Time for a recap:

Unions have warned that strike action will intensify next month, unless the government agrees to negotiate over pay.

Mark Serwotka, head of the Public and Commercial Services Union, predicted a ‘huge escalation’ in January.

He told Radio 4’s Today Programme:

I think in January what you will see is a huge escalation of this action in the civil service, and across the rest of our economy, unless the government get around the negotiating table.

Serwotka was speaking as border force staff at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow airports, and the port of Newhaven, went on strike in the ongoing dispute over civil service pay and conditions.

Passengers had been warned to expect longer delays at passport control, but some have reported a smooth trip:

In a busy day for strike developments, a planned strike by ambulance workers in the GMB union has been suspended.

Members of the union in England and Wales were due to walk out on 28 December in an increasingly bitter dispute over pay and staffing.

But, following “incredible” support during industrial action by the union this week, the strike has been suspended, with a further date for action scheduled on January 11 2023.

But the Royal College of Nurses has announced that its members will strike again on Wednesday 18 January and Thursday 19 January – for fair pay and patient safety.

A strike by ground handling staff at Heathrow has ended, after they were offered and accepted a pay increase of 9.5% backdated to May, with an extra 1% from January.

The head of one of Britain’s biggest trade unions has urged ministers to make a pay offer to striking workers, insisting it does not necessarily have to beat inflation.

Rachel Harrison, the national secretary of the GMB, told the Guardian her union’s dispute with the government would only be resolved with a higher pay offer, but she added any offer would be taken back to members for a vote.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy has announced that its members in England will take strike action in January over pay. The exact dates have not been decided yet, but the physiotherapists are likely to walk out on consecutive days in different parts of the country. There are more details here.

Motoring organisation the AA reports that congestion on the UK roads has increased this afternoon, after flooding on the M25 caused disruption this morning.

Rail passengers face disruption tomorrow, as fresh rail strikes start on Christmas Eve. Most services will end by 3pm, while some routes will not operate at all.

The RMT union has accused ministers of going missing instead of holding further talks to avert the action.

Around six in 10 adults are planning on cutting back on the amount of money they spent this Christmas season compared with last year, spending less on food, drink and presents, according to the Office for National Statistics.

That’s all from me today. Our Politics Liveblog is here:

And you can test your knowledge of the year, in our business quiz:

Ground handling staff at Heathrow have accepted an improved pay deal, which will end the threat of strike action at the airport, the Unite union have announced.

More than 400 workers, employed by Menzies, have accepted a pay increase of 9.5% backdated to May, with an extra 1% from January. A three-day strike action planned to begin on Thursday 29 December has been called off.

Staff held a 72 hour strike action last month, and had been due to strike again on Friday 16 December – but suspended that action after receiving the improved offer by the company.

Unite regional officer Kevin Hall says:

“Unite made it clear from the outset that we believed that Menzies could afford to make our members a fair offer and that proved to be the case.

“Unite will now be building on this dispute to continue to ensure that our members receive fair pay increases in the future.”

Staff working at Rail for London Infrastructure (RfLI) which operates the Elizabeth Line are to take industrial action over pay, unions have announced.

Prospect members work in safety and maintenance on the line will strike from 06:30 on Thursday 12th January until 06:30 on Friday 13th January.

They will take action alongside colleagues in the TSSA union, who work mainly in signalling.

It is “likely” that strike action will cause significant disruption to the line, which finally opened this year, and could “potentially cause the cancellation of all services”, Prospect say.

The Elizabeth line runs from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through 42km of new tunnels under London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

Prospect has also notified the employer that it will be commencing action short of a strike after 13th January. This will include an overtime ban, work to rule, and withdrawal of good will. Action short of a strike will lead to reduced inspection of track and equipment which could reduce services, it says.

Mike Clancy, General Secretary of Prospect, says the union is still open to negotiating a pay deal:

“Our members have worked incredibly hard to get the Elizabeth Line ready to go safely into operation yet are being treated significantly worse than equivalent workers on the rest of London’s network. They have been left with no option but to take this action.

“We remain open to negotiation and it is our hope that RfLI will come back to the table with an offer sufficient to avert industrial action. The Elizabeth Line is bringing in substantial revenue so there is no reason why there can’t be some movement on pay.”

