Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, said it was “difficult to judge” whether nurses were currently being paid enough and that while it was not his “area of expertise” he believed their work was “a profession”. He said nurses had a starting salary of £27,000 rising to a mid-range of around £30,000 and asked: “Is that enough? Who can value such care?’ The pushback comes after nurses voted to strike across the UK for the first time in their history, seeking a better pay deal. The Government says the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is calling for a 17.6% pay rise which, if applied to all NHS staff apart from doctors and dentists, would cost £9bn. The RCN believes current NHS services are “not safe” and has accused ministers of failing to take their concerns into account. Heaton-Harris said it was “worrying and very, very sad” nurses were being forced to use food banks and were reportedly eating leftover food from patients’ plates. He told Sky News that public sector finances were “not in the best shape” but added: “Everything the government is doing across the public sector, which is the only area of pay we can influence, is aimed at the lowest paid and the most vulnerable in society. So we understand that we have to help people a little bit more.” Asked if a 17% pay rise was appropriate, Heaton-Harris told Times Radio it was “remarkably high”. He said the NHS pay review body had given 1 million NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year, equivalent to 4.5% for most nurses. He added: “I want people in the public service to be properly rewarded, just like everyone else. But there is also a much broader economic context.” He dismissed questions about whether nurses should be paid as much as politicians. Heaton-Harris earns £84,144 as an MP and as a senior minister tops up his salary with an extra £67,505. “Some people wouldn’t want to pay politicians anything,” he noted, before adding it was an “unfair question”. The nurses’ strike “completely disrupts a huge number of public services that are very, very important to the whole nation,” said Heaton-Harris. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. He said dialogue was “always the best way” and had often found it useful to discuss issues with unions when he was previously rail minister. However, the RCN said on Thursday that current NHS services were “not safe”. Patricia Marquis, the union’s director for England, told BBC Breakfast that ministers had “failed to listen” to what nursing staff were saying. He said there were some services that would need to continue during the strike to keep patients safe “and we will agree with employers what those are and what staff should be working”. He added that employers in most of the UK needed 14 days’ notice of strike action, adding: “What I can say is that we intend to take action certainly before the end of this year.”
