Health secretary accused of ‘refusing’ to negotiate with striking nurses’ leader over her gender

‘I think there’s an issue here with us being female,’ RCN boss says

The health secretary is embroiled in a sexism storm after he was accused of being unwilling to negotiate with the leader of striking nurses because she is a woman who mainly represents women.

Steve Barclay was also accused of being a “bullyboy” by Pat Cullen from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), whose members are due to take part in unprecedented industrial action on 15 and 20 December.

The RCN said Mr Barclay was failing to properly engage with nurses, even as he said his “door remains open”.

Ms Cullen said: “I’m a woman negotiating for a 90 per cent female profession that is trying to operate with a government that’s particularly macho and tends to operate with a bullyboy tactic.

“Perhaps that’s the reason why we can’t get moving forward. By refusing to negotiate Steve Barclay is ignoring nurses and ignoring me.

“I think there’s an issue here with us being female. I ask myself, would that [refusal to negotiate] be different if it was a 90 per cent male profession and I was a male? I truly believe it would be. I think we’d be treated differently,” she added in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

She also warned that the government was taking “female work” for granted.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that Mr Barclay had the “utmost” respect for nurses.

Despite this year’s pay award of £1,400, the RCN has said that experienced nurses are worse off by 20 per cent in real terms thanks to a series of below-inflation awards since 2010.

The union is calling for a pay rise of 5 percentage points above the RPI level of inflation.

The health secretary has said that the concerns raised by trade unions are not solely about pay and that ministers are working to improve conditions in other areas.

In a separate interview, the chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned trade unions not to jeopardise Britain’s recovery, saying that if ministers gave in to high pay demands they could “lock in” high inflation.

Meanwhile, a former Tory minister has admitted the Home Office has a “lot of work” to do to protect women.

Rachel Maclean said women did not feel safe on the streets and education for men was required to tackle the issue.

On Friday Nimco Ali, an adviser on violence against women, effectively quit that post live on air during a radio interview, saying she was on “a completely different planet” from home secretary Suella Braverman.

Ms Maclean, a former justice minister, said “fear of violence” on the streets was a “daily experience” for women in the UK.

Speaking to GB News she said: “I think all of us women – it doesn’t matter how old you are or what walk of life you’re in – have that fear of violence.

“It is just part of your daily experience. And you kind of take it for granted, almost, that you have to do certain things, behave in a certain way, and sort of look after yourself.

“There’s a lot of work we still need to do. But it starts with education.

“It starts with the sort of stuff we’re seeing now on the Tube in London. The campaign posters there are brilliant because it’s saying we don’t accept this.

“It’s saying it’s not normal to behave like this on the street.

“It’s about raising awareness across the whole of society. I don’t think this should be left to women to fix it. It should be society as a whole that fixes it.”