Wales urged to follow Scottish lead and scrap the 1% pay cap
THE Welsh Government should follow the example of the Scots and lift the 1% pay cap on public sector workers, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood has urged.
BMA Cymru, the body that represents Welsh doctors, said the lifting of the cap “must happen in Wales”.
However, the Welsh Government insists that while it wants the cap scrapped this must be “funded by the UK Government”.
It warns that using its own cash to end the cap in Wales would involve taking £110m being taken from frontline services and could threaten “thousands of public sector jobs”.
Rhondda AM Ms Wood sought to step up the pressure on the Welsh Government to act unilaterally.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had been pressed by Labour, the Greens and trade unions to axe the cap.
This week she said that “with rising inflation and new Tory cuts to social security for working households it’s become increasingly clear that households need a break from Tory austerity”.
The SNP has pledged that from next year, the Scottish Government will “end the 1% cap on public sector pay increases”.
Ms Wood urged Welsh Labour to follow this example, saying: “Labour have been in charge of the health service here for almost two decades. But to date, they have failed to use devolution to protect Welsh public sector workers from the pay cap...
“The cap is grinding people down, making them want to leave professions they love and it is putting off the next generation from working in our public sector. It’s time must come to an end.
“The devolved governments in Wales and Scotland have the power to lift the pay cap and make unilateral pay awards. In Wales we have an NHS living wage and have kept the nurses bursary...
“The Scottish Government has announced that it will lift the pay cap for the NHS. They will work with unions to find the money in the 2018 budget. Wales refuses to do the same.
“All we need from Labour in Wales is a commitment to work towards finding the money.”
Warning of the consequences for Wales if the cap remains in place, she said: “There will be costs if no action is taken. Nurse and doctor recruitment is already difficult, and it will become a real struggle if they continue to be underpaid, undervalued and scapegoated when things go wrong.
“Wales should be putting a premium on these workers and to keep and attract them. We should be prepared to pay them more than Theresa May will...
“Attacking Tory austerity is not enough; we can also do a number of things to frustrate its implementation in Wales... It is within our gift to make Wales the top destination for medical staff, by making pay and conditions a priority.”
Dr Phil Banfield, who chairs the BMA’s Welsh Council, strongly argued for an end to the cap in Wales.
He said: “We believe that lifting the pay cap for public sector workers must happen in Wales, as it has in Scotland, to show our doctors, medical staff and other public sector workers that the rhetoric about valuing them carries substance.
“BMA Cymru Wales has repeatedly warned of the significant recruitment and retention difficulties the Welsh NHS is facing, and repeated years of real terms cuts to doctors’ pay have taken a substantial toll on incomes. If doctors and other health professionals continue to be undervalued, their expertise will be lost from the NHS.
“Our doctors continue to deliver high quality care to patients despite these ever-increasing demands. It is vitally important that their efforts are rewarded; the need to lift public sector pay restraint was recognised in the Nuffield report on a decade of austerity in NHS Wales”.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “We are fully behind our public sector workers and are calling on the UK Government to end the cap on public sector pay and give workers across the UK a much-deserved pay rise.
“This must be funded by the UK Government. Lifting the cap unilaterally in Wales, for every 1% above the existing cap, would mean £110m being taken from frontline services, with £60 million coming out of the budget for NHS Wales alone.
“This would threaten thousands of public sector jobs. We should not be using Welsh funding to resolve an issue that should be put right at a UK level.
“The UK Government must now do the right thing and lift the pay cap right across the UK public sector.”
Downing Street has said that pay review body recommendations will be considered in the usual way over the summer, following the 1% settlements for nurses and doctors earlier in the year.
Prime Minister Theresa May this week said: “Our policy on public sector pay has always recognised that we need to be fair to public sector workers, to protect jobs in the public sector and to be fair to those who pay for it.”
A spokesman for Ukip Wales said: “[We support] lifting the 1% pay cap once we leave the European Union and [this] would be funded from the Brexit dividend.”