A summary of today's developments
The chair of the British Medical Association’s UK council said Rishi Sunak’s pay increase offer “fails to address” years of below-inflation pay deals. Prof Phil Banfield said the government’s offer “is exactly why so many doctors are feeling they have no option but to take industrial action”. Earlier, Sunak issued a warning to trade unions and workers still involved in strikes and industrial action, telling a Downing Street press conference the new pay offer is “final”.
All four teaching unions recommended accepting a pay offer. In a joint statement with Sunak, they said: “A 6.5% increase for teachers and school leaders recognises the vital role that teachers play in our country and ensures that teaching will continue to be an attractive profession.”
Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages are yet to be received by the Covid inquiry because he is said to have forgotten the passcode for his old phone. The former prime minister’s spokesperson said Johnson still wanted to cooperate with the inquiry and did not deny being unable to recall the code.
The Department for Education is to raid its existing budgets for £1.4bn to help fund the 6.5% pay rise offered to teachers in England, as part of the deal announced between the government and the teaching and school leader unions.
The government will help fund public sector pay increases by “significantly” raising fees for migrants’ applications for visas and their access to the NHS, Rishi Sunak said.
Junior doctors began a five-day strike in England today, described as the longest walkout of its kind in the NHS’s history.
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Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said there is “no fat on the bone” to fund staff pay rises out of existing hospital budgets.
He told Channel 4 News: “It doesn’t look to us at first glance as though what has been identified by the prime minister and the chancellor as the money that will be available to pay for the gap between this offer and what is in the budget will be adequate.”
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Millions of public sector workers ranging from teachers to prison offers are in line for pay rises of between 5% and 7% as part of a government offer that could head off some strikes.
Prior to the announcement, ministers had stressed the need for “discipline” at a time of rising inflation. Rishi Sunak warned that pay increases could not “fuel the fire” of inflation, which is at 8.7%.
While some of the offers are generous enough to be accepted by union leaders, the government will be hoping that the impact on future inflation will be limited as additional borrowing has been avoided and no more money is being pumped into the economy.
Teachers
A 6.5% pay rise is being offered to teachers in England in what appears to be a package that also avoids problems as to how increases would be funded.
The general secretaries of four education unions have said they will recommend that their members accept the offer and call off industrial action.
While unions have been insisting that pay increases come with extra resources from the government rather than being met from school budgets, the government is funding almost half of the pay rise by “reprioritising” within its budgets.
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A former Tory MP who “saw the light” and switched to Labour in a high-profile defection has bid farewell to Westminster after nearly four decades.
Making his valedictory retirement speech in parliament, Quentin Davies paid tribute to the NHS staff who saved his life after a near-fatal car crash.
The former defence minister also praised the government’s support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
Davies was first elected to parliament in 1987, representing Stamford and Spalding and then the new seat of Grantham and Stamford until 2010, when he became a Labour peer in the House of Lords.
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The education secretary insists there will be no cuts to frontline education services despite teachers being offered a 6.5% pay rise by the government.
Gillian Keegan said a reprioritising of the Department for Education’s budget would be enough to cover the cost of the wage increase, announced by the Government on Thursday.
The new deal, approved by the Government after a recommendation from the School Teachers’ Review Body, is supported by the four teacher unions, the ASCL, NAHT, NASUWT and NEU.
It is hoped that it will be enough to end the dispute over pay, with the unions balloting members with a recommendation to accept the pay offer.
The news comes a day after members of the NASUWT voted in favour of industrial action, which, if the new deal is rejected, would see teachers stage continuous action short of strike action starting in September.
Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT, said the ballot has “unlocked months of prevarication” and members “can now expect more money in their pockets” as a result of previous action.
If there is one constant in the UK’s policy towards China over the past three decades it has been its short-termism and inconsistency, the scathing intelligence and security committee report on China rightly finds, comparing Britain’s endless course corrections with Beijing’s capacity to think strategically about how to advance the global interests of the Chinese Communist party.
