View this email in your browser

Good evening John

As we count down the days to Christmas, strikes across our Health Service are in the news.

We want to see the Government in London getting around the table with the Royal College of Nurses to get a fair outcome that rewards the efforts of staff. Our nurses need properly paid but we also support an overhaul to the terms and conditions for nurses so it is attractive for them to work for the Health & Social Care Trusts rather than exorbitant agencies.

This is essential to help secure the future of the Health Service and to ensure that nurses also have a better work life balance. That requires a wider reform of staff structures. For example, nurses struggle with caring responsibilities due to shift patterns. This leads to an dependency on agency nurses despite an agency nurse being three or four times more expensive than a Trust nurse.

This issue has been developing over years not weeks but the Government needs to act now on pay. When the Protocol is resolved we can also focus on the wider reform issues through a devolved government.

Let’s remember however that Treasury has confirmed to my colleague Gregory Campbell MP that the Trader Support Service which helps companies deal with NI Protocol generated paperwork, has cost the taxpayer £318.7 million in just over two years. That’s £436k per day or £18k per hour. £436k could employ 10 highly experienced nurses for a year. The Protocol paperwork costs the salary of 10 highly experienced nurses every single day.

All these matters are interconnected.

Best wishes,

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP
Leader

Also this week

• Party Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson

  • Challenged the Secretary of State on the progress of the NI Protocol Bill.
    
    

  • Said that figures published this week highlight the continued importance of trade with the rest of the United Kingdom and underscore the need for our place within the UK Internal Market to be restored.
    
    

• East Belfast MP Gavin Robnson said Sinn Fein will never decide who it was ok for the IRA to murder. His comments followed an interview where Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald said the IRA should not have harmed any member of the Garda.
  
  

• North Belfast MLA Phillip Brett said Sinn Fein had the most to fear from the report into the activities of the IRA informer ‘Stakeknife’ or anything which delved into the activities of agents in Northern Ireland, but their blushes should not be a factor in decisions relating to its publication.