Ambulance workers have written to Rishi Sunak accusing his government of “demonising” them in order to justify new anti-strike legislation.
The letter from paramedics and other members of the GMB union said they were “appalled” at some of the statements from ministers in recent days and that “targeting ambulance workers for a deliberate attack is a disgrace”.
“We feel utterly betrayed by the way your government has singled out ambulance workers as part of a crude attempt to remove our right to strike,” the letter said.
“You and your ministers should be ashamed of the way you have tried to paint us as uncaring about safety standards – nothing could be further from the truth.”
The letter appeared to point to comments made by Business Secretary Grant Shapps, who claimed ambulance workers put lives at risk by not agreeing to country-wide minimum service levels during recent strike action.
The comments were branded an “extraordinary attack” by the GMB Union, who said the strike cover agreed with trusts at a local level was thorough.
In the letter to the prime minister, the GMB pointed to data which showed ambulance delays fell on 21 December – the day of a previous strike.
More from Politics
“Surely you know that we have been working with NHS trusts everywhere to agree emergency cover during strike action,” the letter seen by Sky News said.
“In addition to this, GMB members left picket lines to respond to emergency calls.
Advertisement
“Every day, we go above and beyond our contracted hours to make sure vulnerable patients are cared for and even on days of industrial action, this commitment remains as strong as ever.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
2:16
The cycle of ballots, strikes and negotiations continues within the NHS, civil service and on the railways.
It said delays to getting an ambulance and then entering A&E have been going on “for months and are nothing to do with strike days”.
It added: “NHS workers like us got the country through the pandemic and we’re doing our very best to deal with the crisis in our NHS now, something your government has presided over and should take responsibility for.
“We want a constructive relationship with government to talk about pay and seriously improve conditions throughout the ambulance service.
“But you are making us and our ambulance colleagues feel demonised. Please talk to us and our unions. And stop attacking us now.”
NHS strikes in Scotland put on hold
The letter comes as the threat of widespread strike action in Scotland’s NHS has been put on hold by unions following a breakthrough in talks with the Scottish government.
The GMB, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said they would now enter an “intensive period of negotiations” on the 2023 pay deal – though they still have a mandate to call a strike if they are unsuccessful.
Humza Yousaf, the Scottish health secretary, said a “positive way forward has only been possible due to both sides willingness to engage and where necessary compromise”.
“This is in stark contrast to the UK Government who this week introduced draconian anti-trade union legislation, which we strongly oppose,” he tweeted.
“I would urge the UK Govt to follow Scotland’s example and engage in meaningful dialogue with trade unions, and offer them a fair pay deal.”
It will mean some union members would be required to continue working during industrial action – which critics say is an attack on the right to strike.
Union bosses have vowed to fight the legislation “every step of the way” and warned it is undermining attempts to settle public sector pay disputes.
Ambulance workers in England are among thousands of public sector workers staging fresh rounds of industrial action this year to demand better pay and conditions in the face of soaring inflation.
Speaking earlier on Friday, Mr Sunak said he hopes to “find a way through” the deadlock with unions to avert further walkouts.
“Look, I think with strikes it’s important that we remain in strong dialogue with the unions, that’s why the Government invited all union leaders in to have those discussions,” he told broadcasters during a trip to Scotland.
“The discussions are ongoing and hopefully we can find a way through.”
He called emergency services but soon “water started seeping in”.
“I thought I’m going to have to get out, I’m going to have to smash a window,” Mr Randles said.
More on Weather
Related Topics:
He wound down his and his son’s windows, and climbed out before rescuing his son.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:10
‘Devastating’ flooding in Wales
“The water was chest high, I held him up as high as I could to keep him out of the water.”
Advertisement
“It wasn’t raining so heavily, I’ve driven in much worse rain,” he added.
Mr Randles, a self-employed roofer who relies on the car for work, said he remained calm during the ordeal and was helped by the fact that Luca was asleep during the rescue.
Mr Randles’ partner Paige Newsome – who was not in the car at the time – said the incident was “really scary”.
“To think I could have actually lost them both – I don’t know how I would’ve lived,” she said.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
The road has been flooding for at least two decades, the couple said.
“What is it going to take for the council to sort it out? Does a fatal incident have to happen? It’s been going on for years,” Ms Newsome said.
The couple are worried about affording another car as well as Christmas celebrations.
But Mr Randles said: “I’m grateful that we got out safely and that we can spend his first birthday and Christmas as a family.”
Storm Bert has brought more than 80% of November’s average monthly rainfall in less than 48 hours to some parts, the Met Office said.
Around 300 flood warnings and alerts are in place in England, with another 100 in Wales and nine in Scotland, as heavy rain and thawing snow bring more disruption across the UK.
A major incident was declared by Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council in South Wales after homes and cars were submerged in water.
‘It is devastating’
Gareth Davies, who owns a garage in Pontypridd, a town in Rhondda Cynon Taf, told Sky’s Dan Whitehead that flooding has put his small business “back to square one”.
As the River Taff burst its banks, the majority of the vehicles in Mr Davis’s garage were so damaged he says they will have to be written off.
“I am gutted,” he said, standing in his flooded garage, most of which is also covered in oil after a drum tipped over.
“How long is it going to take to sort out? I am going to lose money either way. I can’t work on people’s cars when I am trying to sort all of this out.
“It is devastating.”
Mr Davies said he has never had an issue with water coming into his garage until now.
Pointing to one car that had been hoisted into the air before water reached it, he said: “Lucky enough, I did come in this morning just to get that car up in the air.
