London strikes: Liz Truss pledges crackdown as Sadiq Khan says government ‘deliberately provoking’ unions – as it happened

Tory leadership frontrunner says new laws will make it harder to strike as London mayor accuses government of picking a fight

London mayor Sadiq Khan has accused the UK government of deliberately provoking" tube, overground and bus strikes that he said could harm the capital's recovery from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.

I'm concerned that the government is almost deliberately provoking industrial action in London", Khan said in an interview with Sky News on Friday morning.

I am frustrated by the strikes today. It's ordinary Londoners, commuters and businesses who will be affected today at a time we're trying to get a recovery.

If we were speaking in January, the amount of people using the tube was about 45% versus pre-pandemic [levels].

So we're making that stand on behalf of our members, but many other workers in Britain are suffering some very similar things and you're going to see a wave of this type of action. We can't stand by and watch our conditions be chopped up. Otherwise, it'll just be a race to the bottom for all British workers.

We haven't got a pay issue on London Underground at the minute because we're still in the long-term deal that's hanging over from the last pay agreement, but we'll have a pay agreement going into the new year, where we'll be looking for negotiations.

That's going to be a really difficult period. So the issues that are involved in London Underground may get more serious and right across TfL, because they haven't got any funding from the government, it's going to be difficult.