UK government willing to ignore public sector pay review bodies, minister says

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The government is prepared to block the pay rises that public sector review bodies recommend, a senior minister has confirmed, as unions threaten to strike over the issue.

The chief secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, said on Sunday that ministers might overrule the review bodies.

The Times reported on Saturday that ministers were likely to block some of the recommendations, under which teachers, police officers, prison officers and junior doctors would receive pay rises of 6% or more. That report sparked outrage among trade unions, which said such a move would have “profound consequences for future industrial relations”.

Glen told Sky News on Sunday: “What happens is we have the reports of the pay review bodies, most of those have come in, and then we look at those and make an assessment.

“It’s a matter of principle. Pay review bodies are very significant part of resolving the pay issues, but obviously, we’ve also got to take account with the effect on inflation It would be irresponsible not to do that. We haven’t finished that process.”

Several pay review bodies have already submitted their reports to the government, recommending that teachers should get a 6.5% rise for 2023-24, while police officers, prison officers and junior doctors should get 6% or more. Ministers say this will cost more than ?5bn.

Ministers have previously used pay review bodies’ recommendations to explain why they have not been able to grant rises that match inflation, as unions had called for.

Speaking last year during the NHS winter strikes, Rishi Sunak said: “Even when recommendations were higher than what the government had initially suggested and indeed higher than what many people in the private sector were receiving, the government, in the interests of being constructive, of being reasonable and being fair, accepted them in full.”

The general secretary of the teacher’s union NASUWT, Patrick Roach, said: “If the government chooses to ignore the recommendations of the pay review body, this will have profound consequences for future industrial relations, with industrial action likely in the autumn,” he said.

Ministers’ willingness to overrule the pay review bodies reflects concern at the top of government about stubbornly high inflation. It was revealed last week that inflation had remained at 8.7% in May, and the Bank of England pushed interest rates up to 5% in an effort to curb it.

Sunak has promised to halve inflation by the end of the year, a target which Glen admitted on Sunday would be challenging. The pledge is one of five the prime minister made at the beginning of the year, none of which have been delivered and few of which are on track.

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Sunak told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show: “I want people to be reassured that we’ve got to hold our nerve, stick to the plan and we will get through this.”

He admitted, however, that he would not meet his target to cut NHS waiting lists until next year, having previously refused to put a timeline on it. Waiting lists have risen by 350,000 since he took office.

He told Kuenssberg: “The overall waiting list itself is not expected to start coming down until next year, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that right now, the NHS, as a result of our investment and the plans that we put in place, is treating more people than it has ever done. And so it just will take us a little bit of time to work through the backlog and built up during Covid.”

Sunak will unveil a plan this week to train more doctors and nurses. He said on Sunday that it would be “the largest expansion in training and workforce in the NHS history”, but acknowledged it would take several years for patients to feel the effect.