Traffic is now starting to build across the UK motorway network with several pockets of congestion being felt by drivers who are joining the Christmas Getaway, motoring body the AA reports.

Edmund King, AA president, says “the traffic nightmare before Christmas” on the roads is getting worse, after a slow start.

King explains:

Currently AA RoadWatch reports major problems across the west and north of the M25, severe congestion on M1 around Luton in both directions, M20 Maidstone, M3 near Basingstoke, M4/M5 near Bristol, M5 north of Birmingham, M60 west of Manchester and M8 near Glasgow.

“The rail strike has added to traffic congestion with a What3Words survey showing just under one third of UK adults (32%) said they will be driving to see family and friends ahead of Christmas when they would usually use the train.

Heavy rain in parts has also led to difficult driving conditions and resulted in more breakdowns than usual on the busier routes, King points out.

There are expected to be around 17m trips on the roads today and tomorrow, while traffic could pick up again on Boxing Day with approximately 15m trips, the AA estimate.

A planned post-Christmas strike by ambulance workers in the GMB union next week has been suspended.

Members of the union were due to walk out on December 28 in an increasingly bitter dispute over pay and staffing.

The GMB said there was “incredible” support during industrial action by the union and members of Unite and Unison on Wednesday.

Rachel Harrison, GMB national secretary, says:

“We are overwhelmed by Wednesday’s amazing public support for our paramedics and ambulance staff.

“People across the country have been wonderful in backing us and we care so much about them too.

“That’s why we are suspending the proposed GMB industrial action on December 28.

“We know the public will appreciate being able to enjoy Christmas without any additional anxiety. They support us and we support them.”

She added: “The workforce crisis in our NHS is so severe and our commitment to getting ambulance staff the proper pay they deserve is stronger than ever, so we are scheduling a further date for action on January 11 2023.

Harrison adds that “The incredible British public” are the reason the union is suspending our action over the Christmas period, and she urges ministers to negotiate over pay.

It also means the Government can now do what ambulance workers and the public want – get round the table and talk pay now.

“We are here 24/7. Any time, any place.

“Over to you, [Health Secretary] Steve Barclay. Everyone is waiting.”

More strike news: Thousands of nurses in Britain will go on strike again next month.

The Royal College of Nurses has announced that its members will strike again on Wednesday 18 January and Thursday 19 January – for fair pay and patient safety.

Further dates will be confirmed in the new year, the RCN adds.

The decision follows last week’s strike, involving nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The RCN says ministers have the power to stop strikes but have failed to open negotiations on NHS pay.

RCN General Secretary & Chief Executive Pat Cullen explains:

“The Government had the opportunity to end this dispute before Christmas but instead they have chosen to push nursing staff out into the cold again in January.

“I do not wish to prolong this dispute, but the Prime Minister has left us with no choice.”

Around 6 in 10 (60%) adults are planning on cutting back on the amount of money they spent this Christmas season compared with last year, the Office for National Statistics reports.

The ONS’s latest survey on “Public opinions and social trends” found that people will be buying less festive food, and also buying fewer presents.

It says:

Of adults who reported cutting back their spending over the Christmas season, the most frequently reported ways adults were planning to spend less money were: buying fewer presents (79%), buying less expensive presents (73%), buying less expensive food and drink (62%), eating out less (58%) or buying less food and drink (56%).

The survey also asked people about the important issues facing the UK today. The most commonly reported issues continue to be: the cost of living (93%), the NHS (81%), the economy (78%), and climate change and the environment (58%).

Over 9 in 10 adults reported their cost of living had increased compared with a year ago, while 76% reported an increase in their cost of living compared with one month ago.

A quarter of adults are struggling to keep warm in their own homes (as we reported earlier this month).

Train passengers are being urged to only travel on Christmas Eve if their journey is “absolutely necessary” as a strike will decimate services.

A walkout by thousands of members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) at Network Rail means Britain’s railways will shut down early, and some routes will have no trains all day.

Network Rail has said trains will stop running at around 3pm on Christmas Eve, PA Media reports.

The early closure means the last departures on some long-distance routes will be before 1pm.

Examples of last train times include 10.45am for Leeds to London, 11am for London to Edinburgh and 12.48pm for London to Manchester.