“I don’t know what to say, I have been working flat out for two years to build this up and something like this happens, and it just squashes it all.
“This has put me back to square one.”
At least two to three hundred properties in South Wales have been affected by flooding, Councillor Andrew Morgan, leader of Rhondda Cynon Taf Borough Council, said on Sunday.
He said the affected buildings are a mixture of residential and commercial properties, after the weather turned out to be worse than what was forecast.
The Labour MP behind the assisted dying bill said she has “no doubts” about its safeguards after a minister warned it would lead to a “slippery slope” of “death on demand”.
In a strongly worded intervention ahead of Friday’s House of Commons vote, Ms Mahmood said the state should “never offer death as a service”.
She said she was “profoundly concerned” by the legislation, not just for religious reasons, which she has previously expressed, but because it could create a “slippery slope towards death on demand”.
Asked about the criticism, Ms Leadbeater said: “I have got a huge amount of respect for Shabana. She’s a very good colleague and a good friend.
“In terms of the concept of a slippery slope, the title of the bill is very, very clear.
“It is called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It cannot include anybody other than people who are terminally ill, with a number of months of their life left to live. It very clearly states that the bill will not cover anybody else other than people in that category.”
She wants people who are in immense pain to be given a choice to end their lives, and has included a provision in the legislation to make coercion a criminal offence.
Advertisement
The matter will be debated for the first time in almost 10 years on Friday, with MPs given a free vote, meaning they can side with their conscience and not party lines.
As a result, the government is meant to remain neutral, so the intervention of cabinet ministers has provoked some criticismfrom within party ranks.
Labour peer Charlie Falconer told Sky News Ms Mahmood’s remarks were “completely wrong” and suggested she was seeking to impose her religious beliefs on other people.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
8:51
Kevin Hollinrake says he will be in favour of the assisted dying bill
Asked about his comments, Ms Leadbeater said it was important to remain “respectful and compassionate throughout the debate” and “for the main part, that has been the case”.
She added: “The point about religion does come into this debate, we have to be honest about that. There are people who would never support a change in the law because of their religious beliefs.”
Ms Leadbeater went on to say she had “no doubts whatsoever” about the bill, which has also been objected by the likes of Health Secretary Wes Streeting and former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown.
Asked if she has ever worried about people who don’t want to die taking their own lives because of the legislation, Ms Leadbeater said: “No, I don’t have any doubts whatsoever. I wouldn’t have put the bill forward if I did.
“The safeguards in this bill will be the most robust in the world, and the layers and layers of safeguarding within the bill will make coercion a criminal offence.”
There is a lot at stake this week for Sophie Blake, a 52-year-old mother to a young adult, who was diagnosed with stage four cancer in May 2023.
As MPs vote on whether to change the law to allow assisted dying, Sophie tells Sky News of the day her life changed.
“One night I woke up and as I turned I felt a sensation of something in my breast actually move, and it was deep,” she says, speaking from her home in Brighton.
“Something fluidy, a very odd sensation. I woke up and made a doctor’s appointment.”
Sophie underwent an ultrasound followed by a biopsy before she was taken to a room in the clinic and offered water.
“They said, ‘a hundred percent, we believe you have breast cancer’.”
But it was the phone call with her mother that made it feel real.
More on Assisted Dying
Related Topics:
“My mum had been waiting at home. She phoned me and said ‘How is it darling?’ and I said ‘I’ve got breast cancer,’ and it was just that moment of having to say it out loud for the first time and that’s when that part of my life suddenly changed.”
Sophie says terminal cancers can leave patients dreading the thought of suffering at the end of their lives.
Advertisement
“What I don’t want to be is in pain,” she says. “If I am facing an earlier death than I wanted then I want to be able to take control at the end.”
Assisted dying, she believes, gives her control: “It’s an insurance policy to have that there.”
Disability rights advocate Lucy Webster warns that for people like Sophie to have that choice, others could face pressure to die.
“All around the world, if you look at places where the bill has been introduced, they’ve been broadened and broadened and broadened,” she tells Sky News.
Lucy is referring to countries like Canada and Netherlands, where eligibility for assisted deaths have widened since laws allowing it were first passed.
Lucy, who is a wheelchair user and requires a lot of care, says society still sees disabled people as burdens which places them at particular risk.
“I don’t know a single disabled person who has not at some point had a stranger come up to us and say, ‘if I were you, I’d kill myself’,” she says.
The assisted dying bill, she says, reinforces the view that disabled lives aren’t worth living.
“I’ve definitely had doctors and healthcare professionals assume that my quality of life is inherently worse than other people’s. That’s a horrible assumption to be faced with when [for example] you’ve just gone to get antibiotics for a chest infection. There are some really deep-seated medical views on disability that are wrong.”
Under the plans, a person would need to be terminally ill and in the final six months of their life, and would have to take the fatal drugs themselves.
Among the safeguards are that two independent doctors must confirm a patient is eligible for assisted dying and that a High Court judge must give their approval. But the bill does not make clear if that is a rubber-stamping exercise or if judges will have to investigate cases including risks of coercion.
Julian Hughes, honorary professor at Bristol Medical School, says there’s a very big question about whether courts have the room to take on such a task.
“At the moment in the family division I understand there are 19 judges and they supply 19,000 hours of court hearing in a year, but you’d have to have an extra 34,000,” he explains.
“We shouldn’t fool ourselves and think that there wouldn’t be some families who would be interested in getting the inheritance rather than spending the inheritance on care for their elderly family members. We could quickly become a society in which suicide becomes normalised.”