At the lobby briefing this morning No 10 said it was “concerning” that unions across different sectors seem to be coordinating strike action, and would not rule out including measures to address this in the forthcoming anti-union legislation.

Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, recently said the unions are engaged in “real industrial coordination across our employers, across our sectors, across our industries” and this is a matter of increasing concern to Tory MPs. On the Westminster Hour last night Damian Green, the former first secretary of state, said that the unions were trying to organise “a quasi-general strike” and that this was something that “needs to be resisted by everyone who cares about democracy”.

Asked if Rishi Sunak shared this concern, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists:

It is concerning to hear talk of coordinated actions. It only seeks to excerbate the misery it inflicts upon the public. But that is fundamentally a decision for unions.

We think we are acting reasonably in accepting the recommendations of the independent pay bodies.

Sunak has already said he is planning “tough” new legislation to guarantee minimum public services continue during strikes. Asked if this could include measures to stop unions coordinating their strikes, the spokesperson said he would not get into speculation about what the new powers might entail.

I will post more from the briefing shortly.

Health workers from three of Northern Ireland’s largest unions have begun a 24-strike in an escalation of their ongoing protest at pay and conditions, PA Media reports. PA says:

Members from Unison, Nipsa and GMB have taken to picket lines at hospitals and other health service facilities across the region.

Later this week, nurses will strike in Northern Ireland as part of the UK-wide action by the Royal College of Nursing on Thursday.

Last week, Stormont’s Department of Health announced that healthcare workers in the region would receive a pay rise recommended by independent salary review bodies.

Unions said the increase was not enough and insisted the strike action would continue.

The delayed pay rise move came after civil servants secured the legislative authority to make decisions on pay amid Stormont’s political impasse.

Decisions on other public sector employees, such as teachers, civil servants and police, are awaited.

The majority of health workers are to receive at least an additional £1,400 in pay while doctors and dentists will be given a 4.5% rise.

The increases will come into effect before the end of the financial year and be backdated to 1 April this year.

The separate independent recommendations were made by the NHS pay review body and review body on doctors’ and dentists’ remuneration.

The announcement was always unlikely to have affected the industrial action planned by health workers, as NHS colleagues in Great Britain have voted to strike having already received the 2022/23 rises.

The lack of a devolved executive at Stormont had prevented the awards being made in Northern Ireland before the UK government intervened last month to pass a budget for Stormont and hand civil servants extra powers.

This is what Keir Starmer said in his LBC phone-in when he was asked if he would do a deal with the SNP if that was necessary to form a government after the election. He said:

We are not doing a deal with the SNP. I say that in capitals, I say it in bold, I said it at my party conference, I’ve said it many times before and since.

When asked if he would stick to that position even if it meant the Tories being able to continue in office, he replied:

We are not borrowing seats from the SNP and getting over the line. No deal.

The SNP will have to make their minds up. If they want to bring down an incoming Labour government, and prop up a Tory government, then that’s their choice, and that’s what they will have to sell back in Scotland. Good luck with that one.

But this is fundamental to me. Running through the SNP is their mission to break up the United Kingdom and for Scotland to become independent. I fundamentally disagree. I believe in our union of nations, not just because of what we’ve achieved historically together, but because of what we will achieve in the future. And if I look at the big challenges of our time, whether it’s Ukraine and security, whether it’s a pandemic whether it’s how we grow our economy, the climate crisis, these are issues which will be better met as a union of four nations going forward together.

So absolutely no deal with the SNP.

I know what’s going to happen as we get towards the election. There will be lots of graphs saying this number of seats, that number of seats. That’s why I’m saying up front, tattooing it my forehead, no to deal with the SNP. We are not going to do it.

There is nothing new about this position, but rarely has Starmer expressed his opposition to a deal with the SNP so bluntly.

In her interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary, also restated a version of her offer, first made in the Observer, to pause this week’s strike in return for the opening of genuine talks with ministers on pay. She said:

If [Steve Barclay, the health secretary] gets round a table with us and has realistic, honest talks, there’s a strong possibility that I will be able to go back to my council and say: ‘I recommend that we avert the strikes and continue those negotiations’. And I would also say the council would most certainly not be unreasonable about that.

Asked if she was prepared to consider an offer that is lower than the money that the RCN has asked for, she said:

It would not be for me to negotiate on the airwaves, I’m definitely not going to do that. That’s for myself and the health secretary, or through conciliation with Acas to get around a table, but we will not be found wanting in getting in there and having those discussions.

In his Sky News interview, referring to today’s growth figures, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, also said the general economic outlook was “likely to get worse before it gets better”. He said:

I think it’s a very challenging international picture. About a third of the world’s economies are predicted to be in recession, either this year or next.

We’re no different in this country and truthfully, it is likely to get worse before it gets better, which makes it even more difficult when we have big public sector strikes going on at the moment.

