Happy New Year everyone. I’m hoping for a better one than ’22 and certainly no repetition of our ’21 annus horribilis!
The auguries are quite positive with gas prices coming down and with them things like construction costs. However, we must tame inflation and improve productivity in key industries. That means wage restraint and more intelligent modern ways of working of the sort now routinely seen in successful European countries.

A big part of the block is the resurgence of 1970s-style militant trade unions. Rail is a good case in point. The rail unions want bigger pay settlements for their members, some already very well paid, than other workers, many of whom are not, at the same time retaining restrictive practices and resistance to technology.
Trade union protectionism makes putting the rail industry on a sustainable basis impossible. In the long term it threatens jobs and the safe, efficient running of the network.

Residual Blairites on the Opposition front bench know this but, with their party hand-cuffed to the unions, they refuse to condemn strikes and, because they don’t want to scare undecided voters, won’t be drawn on what they would do in office.
In the absence of an answer, we have to rely on the Opposition’s track record in office, recalling the ‘beer and sandwiches’ era at Number Ten. So, the working assumption has to be that they would cave in to demands.
The Opposition has apparently conceded the obvious point that the RCN trade union demand for 19 per cent for the country’s 700,000 nurses is just impossible. We all want more money for healthcare workers – declaring my own interest as I’m still one – but huge, inflation-busting rises in one, very large sector come straight out of the pockets of others.

The UK is now spending about the same on healthcare as our European neighbours after many years of growth, though with generally less good outcomes, so we need to be careful about suggesting more money is key.
I’m still getting a few political pressure group inspired but unsubstantiated emails about ‘cuts’ to the NHS. But I prefer fact over fiction. In reality, there’s been a very significant uplift in the number of junior doctors, consultants and nurses over the past few years, notably as the service recovers from the pandemic.
In my view, as stated in my ten-minute rule bill last year, a central plank in reducing healthcare pressures is getting frail elderly out of acute hospital beds into more appropriate settings in the community. So, the focus in 2023 has to be on social care. In my bill I lay out how that could be achieved.