Truss makes a U-turn on public sector pay plans
HER ‘TIRED
TORY leadership hopeful Liz Truss has quickly U-turned on plans that would have seen public sector workers paid less in areas such as the North East, after they came under fire from across the political divide.
In her latest pitch to Conservative Party members – many of whom are thought to live in the South – Ms Truss had promised a “war on Whitehall waste” and plans for regional pay boards that would set public sector pay lower in “cheaper” areas of the country.
Her proposals met with a furious response from a major civil service union, which vowed to oppose her plans “every step of the way”, while senior Labour figures accused her of “levelling down”. A number of leading Conservative politicians in the North East also condemned the plans.
A few hours after the potential policy was first outlined, Ms Truss’ campaign insisted there had been “wilful misrepresentation” of the public sector pay cut plan, though it had been outlined in detail in a press release on Monday.
Speaking to the BBC in Dorset, Ms Truss said: “I’m afraid that my policy on this has been misrepresented. I never had any intention of changing the terms and conditions of teachers and nurses. But what I want to be clear about is I will not be going ahead with the regional pay boards, that is no longer my policy. I’m being absolutely honest, I’m concerned people were worried, unnecessarily worried about my policies and therefore I’m being clear the regional pay boards will not be going ahead.”
Supporters of leadership rival Rishi
UNIONS HAD REACTED WITH FURY TO
RHETORIC’
Sunak’s camp argued the move was no mistake, saying that Ms Truss had called for it when she was chief secretary to the Treasury in 2018.
It was unclear how the Truss camp believed the policy had been misrepresented, with them clearly having stated that up to £8.8bn could be saved by extending the move for all public sector workers.
Former chief whip Mark Harper told Ms Truss to stop “blaming journalists – reporting what a press release says isn’t ‘wilful misrepresentation”,’ while North West Durham MP Richard Holden, who is supporting Mr Sunak in the leadership battle, said Ms Truss’s policy would “kill levelling up”.
Unions representing civil servants had also reacted furiously to the plan, with FDA general secretary Dave Penman saying Ms Truss was deploying “recycled failed policies” and “tired rhetoric from the 1980s”.
Labour had said the plan would take £529m out of the North East economy each year. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “This latest mess has exposed exactly what Liz Truss thinks of public sector workers across Britain.
“Her proposal – and the fact she pushed for a similar change in 2018 when she was a Treasury minister – reveals her priority would be to slash the pay packets of working people.”