I was delighted to represent the Liberal Democrats on ITV’s The Last Word during January where one of the topics was public sector strikes.
Rail workers, border officials, lecturers, barristers, ambulance workers and nurses have all withdrawn their labour in recent months and the one common denominator is a reluctance on the part of the Government to sit down and negotiate with their representatives.

Ministers – and indeed the Conservative MP with whom I shared the sofa on the TV – maintain that salary increases drive inflation but they fail to accept that wages in the private sector are going up as companies recognise the need to help employees cope with the rising cost of living.
It is wholly unfair to expect public sector workers to shoulder the burden when they have little opportunity to change employer.
Public sector workers have had more than a decade of austerity with a two-year pay freeze followed by another five with a pay cap of just 1%. Some sectors have also seen dramatic reductions in staffing, as a combination of Brexit and Covid have reduce the workforce, and other budget restraints that have worsened working conditions.

I completely support the right of workers to withdraw their labour and we should not forget that those workers will lose pay for their actions. Whilst some of the pay demands are above inflation and unlikely to be affordable, they do represent a starting point for negotiations. Liberal Democrats believe that workers deserve wage increases that are as close to inflation as possible – otherwise they are looking at pay cuts – so to see ministers fail to sit down with unions for months on end is unhelpful.
Liberal Democrats are proud to have introduced the triple lock pension which ensures that state pensions keep pace with both salaries and inflation, and we are relieved that the Government has agreed to restore the inflationary link for those on other state benefits. Now it is time to protect the incomes of those people who we clapped during Covid, and it is wrong to use this cost-of-living crisis to force through strike-busting legislation.
Minimum service levels won’t avert disruption.
There will still be huge overcrowding and delays, which is no good to people in an emergency. The best way to avoid disruption is to prevent strikes in the first place, which means getting round the table with staff and employers to find a solution. This is a desperate effort to distract from the mismanagement of the country by a dysfunctional government – Rishi Sunak is completely out of touch and has no idea how to fix these problems.

When you have talks collapsing and workers resorting to strikes, it’s the public that are left to deal with the consequences, which is unfair to the general public.
Regardless of minimum service levels, under the Conservatives, people are waiting hours for ambulances, schools are restricting their timetables and staff are leaving jobs in the NHS – that has nothing to do with strikes.