East Midlands Railway will only run an “extremely limited service” between London St Pancras and Corby, meaning there will be no trains on routes such as London St Pancras-Sheffield and London St Pancras-Nottingham.

No South Western Railway trains will run on several routes to and from London Waterloo, including Reading, Twickenham and Dorking.

Chiltern Railways will not operate any trains to or from Oxford, or north of Banbury.

A severe traffic warning has been issued as millions of drivers embark on Christmas getaway journeys, PA Media reports.

The RAC, which expects 7.9 million leisure journeys to be made across the UK on Friday and Christmas Eve combined, published the alert for a stretch of the M25 orbital motorway.

Congestion on the clockwise section between junction seven for the M23 and junction 16 for the M40 is expected to peak at 12.30pm on Friday, when delays of around 50 minutes are likely.

Other roads where long queues are expected on Friday include the M60 near Manchester, the M6 in north-west England and the M40 in Oxfordshire.

Junction four of the M20 westbound in Kent remains closed on Friday morning after a serious crash on Thursday.

National Highways said vehicles are being diverted on to exit and entry slip roads, causing three miles of congestion and delays of at least 45 minutes.

Drivers in Wales and southern England are also battling with heavy rain, which the Met Office said will spread northwards to reach southern Scotland and Northern Ireland during Friday afternoon.

Guy Hobbs, editor of Which? Travel, has advice for passengers who experience disruption due to the Border Force strikes.

“If your flight is cancelled or delayed as a result of strike action by border force staff, you are unlikely to be eligible for compensation as these events are considered outside of the airline’s control. However, your airline still has a duty of care to you - and if your flight is cancelled you have a right to a refund or to be re-routed as soon as possible, even if that means flying with a rival carrier.

“If you are significantly delayed, usually by two hours or more, your airline should provide assistance including free meals or refreshments, or overnight accommodation if required. If your flight is delayed by more than five hours, you have the same rights as if you had suffered a cancellation, and can request a refund or rebooking.”

Britain’s biggest airport said that so far there has been no disruption from the Border Force strike.

As of this morning, Heathrow said it was operating as normal with minimal queueing at passport control within the immigration halls.

There have been no flight cancellations due to the industrial action.

A Heathrow spokesperson said:

“The morning arrivals peak has started well. Immigration halls are free flowing at Heathrow with Border Force and the military contingency providing a good service.”

One passenger has confirmed on Twitter that they didn’t experience any delays at the border this morning:

Mark Serwotka, head of the Public and Commercial Services Union, insists that industrial action is a last resort, and warned that it could last many months unless the government improves its pay offer.

He explains that the strike by Border Force is part of a wider civil service dispute, speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme.

The average wage in the civil service is £23,000, Serwotka says, and there are 40,000 PCS members using food banks and 45,000 are claiming in-work benefits. “They are the in-work poor,” he says.

Serwotka explains that the government was given a dossier in which staff explained they were skipping meals, didn’t put the lights on at home, and were terrified about affording Christmas.

The response, he says, was a 2% pay offer, tens of thousands of job cuts, cutting redundency terms by 33% and “robbing” staff 2% every month in overpaid pensions contributions (details here).

Serwotka says:

When you’re faced with such existential threats to your job security, to your livelihood, and are literally living in poverty and using a food bank, industrial action is a last resort.

Serwotka dismisses the government’s claim that meeting pay demands from unions would be inflationary. If a low-paid public sector worker gets an inflation-matching pay rise, they’ll spend it in their local economy, supporting the hospitality sector and British manufacturing, he points out, adding:

That’s exactly the type of boost the economy needs.

Also, of course, they’ll pay tax and national insurance.

Q: How long are you prepared for this industrial action to take?

Serwotka predicts the action at the border will be “very effective”, and hopes the government will get around the negotiating table “and put some money up front.”

But if not, the PCS are raising money, and has a strike fund that means the union can “sustain this action for months”.

Serwotka says PCS’s strike mandate lasts until May, so it will support the action until May, and reballot members if it had to.

Q: So, six months of this strike action?

Serwotka predicts the industrial action will intensify next month, unless ministers agree to negotiate:

Not only could there be six months, I think in January what you will see is a huge escalation of this action in the civil service, and across the rest of our economy, unless the government get around the negotiating table.

