Pay cap ‘could be lifted for NHS staff’
I suppress my own views – Environment Minister
Michael Gove has suggested the Government could support a lifting of the public-sector pay cap for NHS workers, with pressure mounting on Theresa May to ease austerity.
MICHAEL GOVE has suggested the Government could support a lifting of the public-sector pay cap for NHS workers, with pressure mounting on Theresa May and Philip Hammond to ease austerity.
The Environment Secretary said it is the “collective view of Government” to “respect the integrity” of independent publicsector pay review bodies, one of which warned in March that the one per cent cap is putting “stress” on the health service.
The NHS pay review body highlighted “widespread concerns” about recruitment, retention and motivation among employers and staff and said “we are approaching the point when the current pay policy will require some modification, and greater flexibility, within the NHS”.
Mr Gove’s comments came amid claims in a national newspaper that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to demand a lifting of the 1% pay cap for NHS workers, citing the pay review body report.
The Environment Secretary suggested he was “suppressing” his own views on austerity when quizzed by the BBC’s Andrew Marr on his eponymous show.
Mr Gove said: “These pay review bodies have been set up in order to ensure that we can have authoritative advice on what’s required in order to ensure that the public services on which we rely are effectively staffed and the people within them are effectively supported.
“I think we should respect the integrity of that process.
“I’m not an individual, I’m a member of the Government and a member of a collective team and the collective view of Government policy, which helpfully was endorsed by the Labour Party spokesman Jon (Ashworth) earlier, is that we should respect the integrity of the process.
“One of the things about Government is that you don’t exercise your views on the basis of whim. You’ve written a brilliant article in The Sunday Times today making it clear that sometimes you have to suppress your own views, Andrew.
“You sometimes have to suppress your own views, I sometimes might suppress mine in order to ensure that we can operate successfully as a collective team.”
His comments follow accusations of a Government “shambles” on the issue after a Number 10 source on Wednesday said the PM was ready to listen to the pay review bodies’ recommendations, only for her official spokesman and the Treasury to insist “the policy has not changed”.
On Saturday, a Number 10 source said the Government was responding to the recommendations of pay review bodies which are currently reporting to ministers “on a case-by-case basis”.
The source said the pay cap was brought in to “deal with the mess we inherited from Labour” and acknowledged the “hard work and sacrifice” made by public sector workers, saying jobs had been protected and the deficit reduced by three quarters.
“While we understand the sacrifice that has been made, we must also ensure we continue to protect jobs and deal with our debts,” the source added.
Meanwhile, Mr Gove said he agreed with Damian Green, Mrs May’s most senior minister, that Britain should have a “national debate” on university tuition fees.
But he appeared to rule out the prospect that the Tories could perform a U-turn and match Labour’s policy to scrap fees, despite Jeremy Corbyn’s party hoovering up support of young voters after pledging to do so in the General Election, and denying the Government a majority.
“I think we should have a conversation about it, but it’s important again to look at Damian’s remarks and what he actually said,” Mr Gove said.
“Damian wasn’t talking about getting rid of it. What Damian was saying, what I believe, is that if we have to fund higher education, and if people who get university degrees go on to earn well, which is good, they should pay something back and that’s what the current system does.”
Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth told the programme: “I think they should consider giving people a pay rise in line with earnings. But clearly they are not going to be able to overturn the 14 per cent loss that NHS staff have had over seven years, but they have to come up with responsible recommendations which we would accept.”
You sometimes have to suppress your own views. Environment Secretary Michael Gove in a discussion about public-sector pay.
THERE IS a growing acceptance that the publicsector pay gap is no longer sustainable, thanks, in no small part, to those nurses who harangued Theresa May on the issue during the pre-election Question Time special in York and, in doing so, drew wider public attention to the hardship being faced by NHS staff and others.
Yet, while the mixed messages from Ministers in the chaotic hours preceding last Thursday’s vote on the Queen’s Speech revealed the full extent of the chaos and confusion enveloping the Government, a significant number of Tory MPs and Ministers appear to agree with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that such workers have already paid the price for seven years of austerity.
However, while Environment Secretary Michael Gove said that the Government will await the recommendations of the pay review bodies, it’s still open to question whether the country can afford such a spending spree when the budget deficit is forecast to be in excess of £60bn this year, and national debt now stands at an eye-watering £1.7 trillion.
By scraping together £1bn to effectively buy the votes of MPs from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, the Government finds itself vulnerable to every reasonable request for extra spending, and the Conservatives are clearly rattled by the extent to which Mr Corbyn’s unique brand of leadership is changing the dynamics of politics and economics.
Yet Mr Gove was stumped when asked to explain how this £1bn was being funded. He talked about a growing economy but the plain fact of that matter is that such a policy will require more borrowing, an increase in taxes or unpalatable cuts to other budgets. And this goes to the heart of the dilemma on incomes – are people willing to pay more money to HM Treasury to give teachers, NHS staff and emergency services a pay rise and are the Tories, the traditional party of low tax, prepared to countenance this? If not, what is their plan? The country has a right to know.