Sunak accepts six per cent public sector pay rises but warns it ‘will cost all of you as taxpayers’
Government has accepted recommendations for millions of public sector workers to receive pay rises of six per cent or more, Rishi Sunak has announced.
The prime minister said today reports from independent pay bodies calling for public sector pay rises of between five and 6.5 per cent for millions of medics, teachers and civil servants would be fulfilled – but that cash had to come from existing departmental budgets.
He told reporters he had a responsibility to be fair, adding: “Clearly this will cost all of you as taxpayers more than we had budgeted for… I can confirm today we are accepted the headline recommendations of the pay review bodies in full.”
But he said government would not be funding the rises via tax increases or borrowing.
“There are always choices, budgets are not infinite,” Sunak said.
The PM met with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt earlier this (Thursday) morning to decide whether to accept the recommendations, amid a backdrop of widespread strikes and economic woes.
Britain has been battered by stubbornly high inflation – at 8.7 per cent CPI – repeated Bank of England interest rate rises, a cost of living crisis and a brewing mortgage repayments mess.
The PM’s five pledges included a promise to cut inflation by half to around 5.3 per cent by the end of the year, but his vows look increasingly tricky to deliver as rates remain high.
Increasing borrowing to fund pay rises was branded “itself inflationary” by Hunt, who insisted the government must take “difficult but responsible” pay decisions, including stipulating ministers must fund raises from existing budgets, meaning the possibility of cuts to services.
The move came as junior doctors embarked on their longest walkout yet in England.
Speaking this morning, Labour’s Angela Rayner refused to be drawn on whether Labour would back pay review body proposals for public sector workers, saying she does not have access to the Treasury books.
Speaking at the Institute for Government, she said: “I haven’t seen the books that the government have got. We don’t have access to the Treasury and where they’re up to now.”
The deputy leader added: “We would obviously look at what the pay review bodies have said and what their recommendations are and we’d look at how we negotiate that and get a settlement on it.”
It comes as unions today won a High Court fight with the government after challenging law changes they said let agencies supply employers with workers to fill in for striking staff.
More than 10 unions, including Aslef, Unite and Usdaw, had taken legal action against ministers claiming the changes undermined the “right to strike”.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “Rishi Sunak is taking a wrecking ball to our public services with these savage cuts. He must come clean about the devastating impact this will have on local hospitals and schools across the country.
“This could lead to more children being taught in crumbling classrooms and more patients being treated in buildings at risk of collapse… the government doesn’t need to borrow money to do this, they could raise money by reversing tax cuts for the banks, introducing a proper windfall tax or clamping down on tax avoidance.”