate” by changing how the loan is paid back.
Writing in The Times in June 2023, she said: “Reworking the present system gives scope for a month-on-month tax cut for graduates, putting money back in people’s pockets when they most need it.”
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However, the idea did not make it into Labour’s 2024 manifesto, which only says that “the current higher education funding settlement does not work for the taxpayer, universities, staff, or students”.
It adds: “Labour will act to create a secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates across the UK.”
Independent MP Zarah Sultana, who lost the Labour whip after rebelling over the two-child benefit cap, called the latest development “wrong”.
“It’s time to abolish tuition fees and cancel student debt because education is a public good, not a commodity,” she posted on X.
‘Maintenance loans bigger issue’
Money saving expert Martin Lewis earlier explained how higher fees will not necessarily lead to students facing higher yearly repayments, as that “solely depends on what you earn not on what you borrow”.
In a thread on X, he said a more damaging policy was the Tories’ decision last year to drop the salary threshold at which repayments must be made – from £27,000 to £25,000 – and increase the time to clear the loan before it is written off, from 30 to 40 years.
He said: “Increasing tuition fees will only see those who clear the loan in full over the 40yrs pay more. That is generally mid-high to higher earning university leavers only, so the cost of increasing them will generally be born by the more affluent.”
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University fees of £1,000 per year were first introduced by the Labour government in 1998, going up to £3,000 in 2006.
The coalition government then tripled the amount to £9,000 in 2012, sparking a huge backlash, particularly against the Lib Dems who had vowed to scrap fees in the 2010 general election campaign.
Since then, there have been further changes to student finance such as the abolition of maintenance grants and NHS bursaries, moving student support increasingly away from non-repayable grants and towards loans.
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