No extra money for pay rises says Downing Street, amid threat of renewed strikes

Public sector budgets face a further squeeze if pay rises for nurses and teachers exceed the Government’s plans as Downing Street ruled out additional funding for higher wages.

Pay review bodies are reportedly recommending increases of as much as 4% for teachers and 3% for NHS workers, but the Government has only budgeted for a 2.8% rise for public sector workers.

Sir Keir Starmer said no decisions had been made on the recommendations, saying “we are not at that stage of the process”.

But Downing Street was clear on Monday that the Government would not be providing any extra funding for increases above 2.8%.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “There’ll be no additional funding for pay if recommended awards exceed what departments can afford.”

Last year, the Government accepted the pay review bodies’ recommendations of increases of between 4.75% and 6% in an effort to end long-running strikes across the public sector.

But the prospect of either a lower award this year or departments having to take money from elsewhere to fund pay rises has raised the possibility of further strikes.

Unions have called for any pay rise to be fully funded, with National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede saying: “They need to ensure the pay award is above inflation, that it takes steps to address the crisis in recruitment and retention, but most of all that it is fully funded.

He added: “No-one wants to take strike action but of course as a trade union we do stand ready to act industrially if we need to.”

He said his union has not seen the pay review bodies’ recommendations and that the Government can avoid strike action by publishing them promptly and properly funding pay awards, in later comments to BBC Radio 4’s World at One.

“If they’re not fully funded, then schools will have to make cuts which no parent, no teacher, wants to see,” he said.

Appearing on Sky News on Monday, health minister Stephen Kinnock urged unions not to resort to strikes, saying the Government had to work “within fiscal constraints”.

He said: “We will give these recommendations careful consideration. But I would, of course, also urge our colleagues in the trade union movement to engage constructively with us and recognise the reality of the financial position.”

Speaking to broadcasters on Monday, the Prime Minister said he did not want to see strike action, adding that “the last thing” NHS staff wanted to do was “got into dispute again”.

He said: “If you work with the NHS staff, you get better results than the last government, which just went into battle with them.

“So we have got our doctors and nurses on the front line, not the picket line, and I think everybody appreciates that’s a much better way of doing business.”