NFU response to General Election result
NFU President Meurig Raymond said: “The NFU is committed to start working with whoever forms the new government to ensure all areas of Whitehall understand and value the importance of British food and farming. The NFU has a good relationship with all parties and, as ever, will work with whoever is in power to promote the interests of British farming.
“British farming underpins the country’s largest manufacturing sector and with farming arguably the sector most impacted by Brexit, NFU members need clarity and certainty as soon as possible over who will govern the country and how they plan to support profitable, productive and progressive agriculture and horticulture in the future. The NFU will be seeking early meetings with Ministers. It is important for our industry to have clarity and see certainty from a functioning administration as soon as possible.
“British farms currently grow the raw ingredients for the UK food and drink manufacturing sector worth £109 billion and for every £1 invested, farming delivers seven-fold back to this country. Moreover, it is clear the British public value and want to continue to buy British food¹.”
“If the formal Brexit negotiations begin as planned on June 19 we will continue to push for the right post-Brexit trade deal, regulatory framework, a domestic agricultural policy suited to Britain and access to a competent, reliable workforce.
“We are also calling on the new government to support British farming through a number of other measures, including a commitment to continue with the 25-year TB Eradication strategy, ensuring regulation is based on robust scientific evidence, and tackling the increasing problems of rural crime. The Government should be proud to promote British food at home and abroad and champion British food and farming through its public procurement policy.”
PCS statement on General Election
General election 2017 voters show huge support for alternative to cuts
The Labour party’s resurgence at the general election on an anti-austerity platform shows there is a huge appetite for an alternative to the Tories’ cuts, says the Public and Commercial Services Union.
Results show the Tories’ false claims to support workers’ rights and stand for the ‘just about managing’ have lost all legitimacy. Millions of young people have been engaged in politics for the first time through Labour’s positive campaign.
Labour’s share of the vote increased from 30.6% in 2015 to more than 40% at this election on the basis of an end to spending cuts, an end to the public sector pay cap and positive policies of investment in the economy.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said:
“This election has shown there’s huge enthusiasm for an alternative to the Conservatives’ failed policies of austerity.
“Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have defied their critics and inspired millions of people with a manifesto of hope. I look forward to continuing to work with them to deliver the alternative to austerity that PCS wholeheartedly supports.
“Planning for Brexit in the civil service is chaotic. Cuts in civil service staffing must end, and more resources must be pumped in urgently.
“Theresa May has no mandate for further attacks on public servants’ pay and jobs. If the Tories have the arrogance to cobble together another government the trade union movement must step up to the plate and launch a united fightback for an end to cuts in our public services.”
RCN responds to General Election result
Janet Davies, Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, responding to the General Election result, said:
“No matter which Government is formed, it has more than Brexit to resolve in the months and years to come. The next Prime Minister must not become consumed by those negotiations to the detriment of patients and the people who care for them. In the time it takes to negotiate Britain’s exit, the NHS will fall further into disrepair unless the Government begins to listen.
“Health and care services must be a greater priority for this Government than they were for the last. They must be funded to a higher level and we must see action on election promises, especially around mental health and the right to remain for health and care workers from across the EU.
“Hospitals, clinics and communities across the country are short of the nursing staff they need to provide safe care. They are being driven out of the NHS by levels of pay that are as damaging to patient care standards as they are to a nurse’s family life. The Government’s pay cap does nothing to help fill the 40,000 vacant nurse jobs in England alone.
“Later this month, the Royal College of Nursing will launch a summer-long protest, calling on the Government to scrap the 1 per cent pay cap. It is simple: a pay rise that is deliberately held below inflation is in fact a pay cut. The cap, after years of pay freezes, means that nursing staff are 14 per cent and at least £3,000 a year worse off than they were in 2010. This summer, the Government has one last chance to scrap the cap.”
Patients Association response to General Election
Potential NHS funding crisis and the challenges of Brexit won’t go away
“The inescapable fact is therefore that a Government has been elected — albeit with a somewhat limited mandate — on a programme that does not provide for a sustainable set of health and social care services. Without a change in direction by the Government, there is now no prospect of us avoiding a major crisis in the NHS, on top of the existing one in social care. This crisis will not hold off while Westminster politics sorts itself out into a more workable shape or adapts to the new political landscape — it will come whether our politicians are ready for it or not.
“We strongly advise the Government to show leadership on funding, by committing to increase the share of GDP spent on health and social care to the levels recommended by the Barker Commission and the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, and maybe even including a ‘double lock’ to include a per-capita measure too, in case GDP suffers a sharp fall.”
The statement also calls on the voluntary sector to be more vocal on fiscal policy, and challenge assumptions around the importance attached by politicians to ‘tackling the deficit’.
On Brexit, the paper warns that it will render it impossible to meet many of the promises for new legislation in the Conservative manifesto:
“The Conservative manifesto’s multiple commitments for legislation — for a new Mental Health Bill, putting HSIB and the National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care on a statutory footing, amending the rules on social care funding, and changing the rules around the internal market if necessary — must now be open to question. They take no account of the extent to which Brexit will dominate the legislative timetable (and similar commitments to legislate were made across multiple other policy areas), let alone the difficulty of passing legislation through a hung parliament.
“We strongly urge the Government to take a hard-headed approach to Brexit that recognises the many practical dangers that would arise from getting it wrong. It must aim for a transitional deal, guarantee the rights of existing health and social care workers in the UK, secure the ability to recruit further numbers, stay as firmly as possible in the necessary markets for medicines and materials, and under no circumstances walk away from talks without a deal.
“The Patients Association will support all efforts to meet these serious challenges for the benefit of everyone who needs, or will need, health and social care. We are ready to work with the Government and all stakeholders in pursuit of workable solutions to these pressing problems.”
