ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now as you’ve just been hearing, Labour has accused the government of losing the trust of doctors over planned changes to junior doctors contracts.  In a letter seen by Sky News, the Shadow Health Secretary has called for her counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, to make further concessions ahead of another strike this week.  Now that comes as Mr Hunt has announced another £4.2 billion of funding to digitise the NHS.  I am joined now by Heidi Alexander, the Shadow Health Secretary, a very good morning to you.  Well who better to hear from about the letter you have written to Jeremy Hunt, what are you asking for him to do?

HEIDI ALEXANDER: Well I’ve written to Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, today to ask him to make some significant, explicit and public concessions about the junior doctors contract. There have been some concessions made by government in the last few weeks and that is to be welcomed but if we can’t get a negotiated solution to this new junior doctor contract then I have said that he should not impose a new contract on junior doctors.  I’ve said that because I’m really concerned about the impact upon staff morale which is already at rock bottom, I’m concerned we could have a protracted period of industrial action and ultimately I worry that we could see junior doctors leaving the UK and going to countries such as Australia and Canada and none of that is good for patients.

DM: Just tell us about the specific concessions you are recommending.  You say there has been some movement between the sides during those arbitration talks at ACAS, these are complicated to an awful lot of people but you are talking about more concessions on the designation of the hours that junior doctors work.

HEIDI ALEXANDER: Well I think one of the key things that has emerged in the last couple of weeks is that there is still no agreement about the definition of what constitutes unsociable hours in the junior doctors contract and that’s important because that’s the period of time in the week which attracts premium pay.  Now I believe Jeremy Hunt needs to make an explicit and public statement about his willingness to make further concessions on the issue of plain time working on a Saturday and if were to do that I would encourage the BMA to return to negotiations.   

DM: But the question will be thrown back at you, I’ll put it to you now, you have been accused of encouraging the BMA.  People are saying the current Labour party regards the BMA as a trade union, they are fully in favour of their negotiating stance and the way they are doing it.  If those concessions were given and the BMA were still recommending to oppose them, where would you then stand?

HEIDI ALEXANDER: Well I’m not privy to the negotiations that take place. The Labour party has always been clear that the best way to sort this problem out is to have a negotiated solution to it.  

DM: But just on that question about the BMA, how do you think they have been handling this?  We heard Jeremy Hunt an hour and a bit ago being very explicit, he says they are irresponsible, they are spreading misinformation, doctors pay has been protected and he said at the basic level it has been increased.  The BMA is effectively, to paraphrase him, misleading its membership.    

HEIDI ALEXANDER: I think Jeremy Hunt by saying that is insulting the intelligence of junior doctors.  This is a group of people who are incredibly intelligent, are able to make their own minds up, have read the proposals for themselves and have followed the negotiations very carefully.  I think the way that Jeremy Hunt has handled these negotiations has been an utter shambles to be honest.  Last July he insulted junior doctors by saying that doctors somehow don’t work weekends when we all know that they do, he has misrepresented academic studies about weekend mortality and so I can understand the anger and frustration of the junior doctors in this whole dispute and I think they feel as if they have got no other option about getting their point across.  I just think that the way that the Health Secretary has behaved in all of this, it’s been a sort of game of brinkmanship and that is no way to conduct negotiations or to run the NHS.  He has to stop behaving like a recruiting sergeant for Australian hospitals and start behaving like the Secretary of State for our NHS.

DM: Interesting mentioning recruiting there, we know there are so many issues facing the NHS but another area that the Secretary of State has been talking about is recruiting more GPs, 5000 is the number that’s been mentioned yet the number of practising GPs has fallen 5% or the number of people who say they want to become GPs, of applications, has fallen 5%.  If people don’t want to become GPs how do you recruit another 5000?

HEIDI ALEXANDER: Well this is completely the point.   We know that people are experiencing problems accessing GP appointments and we have to inspire the next generation of medics to want to join this profession.  These are the people that look after dying children and care for the elderly and I am really concerned about what this whole dispute is doing to staff morale.  What’s interesting about the junior doctors contract of course is that the Health Secretary is suggesting pay protection for the existing cohort of junior doctors, so that’s a recognition that some people do lose out in all of this.  This cannot become a dispute where we pit the next generation of junior doctors against the current cohort of junior doctors.  

DM: But a lot of it does come down to funding, have you sorted out within Labour how much more you would put in to the National Health Service and what about putting up income taxes as your Scottish party is promising to do if it wins power, put up some income taxes and pay for it that way.

HEIDI ALEXANDER: At the last general election we were clear that we would have an emergency budget to put the money into the NHS that it needs and we set out some clear proposals at that time about how we would raise additional money to fund the extra GPs that we’ve just been talking about, the extra nurses that we need.  Now I’m not pretending that the answer to how we fund the NHS or the social care service is an easy answer to find and I think we do have to have a big honest debate as a country about how we find a sustainable funding solution because if you just continue to do what this government do which is cut social care and the budgets that sit within local authorities to care for the elderly, you simply ask the NHS to pick up the pieces.  

DM: I must just ask you quickly, it’s been much discussed again this weekend about a sugar tax.  We all know that treating obesity and conditions that flow from that, how much that is costing the NHS, what about putting a tax on things like sugary drinks?  

HEIDI ALEXANDER: There is a huge challenge with obesity in this country, we need a package of reforms and to address this problem. I think what we mustn’t do is let the manufacturers off the hook with all of this because there are things that the producers of food and drinks could be doing to reduce sugar content.

DM: But what about the government, should a government tax sugary drinks, put an extra couple of pence, five pence or whatever?  

HEIDI ALEXANDER: We need to look at what the evidence is on that, there’s some interesting evidence that’s emerging from other countries about the tax that is applied to sugary drinks but this has to be looked at in the round.  I think even Jamie Oliver would say a sugar tax is not a silver bullet to this problem but it is an urgent issue which does need to be addressed.  
DM: Shadow Secretary of State, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.  Heidi Alexander there.