If Downing Street thinks in terms of the next news bulletin, China has a planning cycle that in some of its documents takes it to 2049, as the ISC was told by one of its intelligence agency witnesses.
Moreover, China brings a whole-of-government response, while in the UK too much strategy is conceived in the Cabinet Office, as its implementation rests with individual Whitehall policy departments, many with no security remit or expertise.
Funding pay deals will be a “very big challenge” for many already squeezed public sector bodies, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee has said.
Dame Meg Hillier told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “It’s difficult to know where it’s going to come from in already overstretched situations. And my committee of course looks a lot at hospitals, schools and other bits of the public sector and we know that they’re already very squeezed.
“So it’s going to be some very painful choices for frontline leaders about how they’re actually going to fund this.”
Hillier added it is “a bit robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
The government has a “political imperative to try and deal with the strikes, but then they’re storing up other challenges” for the future, she said.
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The Unite union general secretary, Sharon Graham, has said she believes the public sector pay offers from the government will trigger more strikes.
She told the BBC the government “are paying for some of it and then they’re saying for the rest, which is about £2bn, that that’s going to come out of cut services and cut areas in departments. So all that’s going to do is to stress workers out, make them have to work harder, more people will leave.
“I think we’ll be seeing a new wave of industrial action.”
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The health and social care secretary, Steve Barclay, said the government’s acceptance of recommendations from pay review bodies and subsequent pay offer to health workers was “an opportunity for the NHS to move forward”.
Junior doctors, who began their longest walkout yet in England on Thursday, will receive 6% rises and an additional consolidated £1,250 increase, while senior doctors, who are due to strike in England next week, will also receive a 6% rise.
Barclay said: “Today’s offer, 10.3% for some doctors in training, some consultants getting pay rise of over £7,000, is a fair offer, a fair settlement.
“It reflects the hugely important work that doctors do, and it’s an opportunity now for the NHS to move forward.”
Barclay denied the government would be making department cutbacks to fund the increases and said the proposed immigration surcharge increase “better reflects the increased costs of providing NHS cover to those who come to the UK” and was a “fair and reasonable approach”.
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The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has welcomed a decision to allow ministers to take a legal battle over its contentious Rwanda deportation policy to the supreme court.
She said: “I welcome this decision to grant permission to appeal. We need innovative solutions, like our migration partnership, to stop the boats, break the business model of the people-smuggling gangs and prevent further loss of life in the Channel.”
It comes after an order published by the court of appeal said it found there were “substantial grounds for believing that the removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda exposed them to a real risk of ill-treatment” by being transferred to countries where they were at risk and violated the European convention on human rights.
It confirmed that any removals under the deal remain unlawful unless the ruling is overturned, but added: “Permission is granted to the [home secretary] to appeal to the supreme court.”
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The Prison Officers Association (POA) said it will “not back down” in the wake of pay rises offered by the government.
The national chair of the union, Mark Fairhurst, said: “Those members who received between 7% and 10% will not be fooled by yet another below-inflation award that will fail to convince them to stay in the service and will not improve their standard of living.
“Years of pay freezes and austerity now need to be addressed in future pay awards.
“We will now consider our options in relation to the failure to award a non-consolidated cost of living payment in line with other civil servants.”
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The government’s independent review of teachers’ pay paints a bleak picture for recruitment and retention, despite the government accepting its call for a 6.5% pay rise.
The report of the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) said data on pay across the graduate labour market “show that some professions are offering significantly higher starting salaries than teaching”, with “systemic” shortages in almost all subjects.
The report lays out the case for the 6.5% pay rise, and states: “The STRB is deeply concerned about the overall level of recruitment, the general trend emerging and what appears to be a firmly established and persistent problem of under-recruitment in certain subjects.
“Persistent recruitment problems can result in a vicious circle where a shortage of teachers in a subject results in a deterioration in teaching quality.
“The shortages we see in some subjects do not appear to be simply temporary but are systemic and require focused remediation with a long-term plan.”
