Regional Pay

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As a result of that confusion, many people who are in work are worried about spending money, because they are not sure what is going to happen to their pay, and that uncertainty is also making economic recovery harder to secure.

Comparing rates of pay in the public and private sectors involves a notoriously complex and controversial analysis. It is difficult to be sure that one is comparing like with like, because the jobs done by teachers, police officers or emergency workers have so few private sector equivalents.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend may be interested to know that inward investors to whom I have spoken are concerned to have decently funded public services in education and health; they do not want a GP in Swansea, for instance, to up sticks and go to Bristol. Does she agree that in many instances that analysis, concluding that different pay for the same job throughout the country will help the private sector, undermines the confidence of inward investors and is counter-productive?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend speaks powerfully on behalf of his constituents in Swansea. In my area, many people commute from Bradford to work in Leeds and the other way round. Would their pay be determined by where they work or where they live? If the Government say that their starting point is these differentials, they cannot blame people for concluding that their ultimate aim is a reduction of 10% or more in the relative pay of public service workers in some parts of the country.