Will Keir bow to the unions? Labour Government faces first tests in talks with junior doctors demanding huge 35% pay hike and train drivers threatening more chaotic strikes

Labour will today hold talks with major trade unions threatening more chaotic disruption in hospitals and across railways.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting is due to meet with the British Medical Association's junior doctors committee in a bid to resolve their long-running pay dispute.

Junior doctor members of the BMA have walked out on strike 11 times in the past 20 months as they continue to push their demand for a 35 per cent wage hike.

Meanwhile, the Aslef union representing train drivers will attend a meeting at the Department of Transport (DfT) in an effort to end their own row over pay.

Aslef members have staged 18 days of strikes since their dispute started two years ago, causing huge disruption to rail passengers. 

Today's talks will be the first big test of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's hopes of ending the misery for Britons caused by the unions' repeated walkouts.

Industrial action by a series of different NHS staff groups since December 2022 has led to the postponement of 1.5 million appointments, procedures and operations.

This has been at an estimated cost to the NHS of more than £3billion.

The last strike by junior doctors – staged just days before the general election – impacted 61,989 appointments, procedures and operations, according to NHS England.

Today's opening of formal talks between Mr Streeting and the BMA comes after previous two meetings earlier this month.

After the first meeting on July 9, Mr Streeting - who has warned the Government can't afford the BMA's demand for a 35 per cent wage hike - said both sides had shown a 'willingness to negotiate'.

'Patients, staff, and the NHS have already paid too high a price due to strike action, and I'm optimistic that we can bring this to an end,' he said.

'It's not going to be easy. This Government has inherited the worst set of economic circumstances since the Second World War.

'But both sides have shown willingness to negotiate and we are determined to do the hard work required to find a way through.

'I am angry about the way the junior doctors are treated in the NHS, and there is a lot we can do to change that.'

Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairmen of the BMA's junior doctors committee, also hailed the meeting as a 'positive first step'.

Dr Trivedi said medics were 'pleased' to meet the Health Secretary so quickly after the general election.

They added: 'It signifies the urgency that they're placing on resolving this dispute which has already lasted 20 months.'

Ahead of today's talks between Aslef and DfT, the union's general secretary Mick Whelan stressed it was an 'initial' meeting.

He said: 'We hope, with a new Government in place, that we can have constructive talks to get a positive resolution that works for train drivers, who have not had an increase in salary for five years, since 2019, and will help get our railway back on track.'

Mr Whelan claimed the previous Conservative government had 'put the brakes' on a deal, adding: 'Now, with a new Secretary of State for Transport in place, I hope, and think, we can, and will, get a deal done.'

It will be the first meeting between the union and the department since April last year.

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said in a recent message on X, formerly Twitter: 'Fourteen years without a workforce strategy has left our railways understaffed, reliant on voluntary working and lurching from one crisis to the next.

'Our urgent priority is to reset workforce relations and put passengers first.'