The STRB cited excessive workload as one of the primary reasons teachers leave the profession.
England’s teaching and school leadership unions are balloting their members with a recommendation to accept the government’s pay offer – but say they will continue with strike ballots if the offer is rejected.
The National Education Union, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the National Association of Head Teachers are currently balloting members over strike action, with voting until the end of the month.
Geoff Barton, the ASCL’s general secretary, said: “Our executive committee has unanimously agreed to recommend the government offer to members. We will be asking them directly whether or not they accept the offer, and if their answer is ‘yes’ we will then halt our industrial action ballot and proceed no further.”
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Downing Street reiterated that there would be “no more talks on pay”, after the BMA hit out at the pay offer for junior doctors announced on Thursday, PA reported.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said:
I don’t think the prime minister could have been clearer today. There will be no more talks on pay.
On the BMA’s own figures for a pay increase, he said:
That is simply not fair to taxpayers. From the deal, independently set by the PRBs (pay review bodies), junior doctors will see around a 9% uplift to pay.
Anyone … would think that is a significant increase. Certainly we do and we will not countenance borrowing more money or increasing taxation to go beyond what the independent pay review bodies have recommended.
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A leading expert on migration policy has said the government’s proposed changes will force many people trying to establish a new life in the UK into “substantial debt”.
Dr Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said:
Costs will fall unevenly on different groups of migrants. For some skilled workers, employers will absorb the cost – the UK is already one of the most expensive countries in the world and employers will not like it, but depending on the amount, they may well pay it anyway.
The implications are more serious for the majority of migrants who pay the fees themselves. For example, a person joining their British partner in the UK already pays more than £8,000 in government fees in the five years they spend in temporary status.
There is already evidence that some migrants acquire substantial debt in order to pay fees, so a ‘significant’ fee rise could greatly increase the financial burden on new migrants in the UK as they try to establish themselves here.
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Boris Johnson ‘has forgotten’ passcode for phone wanted by Covid inquiry
Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages are yet to be received by the Covid inquiry because he is said to have forgotten the passcode for his old phone.
The former prime minister’s spokesperson said Johnson still wanted to cooperate with the inquiry and did not deny being unable to recall the code.
Johnson stopped using the device in May 2021, after receiving security advice once it had emerged his phone number had been accessible online for at least 15 years.
Bereaved families and technical experts have rubbished Johnson’s excuse for not being able to send the messages to the inquiry, with experts noting the former prime minister would still be able to access his messages as long as his WhatsApp is backed up.
Johnson used the Apple iPhone in question during the coronavirus pandemic. It is likely to contain messages relating to the announcement of lockdowns in 2020.
The government handed over the rest of Johnson’s unredacted notebooks, WhatsApp messages and diaries from his time in Downing Street to the inquiry after efforts to prevent their release failed.
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Steve Hartshorn, National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said of the 7% rise:
That is a step in the right direction, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this uplift still fails to take account of the real term cut of 17% officers have suffered since 2000.
It is important that government also provides new money for the pay award so that chief officers do not have to cut essential services to the public to fund it.
Hearing today’s news, I have no doubt that police officers will have mixed feelings – on the one hand, they will be pleased that the pay award was not as bad as some media outlets had speculated, but also disappointed that it doesn’t fully take account of inflation, as they and their families struggle with increased utility, mortgage and food costs.
We will continue to push for fair pay awards that take full account of inflation and recognise and reward the unique status of police officers; including the introduction of a fair, independent mechanism and negotiation process, so that we can properly sit down with government and employers to negotiate pay settlements that fully consider the risks and restrictions placed on police officers’ private and professional lives. The focus going forward needs to be on pay restoration.
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Government public pay offer 'fails to address' a decade of sub-inflation pay deals, says BMA
The British Medical Association’s chair of council says Rishi Sunak’s pay increase offer “fails to address” years of below-inflation pay deals.
Prof Phil Banfield said the government’s offer “is exactly why so many doctors are feeling they have no option but to take industrial action”.
