RCN accuse government of ‘belligerence’ as talks to avert strike action fail; Wales strikes to go ahead – as it happened

Royal College of Nursing says Steve Barclay refused to discuss pay at meeting on Monday; Welsh nurses to strike after last-minute talks fail. This blog is now closed

Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing's general secretary, told ITV this morning that there was no point talking to Steve Barclay, the health secretary, if he was not prepared to discuss pay. She said

What I'm saying ... to the health secretary this morning, is if you don't want to speak to me directly about nurses' pay, we have engaged with the conciliation service Acas, they can do that through Acas, but our door is absolutely wide open and it appears at the minute that theirs is totally shut ...

Fundamentally, I need to get to a table and talk to them about pay. This isn't just me, it's the 320,000 nurses that voted for strike action ... They voted through an independent ballot that we carried out and surely to goodness you couldn't look at one of those people this morning in the eye and say: You're not worth an extra brown penny'. In my mind they absolutely are.

I think it's a very challenging international picture. About a third of the world's economies are predicted to be in recession, either this year or next.

We're no different in this country and truthfully, it is likely to get worse before it gets better, which makes it even more difficult when we have big public sector strikes going on at the moment.