More than half the public now oppose strikes by rail workers, a poll for The Times has found, as train companies offered a new deal to drivers in an effort to end their industrial action.
The Rail Delivery Group said it was offering a “landmark outline proposal” that would deliver more reliable services for passengers, in exchange for a pay increase of 4 per cent for 2022 and 4 per cent for this year.
The offer, which has been signed off by the Department for Transport, would require staff to be available to work on Sundays but would guarantee no compulsory redundancies until at least March 31, 2024.
At the same time Rishi Sunak said he had invited union leaders for a “grown-up” conversation on Monday about pay demands amid growing optimism in Downing Street that a deal could be achieved to end the nurses’ strike.
Government sources said they had been “encouraged” by comments by the head of the Royal College of Nursing that it would be prepared to settle for a pay award of about 9.5 per cent, less than half their previous demand.
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Sunak said the government wanted to have “productive” talks but unions had to recognise the constraints on what could be offered.
Steve Montgomery, chairman of the Rail Delivery Group, said that its offer to the train drivers’ union Aslef would increase the base salary for the average driver from £60,000 to almost £65,000 by the end of 2023.
“This is a fair and affordable offer in challenging times, providing a significant uplift in salary for train drivers while bringing in common sense and long-overdue reforms that would drive up reliability for passengers and allow the railway to adapt to changed travel patterns,” he said. Aslef said it had not seen the offer.
The moves came as a YouGov survey for The Times found that 51 per cent of people were opposed to the strikes that have largely shut down the rail network this week, compared with 40 per cent who still backed the walkout.
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However, support for industrial action by nurses remains high, with 68 per cent of the public backing their strike action to win higher pay. A similar number (66 per cent) also back strikes by paramedics.
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The poll found the public was divided on who was to blame for the rail strikes, with 32 per cent saying the government, 29 per cent citing the unions and 29 per cent blaming both sides equally.
Among Tory supporters there was more support for the government, with just 3 per cent blaming ministers and 67 per cent blaming the unions.
The survey suggests that public opinion has shifted little since the wave of industrial action over the Christmas period. Despite the walkout by nurses, support for their strike action has actually increased since the poll was carried out in early December.
In the latest poll, 26 per cent thought the government was behaving reasonably, up two percentage points from early December, while 31 per cent thought the same of the unions, down two percentage points.
But the danger for Sunak is among the voters who backed the Tories at the last election. The poll suggests only half of Tory 2019 voters back the government stance, while one in five (21 per cent) think Rishi Sunak and ministers are behaving unreasonably.
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Overall the poll found little change in the state of the parties. The Conservatives were up one point on 25 per cent, Labour down two points on 48 per cent and the Lib Dems unchanged on 9 per cent. On who would make the best prime minister, 26 per cent said Sunak and 31 per cent said Sir Keir Starmer. However, 40 per cent said they were not sure — underlining the uncertainty in many voters’ minds.
Meanwhile, head teachers moved a step closer to strikes after the Association of School and College Leaders held a consultative ballot yesterday on industrial action in England and Wales.
Sixty nine per cent of members in England were in favour of moving to a formal ballot on strike action, and 74 per cent wanted to move to a ballot short of a strike. In Wales, the figures were 64 and 79 per cent respectively.
Geoff Barton, its general secretary, said: “The results of this ballot show the strength of feeling which exists among school leaders over the desperately difficult situation they are facing in recruiting and retaining staff, and operating their schools without the adequate funding to do so.”
