A government minister has appealed to the public sector not to carry out further strikes, saying it would be “an act of self-harm” for the economy.
Speaking to Sky News, Robert Jenrick said international factors are “beginning tentatively to work in the right direction”, with energy and fuel prices starting to fall.
But he said it would be “the worst thing that we could do” if the government met the demands of trade unions to increase pay by double-figures, claiming it would “entrench inflation in the British economy and get into a kind of wage spiral that would be very detrimental to the economy”.
Nursing staff from more than 55 NHS trusts will take part in industrial action today, with two further strikes to be held next month, as the Royal College of Nursing continues to fight for a 5% above inflation pay rise – though it has hinted it will accept a lower offer.
Head of the union Pat Cullen, said: “People aren’t dying because nurses are striking. Nurses are striking because people are dying.”
Thousands of Environment Agency staff across England are also taking industrial action today, including river inspectors, flood forecasting officers, coastal risk management officers, sewage plant attendants and staff at the Thames Barrier.
“We want to be as reasonable as possible,” he said. “[Health Secretary] Steve Barclay and other ministers have been meeting with union representatives to talk to them to see if there are ways forward to discuss next year’s pay settlement and set out arguments on affordability there.“
Asked what his message to public sector unions would be when it comes to further strike action, the minister said: “Think about the impact that is going to have on working people across the country and on the economy.
“We know that times are difficult right now. What we don’t want to see is the economy harmed by an act of self-harm, by further strike action that makes it harder to get to work, to cross the border and of course, to get access to crucial public services.”
But Ms Cullen told the BBC: “We can either have our focus totally on balancing the books or we can continue to respect and treat this NHS as it should be for every single patient right throughout the country.
“We have to address the crisis within the NHS. You will only do that by paying nurses a decent wage and filling the 47,000 unfilled posts that our nurses are feeling every single day missing from the health service.”
Mick Wheelan, general secretary of Aslef – which represents train drivers – said his union was further away from a deal than at any point because of “the behaviours of the other side’s negotiating team”.
He told Sky News: “I’ve never been in a process where people are being so underhand and deceitful and I’ve being negotiating at all levels in this industry for about 38 years.”
‘Dug into trenches’
Mr Wheelan insisted his union was still open to further talks to find a resolution, but he criticised moves by the government to bring in anti-strike laws and make unions the enemy.
“We have a government that’s fundamentally failing the public because every time they talk about trade unions, they talk about workers and the public as if they’re two different people,” he added.
“The voters of this country are the people that go to work every day in these sectors and have that dissatisfaction across that many areas at one time. That tells us that the government’s got the policy wrong.”
Labour’s Emily Thornberry called the current situation with strikes “a mess” and blamed the government for leaving negotiations “until the very last minute”.
The shadow attorney general told Sky News: “They were posturing for such a long time, saying they were going to be hard and they weren’t going to talk and they weren’t prepared to negotiate. And now they say they are.
“But I do think that people have got themselves dug into different trenches now and it’s really hard to get out of it.”
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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.
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He wound down his and his son’s windows, and climbed out before rescuing his son.
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‘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.”
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“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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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“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.”