Gareth Snell
Main Page: Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central)Department Debates - View all Gareth Snell's debates with the HM Treasury
(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
PFI is yet another example of how the Labour party spent money it did not have and left future public service organisations, schools and hospitals with debts that they are now having to deal with. That is why we should not heed its irresponsible calls.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chief Secretary earlier tried to draw a distinction between taxpayers and public servants. Public servants are taxpayers, so she cannot continue to draw that unfair distinction. I would like to introduce an element of maths. Will she acknowledge that when RPI is running at 3.2% and CPI is running at 2.8% but pay is capped at 1%, that is a real-terms squeeze on disposable incomes, which is hitting the living standards of public sector workers? In the general election, when the Prime Minister was challenged on why nurses were having to use food banks she replied by saying it was a complex issue. How much does the Chief Secretary attribute the pay cap to that “complex issue”?
Elizabeth Truss
As I have said before, there is the 1%, but there is also incremental pay in many public service professions. There is the 2.4% for the armed forces, and there is the 3.3% that was received by teachers in 2015-16. Labour Members should tell people about the whole picture, rather than cherry-picking specific numbers.