Rishi Sunak warns NHS strikes could go on for months as he rules out reopening pay offers – live

Prime minister issues warning as nurses take action again today, with ambulance staff striking on Wednesday

Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has been giving interviews this morning, as well as joining RCN members on a picket line in Newcastle.

Cullen said that, if the government did not resolve the dispute, the RCN would escalate its strike action in January. She said:

If this government keeps giving our nursing staff the cold shoulder as they have to date then, it’s really unfortunate that, come January, we will see more hospitals being involved and striking and that means more nursing staff involved.

She urged the prime minister to “do the decent thing” and to open talks on a revised pay offer. She told PA Media:

I want to say to the prime minister this morning, please step in now and do the decent thing on behalf of every patient and member of the public of this country.

But please do the decent thing also for nursing staff - get round the table and start to talk to me on their behalf.

She refused to say whether the offer of an extra one-off payment might help to settle the strike. Steve Barclay, the health secretary, reportedly wanted to offer nurses a one-off lump sum, but was overruled by No 10. Asked if nurses would accept this, Cullen said nurses did not want “quick fixes”. They needed an in-depth review of the value of their work, she said. But she added: “That’s for us to discuss in a room, not on the airwaves.”

Sunak said the current round of strikes could go on for months. Asked if Britain could face months of strikes, Sunak replied:

Yeah. Look, I’m going to keep making the same arguments I’ve been making.

The government is acting fairly and reasonably and will always continue to do so. I’m going to do what I think is right for the long-term interests of the country - combating inflation.

He implied it was too late to improve the pay offer for the 2022-23 financial year. Groves reports:

[Sunak] flatly rejected reports that he was preparing a climbdown in his trial of strength with union leaders. The PM said it was too late to improve on pay offers in a financial year that was ‘basically finished’.

But Sunak implied that unions might get a more generous pay offer for 2023-24 if they called off strikes now. “Offering an olive branch to workers, [Sunak] hinted that next year’s pay round could be more generous if union members behaved responsibly now,” Groves reports. He goes on:

Mr Sunak said it was too late in the financial year to unpick the settlement - and suggested the unions should focus on making the case for an improved pay deal next year. ‘We do need to think about what’s the right approach for next year,’ he said. ‘Of course that’s a conversation we will have with the unions, with the pay review bodies, as we think about the right pay settlements.’