Chancellor urged to ‘ get a grip’ on wasteful spending in pandemic

THE CHANCELLOR should “get a grip” on wasteful pandemic spending rather than freeze the pay of public sector workers, his Opposition counterpart has urged.

Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds, inset, used a speech yesterday to call for Rishi Sunak to use his spending review this week to treat frontline workers “decently, rather than grinding them down”.

North Yorkshire MP Mr Sunak, in a move that has irked trade unions, has hinted that public sector workers could have to tighten their belts as the Government looks to pay for its coronavirus borrowing. The Chancellor said on Sunday it would be “entirely reasonable” to consider pay policy in an economy ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, though it is said to exempt NHS nurses and doctors.

The UK’s debt stands at more than 100 per cent of national income and the Centre for Policy Studies – a centre- right think- tank – has calculated that a three- year total pay freeze would provide £ 23bn, or £ 15.3bn if the NHS is excluded, towards reducing the country’s growing budget deficit.

But Labour’s Ms Dodds has warned that targeting the pay of public sector workers would have a negative impact on the economy and claimed there were savings to prioritise elsewhere. She said an alternative approach was to rein in wasteful spending “related to the Covid crisis”, such as NHS Test and Trace.

Around four in 10 contacts of people testing positive for the virus are still not being reached through the centrally- run Test and Trace system, according to the latest figures.