Kemi: Patients pay for Labour failure

NHS cannot be held to ransom by the unions

- KEMI BADENOCH

WHEN Labour negotiates, Britain loses. The doctors’ strikes are just the latest in a long list of Labour’s negotiating failures.

Before last year’s election, Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting told us that NHS strikes were the Conservatives’ fault. They said Labour would end the strikes.

They then got into government and handed doctors an inflation-busting 28.9% pay rise, with no promise of reform to staffing, commitment to productivity gains or a long-term workforce plan.

I warned at the time that this would set a dangerous precedent. I was right.

Once again, patients are paying the price for Labour's political failure.

Chaos

But this is not theoretical harm. It is cancelled operations, missed cancer appointments. There will be parents watching their kids suffer and pensioners left in pain, and all because Labour won't stand up to the doctors’ unions.

And while they wait, Health Secretary Wes Streeting is ducking responsibility, hiding behind process, and pretending this chaos is somehow unavoidable.

The unions know they have Labour over a barrel, and so inevitably they keep coming back with escalating demands, rejected offers and further walkouts. It cannot go on.

We entrust doctors with our lives. That carries privileges, but also responsibilities.

In many countries, that reality is recognised in law. Several governments have banned doctors from striking because public safety must come first.

Britain should be no different. That is why, to protect patients, I have been clear that the Conservatives would ban doctors from striking.

If you choose a profession where lives depend on you turning up for work, you should not get to withdraw your labour and assume the system will cope.That is not fairness, it is coercion.