Agenda for Change: NHS Pay Restraint
Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Philip Hollobone(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Catherine McKinnell
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. There was a two-year pay freeze from 2011-12 and a 1% increase in 2013-14 and 2014-15, followed by confirmation in the Budget of summer 2015 that the Government would fund an average public sector pay award of only 1% for the four years from 2016-17. As has been pointed out, the Government decided to reject the independent NHS Pay Review Body’s recommendation of a further 1% uplift to all pay scales from 2014-15, stating that there would be an annual increase of at least 1% for Agenda for Change staff in England through either contractual incremental pay or a non-consolidated payment.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her excellent speech, which I am following closely. Is there not very thin moral justification for the Government rejecting the review of an independent pay body when each of us as MPs has our pay independently assessed and awarded? I can see no justification for saying to hard-working nurses in Kettering, “You can’t have the pay rise that an independent pay body said you should have” when I, as an MP, automatically get a pay rise awarded by our independent body.