A summary of today's developments
The chair of the British Medical Association’s UK council said Rishi Sunak’s pay increase offer “fails to address” years of below-inflation pay deals. Prof Phil Banfield said the government’s offer “is exactly why so many doctors are feeling they have no option but to take industrial action”. Earlier, Sunak issued a warning to trade unions and workers still involved in strikes and industrial action, telling a Downing Street press conference the new pay offer is “final”.
All four teaching unions recommended accepting a pay offer. In a joint statement with Sunak, they said: “A 6.5% increase for teachers and school leaders recognises the vital role that teachers play in our country and ensures that teaching will continue to be an attractive profession.”
Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages are yet to be received by the Covid inquiry because he is said to have forgotten the passcode for his old phone. The former prime minister’s spokesperson said Johnson still wanted to cooperate with the inquiry and did not deny being unable to recall the code.
The Department for Education is to raid its existing budgets for £1.4bn to help fund the 6.5% pay rise offered to teachers in England, as part of the deal announced between the government and the teaching and school leader unions.
The government will help fund public sector pay increases by “significantly” raising fees for migrants’ applications for visas and their access to the NHS, Rishi Sunak said.
Junior doctors began a five-day strike in England today, described as the longest walkout of its kind in the NHS’s history.
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Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said there is “no fat on the bone” to fund staff pay rises out of existing hospital budgets.
He told Channel 4 News: “It doesn’t look to us at first glance as though what has been identified by the prime minister and the chancellor as the money that will be available to pay for the gap between this offer and what is in the budget will be adequate.”
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