Public Sector Pay

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Yet again, we hear from a Labour Front Bencher not a positive welcome of the news today, which will mean hundreds of pounds more in the pay packets of public sector workers, but yet more complaints and no solutions.

We have scrapped the cap, and we are making sure that public sector workers get a decent pay rise. Let me tell the House what that will mean for workers in the public sector. For teachers earning under £35,000, it will mean a 3.5% pay rise, earning them an extra £800 a year. Police will see a 2% rise, with the average police constable on a £38,000 salary seeing a £760 pay rise. Prison officers will see a 2% rise and a 0.75% bonus, with extra for those who are new recruits. Junior doctors will get at least a 2% pay rise, and the hard-working people in our armed forces will receive a 2% pay rise and an additional 0.9% bonus, to reflect the brilliant work they do for our country.

The hon. Gentleman asks me how these pay rises are funded. Unlike the profligate Labour party, we have worked to support every Department to ensure that these pay rises are affordable within their budgets. In the case of the Department for Education—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked me the question. Does he want to hear the answer or not? [Interruption.] He obviously does not.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) is the author of a newly published book entitled “Summer Rage”, but if I may say so, the launch party can wait until after today.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I was diligently trying to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, and I hope that he will listen to the answer.

We will be allocating a further £500 million from central Department for Education budgets to schools, to make sure they are able to give these pay rises to our hard-working teachers. In every other case, Departments have been able to find savings in their central budgets to make sure those pay rises are affordable. It is a bit rich getting lectures from the Labour party about affordability when its purported policy, along with overthrowing capitalism and making business the enemy, is to create a run on the pound. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman can explain how his party could afford public sector pay rises with a run on the pound, but I would like to hear his answer.

The pay rises we are announcing today represent the highest pay rises for almost a decade for public sector workers. We have been able to achieve them because of our management of the economy, because we have seen employment reach a record level and because we are spending less in areas such as welfare, whereas people under the Labour Government were left on the scrapheap. Please can the Labour party welcome the fact that public sector workers are getting a pay rise and that we have scrapped the cap, rather than continuing with their usual Eeyorish nonsense?

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am keen to accommodate the interests of colleagues, but I remind the House that there is a further urgent question after this and then two ministerial statements and a debate on a motion appertaining to standards, before we get to the summer recess debate, in which no fewer than 30 colleagues wish to take part. I will try to accommodate people now if they pledge in advance to ask a single-sentence question, and preferably a short one, with a commensurately brief reply.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

The public sector workers in Morecambe and Lunesdale will welcome this announcement. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that those in the public sector are now getting £30,630 on average compared with £27,977 in the private sector?