“I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep,” Starmer says on nurses’ pay

Keir Starmer has said he does not want “to make promises I can’t keep” on nurses’ pay and highlighted the “awful economic situation” an incoming Labour government would inherit ahead of a proposed strike by nurses.

The RCN confirmed on Wednesday that nurses across many hospitals and other NHS care settings have voted to strike – for the first time in the organisation’s 106-year history. Steve Barclay held discussions with RCN general secretary Pat Cullen today, which the Health Secretary described as “constructive”.

Interviewed on ITV News this afternoon, the Labour leader said: “I completely empathise with the position that nurses are in. They’re working really hard, in really difficult circumstances.

“Pay is an issue. Numbers are an issue. If you ask anyone who works in the health service – my wife does – the number one issue is we haven’t got enough people.”

He told viewers: “Before we get to the pay question, there’s the resource and staffing question, and that’s why we’ve said that we would end the non-dom status, which deprives us of tax in this country, and put in place 15,000 new training places for staff coming in.

Starmer added: “On the pay situation for nurses, obviously, if and when we come into power – and I hope the sooner the better – we’re going to inherit a pretty awful economic situation after this Tory government has crashed the economy, so I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.

“What I will say to nurses watching this is that, under the last Labour government, we grew the economy and we were able to restore fair pay for nurses, and that is the mindset that we would take into government.”

Announcing the result of the RCN’s ballot, Cullen said that “anger has become action” and warned that “our members are saying enough is enough”. She added: “Our members will no longer tolerate a financial knife-edge at home and a raw deal at work.”

The ballot was launched following the government’s decision in July to award most NHS staff a 5% pay rise. Ministers claimed the pay offer would lead to frontline healthcare personnel receiving a salary increase of at least £1,400. The RCN has argued that nurses should get a pay rise of 5% above inflation.

Analysis from consultancy firm London Economics published on Wednesday – and highlighted by the RCN when launching the ballot – showed that nurses’ pay decreased by nearly twice as much as the pay of all private sector employees between 2011 and 2021.

Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting declared this morning that NHS staff are “slogging their guts out” but there “simply aren’t enough of them” after it was revealed that the number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a record high.

NHS England figures released today show that 7.1 million people in England were waiting to start treatment at the end of September, the highest total since records began. A total of 401,537 people had been waiting more than a year, up from 387,257 at the end of August.

Rachel Reeves announced at Labour conference that a Labour government would double the number of district nurses qualifying each year, train more than 5,000 new health visitors and create 10,000 extra nursing and midwife placements every year.

The Shadow Chancellor added that the party would “implement the biggest expansion of medical school places in British history, doubling the number of places so we have the doctors we need in our NHS”.

The number of vacancies in the NHS hit a record high of more than 130,000 earlier this year. Commenting at the time, NHS Providers interim chief executive Saffron Cordery said the figures were “staggering” and “further proof that the NHS simply doesn’t have enough staff to deliver everything being asked of it”.

Asked on Monday whether immigration should be used to address staff shortages in the NHS, Starmer said: “We should be training people in this country. Of course, we need some immigration, but we need to train people in this country.”