Why ministers are in the mood to talk to striking nurses

The Royal College of Nursing and the National Education Union have suspended their respective strike actions and entered into fresh talks with ministers. After weeks of disputes, there is a more conciliatory mood in the air. Some are even hoping that this could be a turning point in the wave of strikes that have hit public services in recent weeks.

Why have the nurses paused their strike action?

They have been offered more talks with the health secretary, Steve Barclay, and presumably feel it is a worthwhile opportunity. The 48-hour strike on 1 March would be extremely damaging to patient care and NHS trusts. The RCN would also have been conscious of the risks, despite strong public support. Even if there wasn’t some high-profile incident during the walkout, the accumulated strikes have added to waiting lists and the post-Covid backlog. Continuing action by paramedics and now junior doctors threatened the NHS with a crisis perhaps unprecedented in its history, aside from the peak of the pandemic.

For both sides, pressure is intense to reach a settlement and end the disruption. Talks have begun and are expected to continue into Friday.

What might the talks achieve?

Whitehall sources insist the talks will focus on next year’s settlement, rather than the current pay award, but this may be a way of saving face if the independent pay review body recommends backdating any eventual increase. The average 4 per cent rise for this year, with a minimum of £1,400, could be increased by a further 5 per cent next year, but perhaps even more. The RCN has already scaled back its demand from a notional 19 per cent to 9 per cent. Sources also say the two sides have “met halfway” on pay and productivity, which opened the way for these talks to have some reasonable chance of success.

What about the other public sector unions?

In the NHS, ministers have focussed on the RCN rather than Unite, Unison or the BMA, presumably for tactical reasons; a 48-hour absence of nurses, including in A&E, being the most damaging of all the threats. If the RCN settles, others might follow.

There seems to be a similar pattern when it comes to teachers’ strikes too. The NEU has offered to pause scheduled action next week if “real progress” can be made in negotiations. The union says it is “prepared to recommend a pause to strikes next week” to its ruling national executive committee in a “sign of goodwill” – but only if “substantive progress” can be made in the talks.

And what about the other strikers?

The contrast is more with the “industrial” strikes in the Royal Mail and on the trains, both services are either partly publicly owned or where the state has a significant role in pay and service levels. These workers don’t enjoy quite the same level of public sympathy and, as businesses, the competitive pressures are starker. Ministers seem less inclined to compromise.

Why has the government changed its mind?

The latest figures on public finances suggest that tax receipts in January – the peak month for self-assessment returns and payments – were at bumper levels. A fall in wholesale gas prices also means that the government has a little more room for manoeuvre. A windfall of some £30bn has landed in the Treasury, and chancellor Jeremy Hunt seems to have made the rapid decision to use some of it to rescue the NHS from its chronic understaffing and overworked nurses, possibly also his party from catastrophic poll ratings.