EXCL: Labour urges Ministers to ‘give NHS staff a fair pay rise,’ ahead of Commons vote
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The Shadow Health Secretary is today calling on the Government to end the public sector pay cap in the NHS, saying it has been a “disaster” for the service.
Writing for PoliticsHome, Jon Ashworth said the 1% limit on pay rises across the public sector had created a “workforce crisis in the NHS,” that had caused “misery for patients”.
This comes ahead of an Opposition Day Debate in the Commons today on NHS pay.
Yesterday, Number 10 announced that police and prison officers would get pay awards higher than 1% over the coming year, which the Prime Minister’s spokesman said marked a more “flexible” approach to public sector pay.
But the Shadow Health Secretary dismissed the announcement, saying: “On Tuesday the government tried to tell us that the pay cap had been lifted with a 2 per cent pay offer for police and 1.7 per cent for prison officers.
“Let’s be clear – these offers are below inflation, and in the case of the police award, non-consolidated. This isn’t the lifting of the cap, it’s a further pay cut.
“This just won’t wash – at the election the Tories’ pay policy was decisively rejected.
“The cap has to be lifted, properly, across the public sector.”
