Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden - speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg - urges health workers to call off their strikes
Action is planned by nurses, paramedics, rail workers, and Border Force staff which are all due to take place next week
Dowden says the pay demand put down by unions is not affordable - but is pushed about the cost of the raise by Kuenssberg
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, also on the show, talks about dealing with the issue of migrants coming over in small boats
She says Labour's objective would be to cut the number of dangerous crossings - and also says the party would cancel the government's "unworkable and unethical" Rwanda plan
We've also heard from Nasa's Howard Hu, who says the agency's next generation astronaut ship Orion is the first step to a 'sustainable presence in space'
Ahead of Oliver Dowden’s appearance on the programme, this week’s panel of Justin Welby, Susannah Reid and Victoria Newton will be telling Laura Kuenssberg what they feel are the key matters to be addressed.
Then we’ll hear from the Cabinet minister, before returning to our panel who will discuss his interview.
All this and more to come in the next hour.
Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is due to begin shortly, and you can watch the programme without leaving this page by clicking on the play button in the picture above.
Stay with us for the latest news lines, quotes, and video clips as we follow the show - which features this week cabinet minister Oliver Dowden, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper and NASA's Howard Hu.
Image source, Getty Images & EPAAs we've been saying – we've witnessed a lot of walkouts in the UK over the last week, and there's more to come next week in the run up to Christmas.
Nurses, paramedics, rail workers, royal mail staff and Border Force workers are all set to walkout as part of their ongoing pay disputes.
So when the show gets going at 09:00 we'll hear from the cabinet minister Oliver Dowden, who chaired an emergency meeting of the government's Cobra committee last week to discuss contingency plans for the upcoming strikes.
Also on the show, shadow home secretary, Labour's Yvette Cooper on that… and the on going issue of migrants using small boats to cross the channel. On Thursday, four people died after a migrant boat got into difficulties crossing the English Channel.
"Our hearts go out to all those affected by this tragic event," said Home Secretary Suella Braverman and French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin in a joint statement. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer described the incident as "heart-breaking".
More workers are expected to take industrial action this week, as demands grow for better working conditions and pay increases to keep up with rising prices.
Image source, .
Image source, ReutersPM Rishi Sunak has said the pay offer to nurses is appropriate and fair
Back to the issue of strikes now, and the chief executive of the NHS Confederation says it appears "the door is shut" by the government on pay negotiations. He says that strikes by nurses and ambulance workers will cause "harms" to the health service if progress is not made.
Matthew Taylor calls on the government and trade unions to be "pragmatic" and recognise that industrial action during winter "creates risks".
"The secretary of state has said today that he’s willing to negotiate, except negotiate on the one issue that the trade unions want to negotiate on - which is pay," he tells BBC Breakfast.
He says there is "no question" that strikes in the health service during winter will pose “risks” to patients.
"We're in the middle of winter and we have a health service which, even on an ordinary day without industrial action, is finding it difficult to cope."
This morning's Kuenssberg show is the last of 2022, so here's a chance to look back at some of the highlights.
From the first ever show featuring Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak as they battled it out to become the next leader of the Conservative Party, the Queen's death and King Charles' accession to the throne, the show has covered some of the most pivotal events in the UK in the latter part of 2022.
Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg
Image source, EPA"There are no coups, there are no plots," a cabinet minister confides about conversations with colleagues.
After a year of almost unparalleled political skulduggery, that is a pretty decent gift to go under Rishi Sunak's Christmas tree. But at the risk of being Scrooge, is the season of apparent peace and goodwill really a triumph, or a sign of something else?
This member of the government suggests there is no dodgy manoeuvring going on, not because Number 10 has conquered all, but after years of arguing amongst themselves and wasted opportunity, "nobody cares any more" - ouch! The mood inside the Tory Party is "defeatist". Another cabinet minister admits the party is "in the last chance saloon".
During 2022 two powerful myths have been shown to be just that.
First, Boris Johnson's legendary ability to survive serious scrapes and scandals was exhausted. Whatever your own view of what some saw as the Tories' joker king, his exit has transformed the landscape.
Second, the assumption that it would be impossible for Keir Starmer to turn Labour around in a single term looks flimsy now. The leader does publicly, and regularly, warn against complacency in his ranks.
