NHS: Pay

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes some vivid comparisons on completely incomparable pay differentials. The values that we have are absolutely aligned with public service values. We are determined to create a workplace that is just, fair and equitable. We are committed to giving people a fair reward for the work that they do and to giving people decent job prospects within that role. Those are the values that people go to work for and are motivated by. We need to put together a package that works across the piece and is not narrowly focused on one particular material point, such as pay. I stand by what I said previously: the package of measures that was put in our evidence to the pay review body sees all those values in the round.

[Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]]

My Lords, for the last 10 years NHS pay has lagged behind inflation. Year on year, health professionals have had less to spend than they had the previous year, and the 1% pay rise does not help as inflation removes any increase. Apart from the moral case put by noble Lords, this is not good economics. If people are paid more, they spend more by putting cash back into the economy. Will the Minister ask the Chancellor to look at this again?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am at a slight disadvantage because I am not quite sure that I can substantiate the noble Baroness’s view that pay has lagged behind inflation. Her economics lesson is extremely interesting but not one that the Chancellor is necessarily persuaded by. Where she is entirely right is that pay is an important aspect of any recruitment campaign by the NHS, and that is why we have put recruitment at the heart of our commitment to it. That is why we are recruiting 50,000 nurses and making a very large number of GP appointments. We are seeing huge gains in achieving those targets, which reflects the fact that there is not a massive or structural misalignment in our pay arrangements.