Public Sector Pay

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.

Hundreds of people in North Tyneside signed the petition, and I have received emails from dozens of constituents asking me to be here today—some of them are former colleagues with whom I worked before becoming an MP. Thousands of people in North Tyneside work in the public sector. In fact, North Tyneside Council remains one of the largest employers in the borough, with over 3,000 employees. Many other constituents of mine are among the thousands of workers in Government Departments at Tyneview Park, Cobalt business park and Benton Park View, which was known as “the Ministry” for many years. It is not surprising that there has been so much support for the petition locally, particularly given that many of those workers saw their pay frozen between 2010 and 2012, with only a 1% increase each year since then, meaning that basic pay for local government workers has, on average, fallen by 21% in real terms since 2010.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, of which I remain an associate member, represents over 180,000 members in the civil service and related agencies nationally. Its members have seen the value of their incomes plummet, with pay being cut on average by £3,000 under the pay cap. Because of pay restraint in all our communities we have seen huge reductions in disposable income in the local economy, to which many Members have referred. That is only made worse by large public sector job losses.

Furthermore, the pay cap has also led to problems with recruitment and retention in essential public sector jobs, putting more pressure on our already overstretched services. Perhaps that is why a recent poll by the TUC revealed that 70% of the public support scrapping the pay cap. It would make sense, as research from the Institute for Public Policy Research demonstrates that a significant portion of the cost of increasing public sector pay

“would be returned to the Treasury almost immediately in the form of higher taxes and lower spending on means-tested benefits”,

which, sadly, many of our public servants rely on. It would also bring more money into the economy and thus create further jobs.

I pay tribute to the public sector unions, mainly Unison and PCS, for pressing the Government on this issue, and calling for an end to the pay cap, with an above-inflation pay increase for all public sector workers. I hope that the Minister will heed the results of the recent ballot by PCS of all its members, in which 99% said the pay cap must be scrapped and 80% said they would be prepared to strike if the Government would not back down.

Some of the people who were balloted are my former colleagues, whom I described in my maiden speech in June 2010 as committed to delivering good services. I think every Member here knows that that is true. I went on to say:

“As Members of this House, we are elected public servants and we should do all that we can to protect our colleagues across the public sector from Government cuts.”—[Official Report, 30 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 902.]

Seven years on, I stand by what I said then, and ask the Minister to show due respect and appreciation for all public sector workers. Pay up now and end the public sector pay cap across the board.

[Several hon. Members rose—]