But Labour's front bench is starting to look like a group of people who believe they'll be the ones at the cabinet table, and whizzing around in ministerial cars, in 18 months or so.
It's our last show of 2022 on Sunday, when we'll try to make sense of what has happened.
Image source, Getty ImagesAbout 1,200 members of the military are to be drafted in alongside 1,000 civil servants to cover for striking ambulance and Border Force staff over Christmas.
Some 10,000 ambulance staff in England and Wales will strike on 21 and 28 December in a pay dispute.
Unions say military staff are not "sufficiently trained" to take on ambulance roles but Health Secretary Steve Barclay says his "number one priority" is keeping patients safe.
The main union representing Border Force staff is set to walk out for eight days between 23 and 31 December, with significant disruption for people travelling over Christmas expected.
The government says civil servants will join military personnel helping "minimise disruption for passengers" by checking documents and passports.
Strikes have disrupted everything from train services to postal deliveries and hospital care. Nurses and ambulance workers, the RMT rail union, plus Border Force, Highways Agency and Royal Mail staff all have walkouts planned in the week running up to Christmas. Let's look at some of the key reasons for the disputes.
Nurses
Read more: What is the nurses' strike about?
Ambulance workers
Read more: Ambulance staff to strike
Rail workers
The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) are holding strikes on:
Read more: The train strike days in December and January
Border Force
Read more: Border Force staff to strike over Christmas
The Sunday People says striking nurses have given Prime Minister Rishi Sunak 48 hours to "pay up" and address their wage demands or face new year walkouts.
Let's have a look at what Sunday's newspapers are leading with.
The Sunday People declares in its headline that Rishi Sunak has "48 hours to stop" the nurses' strikes escalating, external.
The Observer describes the union's threat as a "marked hardening" of its stance, external, but says there are signs ministers are trying to break the deadlock, with Treasury sources suggesting staff could be offered one-off lump sum payments.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the Health Secretary, Stephen Barclay insists the nurses' pay demand of 19% is not affordable, external.
His Labour counterpart, Wes Streeting, tells the Sunday Mirror that what they are seeking is "reasonable" but not "realistic", external against what he calls "the backdrop of the Conservatives crashing the economy".
The Observer says nurses are threatening "tougher new strikes" in the new year in which they would offer "less generous support" inside hospitals.
Image source, BBC / Reuters / GMBListening to the interviews on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg are the panel who'll offer their analysis of what they’ve heard.
This week we'll hear from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, TV presenter and journalist Susanna Reid and editor of The Sun newspaper Victoria Newton.
Justin Welby is the most senior cleric in the Church of England, earlier this year condemned the government's plans to send asylum seekers in the UK to Rwanda. More recently, he visited Ukraine, where he said the country must not be forced to accept a peace deal with Russia.
Susanna Reid was a regular presenter on BBC Breakfast from 2003 to 2014, when she moved to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, presenting alongside Ben Shepherd, Kate Garraway and formerly Piers Morgan.
Victoria Newton started her Fleet Street career at the Daily Express, then went on to work at The People, the Daily Mail and The News of the World, before she was appointed editor of The Sun in 2020. The Liverpool FC fan revealed her family were at the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and reportedly described The Sun’s response to it as "the biggest mistake in tabloid history".
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the BBC's flagship political interview show Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
Yesterday saw another day of strike action on Britain's railways, as workers belonging to the RMT rail union ended their second 48-hour strike in a week in a dispute over pay, job security and working conditions. More action is planned over the festive period, including on Christmas Eve.
Last week the government discussed contingency plans for upcoming strikes, including using the military and civil servants to cover Border Force staff, at an emergency Cobra meeting.
The armed forces will also be deployed to hospital trusts ahead of an ambulance strike on Wednesday, the government says.
This morning we speak to the man who chaired that meeting cabinet minister Oliver Dowden.
We'll also hear from the shadow home secretary, Labour's Yvette Cooper, who this week accused the UK and French governments of being "too weak" in tackling smuggling gangs involved in small boat crossings.
And we'll be joined by Nasa's Howard Hu on Orion, the American space agency’s next generation astronaut ship that returned home this week after a near-26-day mission to orbit the Moon.