Rishi Sunak pledges to make the “right and responsible decisions” on public sector pay
By Sam Francis
Political reporter, BBC News
Rishi Sunak has said he would make the “responsible” decision on pay increases for public sector workers, in order to control inflation.
Ministers have confirmed they are now considering next year’s pay deal, after several independent pay review bodies reported their findings.
Mr Sunak said he was going to make the “right” decisions “for the country”.
But government sources warn ministers would not be prepared to increase borrowing to fund generous awards.
Junior doctors in England will hold a five-day strike, over a below-inflation offer of a 5% pay increase this year.
The prime minister called planned walkouts by junior doctors “very disappointing” and claimed this would “make it harder” to bring down NHS waiting lists – one of his key priorities for government.
“I think people should recognise the economic context we’re in and I’m going to make the decisions that are the right ones for the country,” he said.
Speaking during a trip to Nottinghamshire, he said: “I think everyone can see the economic context that we’re in with inflation higher than we’d like it and it’s important that in that context the government makes the right and responsible decisions on things like public sector pay.
“That’s not always easy, people may not like that, but those are the right things for everybody that we get a grip of inflation.”
Almost half of public sector workers are covered by pay review bodies – including police and prison officers, the armed forces, doctors, dentists and teachers.
Pay review body recommendations are not legally binding on the government and ministers can choose to reject or partially ignore the advice.
The BBC understands that at least two pay review bodies are recommending increases below the rate of inflation – but higher than last year’s awards. It is unclear whether the government would see these as unaffordable.
Kate Bell, assistant general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said any decision to ignore pay review body advice would be “driven by politics, not economics”.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that public sector wages had fallen “well behind inflation” and that there had been a “15-year wage squeeze where wages haven’t kept up with inflation”.
“It is a bit rich to hear them [the government] now saying, ‘Well, we’re going to overturn those independent recommendations’ when we haven’t even seen them be published yet.”
BMA demand
The Telegraph has reported junior doctors in England will be offered an additional £1,000 a year plus a 6% salary increase in a bid to bring an end to upcoming strikes.
Over half a million appointments have been postponed due to strikes by NHS workers over the last six months, according to official figures.
The British Medical Association (BMA) union, which represents doctors, has been asking for a 35% increase, saying it was to make up for 15 years of below-inflation rises.
The Treasury has previously suggested pay awards over 5% could fuel inflation. But the BMA claimed the offer was not “credible”.
Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting called for the government to resolve the dispute but would not put a figure on how much more doctors should be paid.
He added that calls from unions for pay restoration could not be delivered “overnight”.
Doctors represented by the BMA voted to strike between 07:00 on Thursday 13 July and 07:00 on Tuesday 18 July – their longest ever junior doctor strike. The union represents over 46,000 junior doctors in the UK.
Junior doctors make up around half of all hospital doctors in England and a quarter of all doctors working in GP surgeries.
Around 6% of all doctor posts in the NHS are unfilled – for nurses it is nearly twice that level.
Many argue there is still a shortage – with not enough training places or funded doctor posts in the NHS in the first place.
The government is due to release plans for the “largest expansion in training and workforce” in the NHS’s history, Mr Sunak announced on Sunday.
Speaking to the BBC, the prime minister said the plans would reduce “reliance on foreign-trained healthcare professionals”.
