LABOUR’S Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry has said she is pleased the Government is talking to unions in an effort to stop the strikes in the NHS.

She told GB News: “I’m pleased to hear that the government is now sitting down with the unions, as I say, they really shouldn’t have left it until the middle of January until the fact that people have been on strike and attitudes had hardened.

“Much better to have sat down when the problems were obviously developing in the summer, and to have started negotiations at that stage and not allowed it to get out of hand.

“During the whole time when we were in charge of the National Health Service, we didn’t have strikes. Why didn’t we have strikes? Because we sat down and talked to the unions and worked out the way to get through these matters.

“And of course, the strikes in the National Health Service aren’t just about pay. They’re also about working conditions about the fact that we have a health service workforce that is exhausted, and frankly tearful, and feel that no matter how hard they work, no matter how much they try, they they just get by and they don’t provide the sort of service that they want to be able to provide.

Speaking in an interview during Breakfast on GB News, she added: “The problems are very deep rooted and cannot be solved by one meeting with Rishi Sunak on Monday, however, what we would do is we would, as I say, not have allowed the situation to have got as bad as it has, and I don’t know how much wiggle room the government has because I didn’t have access to the books and to what the t the real scope for negotiations are, but we would have looked into it.

“We wouldn’t have said for months and months, we are not going to talk to you about pay. And even now, they seem to be saying we’re not going to talk to you about this year’s pay, they’re only going to talk to you about next year’s pay.

“It seems to me to be a single mindedness that is nothing more than unhelpful and those that are suffering are the members of staff but also the public who are affected by the strikes and a competent and careful and appropriate government would never have allowed this to have happened.”

Asked about proposed anti-strike legislation, she said: “There may be legislation across Europe but it isn’t actually used very much, because the reality is that if you do use legislation like this, you are going to sack people who go on strike.

“Well, much better surely, is to use the system that we already have, which is that people negotiate. They were basic safety levels, and you can see nurses running off picket lines in order to go and help when there is a particular crisis.

“That’s the reality. That’s what’s always happened, and we know that even if they do pass this legislation is not going to help with the current situation.

“The current situation can only be helped if the Government stops playing games, sits down and talks to the unions and negotiates a deal. They should have done it six months ago.

“The fact that we’ve left it until the very last minute, until attitudes have hardened, until people have actually gone on strike, until nurses have gone on strike for the very first time in their history.

“And now they want to negotiate, it is obviously that much more difficult because, as I say, attitudes become harder.”

She added: “The French system is not one that we have in this country. I think that their attitude to union relations is not the same as ours, and quite frankly, they’ve got a lot more strikes than we have, or used to anyway…the Government hadn’t been prepared to get involved in solving some of these disputes.”

On the MP Andrew Bridgen having the whip suspended, she said: “I personally think that the Tories should check him out at the party but it’s obviously a matter for them.

“They’re not going to pay attention to my advice anyway.”