The Tories must lift the cap on public sector pay

We are all living in difficult times, that is understood. It has been nearly a decade since the 2008 financial crash, and since then, although the economy has recovered somewhat, Brexit looks as if it may be a heavy price to pay and may hit our country further. In this context, the government obviously has to live within its means.

But a cap on public sector pay is simply unnecessarily harsh since the work that people do in public services has been getting more stressful and demanding year on year, and the fact that pay is not really rising means that there is no reward for doing this extra work. A report commissioned by the government found that pay for teachers had fallen by £3 an hour and for police officers, £2 an hour in real terms. This is an unnecessary hit to public servants who were not living in luxury before the cap was introduced, while at the same time the pay for MPs was raised by £7000 in 2015.

When Cameron made the pledge in the 2015 manifesto to limit public sector pay, the decision was more understandable as inflation (CPI) was almost zero and so the pay cap did at least make pay rise by a small amount, although not much. Now, due in part to Brexit, inflation is at 3% and so the cap is a punitive decrease in the salaries of around 5.4 million public servants.

The work done by public servants has become much more difficult as well, as with an ageing population has meant that there is more demand for NHS services, and so working hours are increased, straining resources and putting doctors and nurses under more pressure to deliver. In schools, due in part to increased immigration (though not totally) there are more children who need places in schools and so class sizes have increased leading to teachers having more students to teach. The police are expected to deal with numerous threats to our nation such as everyday crime as well as the looming threat of terrorist attacks. We need our public servants more than ever, so cutting their pay every year seems cruel.

David Cameron recently came to the defence of May in a speech in Seoul, where he called for sensible restraints on public spending, arguing that borrowing more led to transferring the burden to the next generation and that money was needed in case of future economic shocks. I am sympathetic to this argument, but the fact is that lifting the public sector pay cap to be in line with inflation, at 2.9%, would only cost £2.9 billion. A small increase in taxation, or even not cutting corporation tax as planned, could pay for this, without having to resort to borrowing.

The recent election showed that there was no longer any appetite for austerity, and people were seeing the damaging effects of savings on their local services. Now even senior Tories are allegedly in favour of lifting the public sector pay cap, such as Foreign Secretary and Theresa May’s own Frank Underwood, Boris Johnson. If there was a vote on the issue, it is likely that many Tories would rebel against May and vote in favour of lifting the pay cap.

There may be possible repercussions from Cabinet members, if May does not deign to raise the pay cap

The recent excellent work done by the public sector’s emergency services in incidents like the London Bridge terrorist attacks, the Manchester bombings and helping residents during the Grenfell Tower fire showed the public that we should value these men and women who do their duty to the rest of society and help create the condition for a truly ‘strong and stable’ country.

However Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has sought, presumably on behalf of the leadership, to silence the criticism of the government on this issue by saying that the decision on this issue would be delayed until Autumn, putting paid to hopes that there would be an immediate vote on the subject.

Paramedics and other emergency services do a crucial job in keeping our country safe

But there may be some hope. Firemen were the first public sector workers to get an increase higher than inflation, however their pay is set by an independent body, not the government. A precedent may have been set, however, and the pay for nurses, teachers and prison workers is set to be announced in the coming weeks.

If we, the people, keep the pressure on Theresa May, her small majority with the DUP may be tested and crumble, and public sector workers can be rewarded for the extra work they have been doing to keep us safe, cure our ills and educate our children for these past seven years.

#LabourParty #JeremyCorbyn #Conservativeparty