Summary
Rishi Sunak has refused to concede to the pressure from health leaders and some senior Conservatives to negotiate pay with nurses to prevent further strikes.
Mick Lynch, the head of the RMT union, raised hopes that future rail strikes could be averted as travel was disrupted by a fresh 48-hour walkout and nurses warned their action could escalate.
Planned strikes next week will be “very challenging” for the health service, hospital bosses have warned, after they conceded that Thursday’s nurses strikes had had a “significant impact”.
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he is working “flat out” to try and restore the powers sharing executive in Northern Ireland but warned that an imminent breakthrough is unlikely.
Keir Starmer has said “it’s time for a Labour government”, after the party held the Stretford and Urmston constituency in a byelection.
The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con) and Lady Goudie (Lab) have both been recommended to be suspended from the House of Lords after having been found to have breached the House of Lords code of conduct for providing parliamentary advice and services in return for payment.
Wes Streeting declined to say whether a Labour government would agree to a pay rise for nurses.
The general secretary of the Unite union, Sharon Graham, has urged the government to convene NHS pay talks or see the strikes spread.
You can read the full report on the suspension of two members of the House of Lords here.
A House of Lords watchdog has ordered that two peers be suspended from the upper house for long periods for taking thousands of pounds to promote companies, in breach of parliamentary rules.
In two reports published on Friday, the House of Lords Conduct Committee recommended a suspension of nine months for the Earl of Shrewsbury, a former Conservative, now non-affiliated, hereditary peer, and six months for the Labour-appointed peer Mary Goudie.
In what the committee called a “lucrative relationship”, SpectrumX, a healthcare firm, paid Shrewsbury £57,000 over two years to lobby ministers and officials. His proposed punishment would be the most severe sanction imposed on a peer found to have broken the rules by being paid to lobby.
The committee said his misconduct was “extremely serious” and damaged the reputation of the House of Lords.
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