Train strikes to return just days after pay deal is agreed

Commuters face three more months of train strikes as the drivers’ union Aslef announced further walkouts yesterday less than 48 hours after the government offered a pay deal.

- SIMON CALDER, JANE DALTON

Sir Keir Starmer has been warned that the unions will “keep demanding more” after it was revealed that members working for LNER – the government-owned train operator of the East Coast Main Line – plan to walk out at weekends from 31 August to 10 November.

The union says the 22 days of planned strikes are in response to “bullying by management and persistent breaking of agreements by the company”, but the Tories have claimed that taxes will have to rise to meet more union demands.

On Wednesday, Aslef and the government announced that a settlement had been negotiated in the train drivers’ pay dispute that began in July 2022 and has caused misery for thousands of passengers. As the announcement was made, transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “When I took this job, I said I wanted to move fast and fix things – starting by bringing an end to rail strikes.”

The LNER strikes are unrelated to that dispute, but government critics said the three-year offer to Aslef had set a precedent that would encourage further action.

Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told The Independent: “The government has basically shown itself to be quite soft in terms of pay rises, and the unions are going to keep demanding more. We know where [the money] is going to come from – it’s going to come from higher levels of taxes and borrowing.