Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the (a) total and (b) estimated yearly cost to the public purse is of the pay offer award to NHS junior doctors.

The additional pay uplift, worth an average of 4.05% on top of their existing pay award for 2023/24, would have an estimated cost impact of approximately £350 million per year. The estimated £350 million cost for 2023/24 will fall in 2024/25 for accounting purposes.

This is additional to the 6% uplift recommended by the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Renumeration, plus £1,000 on a consolidated basis, when applied to the revised 2023/24 pay scales, while also averaging an increase of over 8%, and with an effective date of 1 April 2024.

If agreed, this offer will bring an end to industrial action by junior doctors. Industrial action has cost taxpayers £1.7 billion since April 2023, and patients nearly 1.5 million cancelled appointments under the previous government.