Heathrow, the biggest of the six airports where Border Force staff are striking, has said it expected the vast majority of journeys to be unaffected, with no flights cancelled before the industrial action.

About 1,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union will continue to strike over the remaining days of 2022, apart from 27 December.

Just under 9,000 flights are now scheduled to land at the six affected airports – Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester – during the strikes, carrying up to 1.8 million passengers, according to data from the aviation analytics firm Cirium. Officials will also strike at one seaport, Newhaven in East Sussex.

The airports are confident that the contingency staff and e-gates, which will be unaffected, will process most passengers effectively during the strikes. The volume of passengers travelling through airports is still only about 85% of pre-pandemic levels.

Here’s the full story:

Flights are operating normally at Gatwick this morning, says Adam Jones, the head of passenger operations at the airport, as the Border Force strike begins.

He told Sky News that everything was working smoothly at the border this morning, with contingency staff in place. He’s confident that the airport will operate as normal, with flights arriving and departing on time.

Jones says:

We expect passport checks to take a bit longer, and we do anticipate some disruption, but flights are operating normally – arrivals and departures – and we expect that to continue.

The passport control booths at Gatwick are being staffed by Border Force staff who are not taking part in the strike, Jones adds, along with members of the armed forces and volunteers from across the Home Office who have been trained to operate border control.

At very busy times, there could be two hours of disruption at the border, Jones predicts – pointing out that eGates are available too.

To use an eGate, you need a biometric symbol on your passport, be at least 12 years old, be either a British citizen or a national of an EU country, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland or the USA, or be a member of the Registered Traveller Service.

Jones adds that he doesn’t see any risk of Gatwick having to shut – but if queing becomes excessive, the airport will control the amount of traffic arriving.

Good morning.

Hundreds of thousands of air passengers face possible disruption over the coming days as Border Force employees join the ranks of workers striking in the UK.

And with postal workers and National Highways staff also holding industrial action, and an overtime ban on the railways, people face disruption and delays in the Christmas rush.

Passengers arriving at several UK airports are being warned to expect delays over the strike action, which involves border controls staff who check passports.

The actions will affect London airports Heathrow and Gatwick, plus Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Glasgow and the port of Newhaven on the south coast.

They will take place from today until December 26th, and again from 28th to 31st December.

The Border Force strike is being organized by the Public and Commercial Services Union, which is seeking a 10% pay rise, “pensions justice”, job security and no cuts to redundancy terms.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka urged the govenment earlier this month to put “money on the table” to stop the strikes, saying:

“Like so many workers, our members are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. They are desperate. They are being told there is no money for them, while they watch ministers giving out government contracts worth billions of pounds to their mates.

“Some sections of the media have accused us of playing politics with these strikes. Let me be clear: our dispute is with the employer.

“We will fight to improve our members’ pay, terms and conditions regardless of who is in Downing Street.”

The UK government has made preparations to limit the impact of the walkout, including training military personnel “to step in and keep our border safe”.

But, it also says travellers arriving in the UK over the Christmas period should expect delays and disruption. That could include longer wait times at passport control, and possible disruption to journeys.

eGates should still be working, though, so passengers with compatible passports should use those.

Steve Dann, Border Force chief operating officer, has apologised for any disuption suffered, adding:

Border Force’s number one priority to is keep our citizens safe and borders secure. We are working together with partners across the travel industry to ensure we can continue to meet critical demand and support the flow of passengers and goods through our border.

During the periods of industrial action, travellers should be prepared for disruption.

We encourage everyone to check the latest advice from your operators before travelling.

Thousands of Royal Mail staff are beginning a two-day strike today, involving members of the Communication Workers Union who collect, sort and deliver parcels and letters.

Royal Mail says its Customer Service Points will be closed on the strike days (Friday 23 and Saturday 24 December) for collecting or dropping off items. The company also said it will do all it could to ensure delivery of last-minute Christmas cards and parcels.

National Highways workers began strike action yesterday that will run until Christmas Day, as millions start their Christmas getaways by road.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), including control-centre staff and traffic officers, are striking in London and the south-east. It follows two days of stoppages by members of the PCS on 16 and 17 December in the north-west and Yorkshire.

The four days of industrial action by the 46 members will be at three depots across the region, in Godstone, Guildford and Winchester, the union said.