Mick Lynch, General Secretary of the RMT Union.

What's happened and how are you feeling about it?

Well today our members have voted overwhelmingly in the 14 train operating companies to accept a proposal.

That gives an unconditional pay deal and a job security agreement of no compulsory

redundancies to the end of next year. It also sets up a negotiating and consultation process

from February next year until the end of April. So we've achieved an unconditional pay rise

that our members will get backdated to the spring of last year,

so about 20 months for most people, which is good.

They'll get that in time for Christmas.

And we have not conceded on any of the points that the companies wanted to impose on us.

That includes driver-only operation, which has gone off the table.

As we know,

the closure of all our booking offices in Britain at the stations, the cuts to staffing, and the changes to terms and conditions, which were very contentious. So none of that has been conceded.

It's deferred until the spring of next year, but that also means for the passengers in our public that there'll be respite from strikes by the RMT.

Our members won't have to take action in defence of their terms and conditions, and we've got a way forward.

That doesn't mean it's over.

It's up to the government and the companies what they put on the table next year.

So I'm pleased that our members have voted decisively. We were neutral, but they've all voted

in the same way of their own volition and there's no mixed bag and there's no doubt about the

result. So that's a good thing. Why has it taken so long? We're almost up to 18 months of sporadic strike action in a very,

very long and bitter dispute, the first one since the 1980s? Well, it's taken so long because

of the intransigence of the government. They came forward of these sets of proposals that

...