My colleague Graeme Wearden has more on this on his business live blog.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, gave an interview to Sky News this morning about the latest growth figures and he defended the government’s decision not to reopen talks with the Royal College of Nursing on pay.

But he did make a point of describing the RCN’s position as “completely sincere” – which at least made him sound somewhat sympathetic to them. He said:

My number one responsibility as chancellor, the number one job of the government, is to make sure that we tackle inflation, and that will deal – I think – with the underlying anger that many people feel …

We have to be very careful, we recognise the position that unions hold is completely sincere, because of the challenge of 11% inflation.

On the other hand, we also have a sincerely held position, which is that we don’t want to do anything that would lock in that high inflation rate for a long time to come.

Q: [From a nurse] Where do you stand on the nurses strike. MPs have had a big pay rise over the past decade, whereas nurses have had very little over the last decade.

Starmer started by thanking the caller for her work. He said he wanted to see nurses paid well. Under the last Labour government, there was fair pay for nurse, and no strikes.

He said 19% was “more than can be afforded by the government”.

Q: Wes Streeting said the NHS needs to reform or die. Do you agree?

Yes, said Starmer. He said it needed to reform.

We are all living longer. That needs there must be more focus on prevention, he said.

He said he wanted to double the number of medical staff being trained.

Q: Streeting said the BMA did patients no favours when they voted against longer opening hours for GPs. Do you agree?

Yes, Starmer said. He said 9-5 opening hours were unrealistic.

Keir Starmer has been on LBC doing his regular ‘Call Keir’ phone-in.

Q: I don’t seen any sense of politicians showing a sense of duty. They should put the country first. Will Labour stand up to the unions and prevent strikes ruining society. President Putin must welcome this.

Starmer said unions did not want to go on strike. The nurses have never held a strike before.

He said it was “bizarre” that the government is refusing to negotiate with the nurses, when they say they are willing to pause their strike if talks resume.

The government are “stitting on their hands”, he says.

For the government to sit this out with two or three days to go, I think shows a profound lack of leadership. We need the government to get around the table.

He said as head of the CPS he had to negotiate with two unions. That is what he did.

Q: Why should people be guaranteed a pay rise every year? If you are in sales, you don’t get that. Putin is rubbing his hands over this.

Starmer said it was very hard to say to nurses they should not get a pay rise. However, he added:

I do accept that what they are asking for is probably more than can be afforded.

Good morning. Steve Barclay, the health secretary, was on BBC Breakfast this morning for an interview that was primarily about an announcement that the government is spending £50m on motor neurone disease (MND) research. But he was also asked about the nurses’ strike, of course, and he stuck to his position that, while he is happy to meet the Royal College of Nursing, he will not reopen talks on their pay offer.

He claimed that there were 7 million people waiting for an operation, and he said that if the nurses got more money, there would be less available to bring down the waiting list backlog. He said:

I don’t want to be taking money away from clearing the … backlog, which is what we would have to do, we’d have to take money away from patients waiting for operations to then fund additional pay.

And if everyone on the public sector were to get an increase in line with inflation, that would be costing £28bn at a time when the government has to get inflation under control, because that is the biggest factor in terms of people’s cost of living.

Both of the figures quoted by Barclay were misleading. It is not surprising that he claimed giving all public sector workers a pay rise in line with inflation would cost £28bn; although widely criticised by experts as misleading, it is an agreed figure ministers have been using. But Barclay also claimed the hospital waiting list figures show 7 million people are waiting for an operation, when journalists who cover these statistics are routinely told not to use that description. These are people waiting for an appointment related to treatment, and many of them won’t need an operation.

But Steve Brine, the Conservative chair of the Commons health committee, also gave an interview this morning, and he told the Today programme that, in refusing to meet the RCN, Barclay was making a mistake. Referring to the offer by the RCN to pause the strikes if Barclay were willing to reopen talks on pay, Brine said:

I started by saying it was 1-0 to the RCN with the move they made yesterday. I would suggest that the secretary of state could get to 1-1 by inviting them in and actually I’m not sure that he’s got an awful lot to lose.

You know, draw-draw better than war-war, and at the moment we’re in a media war-war and the patients, the public who pay for this service are just sort of left bemused in the middle.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Keir Starmer holds his LBC ‘Call Keir’ phone-in.

10am: James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, gives a speech. As my colleague Patrick Wintour reports, he will say the government will target a group of about two dozen middle-level countries for long-term diplomatic partnerships in what marks a downgrade of a commitment to human rights as a prerequisite for close relations with the UK.

11.30am: Downing Street holds its morning lobby briefing.

After 3.30pm: MPs debate the remaining stages of the trade (Australia and New New Zealand) bill.

4pm: Tracy Brabin, mayor of West Yorkshire, Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, and Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands, give evidence to the Commons levelling up committee about levelling up funding.

At some point today Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office meeting, will be chairing a Cobra meeting to discuss government contingency planning for the strikes taking place this week.

And Kemi Badenoch, the international trade secretary, will be in India for talks on the proposed free trade deal with India.

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