The Labour government has begun its first week in power with a number of announcements and key meetings related to its election pledges on employment.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer announced most of his key cabinet posts on Saturday, including Liz Kendall as the new work and pensions secretary, Wes Streeting as health secretary and Yvette Cooper as home secretary. Sir Stephen Timms – a minister in the previous Labour government – returns to the Department of Work and Pensions as a minister.
Meetings are now underway on key industrial relations issues including the junior doctors’ strikes, teacher recruitment and the situation with Tata Steel in Port Talbot.
Healthcare workforce
Streeting is due to meet with the British Medical Association tomorrow in a bid to end industrial action on pay and conditions.
Junior doctors recently held their 11th strike since March 2023. They were initially seeking a 35% pay rise to make up for real-terms pay cuts over the past 15 years.
Streeting has said he believes there is a “deal to be done” with the doctors, while BMA UK Council chair Philip Banfield said the Labour Party would be approaching the talks in “good faith”. Banfield said the junior doctors were now seeking a 26% rise in pay.
Steel industry
New business secretary Jonathan Reynolds is due to meet with Tata Steel over plans to close its blast furnaces and cut 2,800 jobs across the UK.
The previous government had agreed a £500 million rescue package to keep the plant open and shift to greener production methods, but did not guarantee that jobs would be retained.
Speaking to BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg this weekend, Reynolds said any negotiation with Tata going forward would need to include “job guarantees”.
“There is a better deal available for Port Talbot and the steel industry as a whole – I’m sure of that,” he said.
School and college recruitment
This week will also see education secretary Bridget Phillipson write to teachers and other education workers to highlight their importance to the new government.
Phillipson plans to meet with unions this week, as well as launching two recruitment campaigns aimed at fulfilling its election pledge of hiring 6,500 more teachers.
Every Lesson Shapes a Life will direct potential candidates to the government’s teacher recruitment portal, where they can access advice and support from Teacher Training Advisers.
Share Your Skills is focused on getting more professionals into further education teaching.
Phillipson said: “From day one, we are delivering the change this country demands and putting education back at the forefront of national life. We will work urgently to recruit thousands of brilliant new teachers and reset the relationship between government and the education workforce.
“For too long the teaching profession has been talked down, side-lined and denigrated. I have made it my first priority to write today to the people at the centre of making change happen: our workforces.
“I want all children to have the best life chances which means recruiting and keeping great teachers in our classrooms – today is the first step in that mission.”
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