He said:
Today’s announcement represents yet another pay cut in real terms and serves only to increase the losses faced by doctors after more than a decade’s worth of sub-inflation pay awards.
It completely ignores the BMA’s calls to value doctors for their expertise by full pay restoration to 2008/2009 levels.
With an NHS in crisis, seven and a half million patients on waiting lists, chronic underfunding and doctors being directly targeted with offers of work in Australia, this government should not be supporting pay uplifts which don’t reverse years of sub inflation pay awards.
He added:
The political choices this government is making continue to make ordinary people sicker and poorer; that is an unconscionable position for a ‘civilised’ society to be in.
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The government has been accused of treating people born outside the UK as “cash cows” after Rishi Sunak said public sector pay increases would be funded by raising fees for migrants’ visa applications and NHS access.
Praxis, which supports migrants and refugees, said raising “already eye-wateringly high” visa fees risked seeing people fall “deeper into poverty and insecurity”.
Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, the organisation’s policy and public affairs manager, said migrants in the UK paid some of the highest costs in Europe, PA reported.
She said:
The people we see at Praxis already pay thousands of pounds each time they need to renew their visa, and are struggling to afford these fees, especially as the cost of living crisis drags on. More than half of the people we spoke to in research carried out last year were struggling to afford bills and food as a result of these visa fees.
Hiking fees still further risks pushing thousands deeper into poverty and insecurity. And these are people who, in many cases, have already been living in our communities, working and paying taxes for many years.
Instead of treating people who were born outside the UK as cash cows to be tapped when the need arises, the government should be doing everything it can to get control of the cost of living crisis and ensure that every household has the support they need.
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China’s state institutions are aggressively targeting the UK, putting the country on course for a nightmare scenario that represents not just a commercial challenge but an existential threat to liberal democratic systems, parliament’s influential all-party intelligence and security committee has found.
The inquiry – launched in 2019 and subject to various delays was completed in May – is scathing about the failure of the UK to wake up to the scale of the systemic challenge posed by the Chinese government’s “whole of state” assault on the British economy, politics, civil infrastructure and academia.
Saying that until recently the UK government was willing to accept Chinese money with few questions asked, it claimed “as a consequence the UK is now playing catch-up and the whole of government has its work cut out to understand and counter the threat from China”.
The failure to respond to the economic threat posed by China, and to put in place a way of protecting UK assets “is a serious failure and one that the UK may feel the consequences of for years to come”, the parliamentarians found.
The committee said: “There is no evidence that Whitehall policy departments have the necessary resources, expertise or knowledge of the threat to counter China’s approach.”
The government’s focus, the report said, was still dominated by short-term or acute threats. “It has consistently failed to think long term unlike China, which historically has been able to take advantage of this.”
In a scathing assessment of British academia’s willingness to accept Chinese research grants, the report said, that “while some have expressed concern others seem willing to turn a blind eye, happy simply to take the money”.
Catastrophic winter pressure on the NHS prompted junior doctors to ballot for strike action, the co-chair of the British Medical Association junior doctors committee said as members began a five-day walkout.
Rob Laurenson told Radio 4’s Today programme the doctors had chosen to ballot after last winter “because year on year we’ve been saying that winters are catastrophic and that there are dangers”.
Junior doctors began a five-day strike in England on Thursday, in what is being called the longest walkout of its kind in NHS history. It comes amid continuing protests over pay in the health service.
Laurenson added: “And now, what we’ve realised is that people are compartmentalising this sense of crisis in the NHS to winters alone. It is true that there will at least be one hospital in the country that is severely understaffed any single day of the year, and its the government’s responsibility to be able to facilitate the environment for healthcare to be delivered at high standards to the people of this country.”
The government has been challenged in the Commons over plans to close railway ticket offices, including by the speaker, who told the rail minister that he was being misinformed by train operators.
Labour described the consultation over the proposals to close most ticket offices in England as a “sham” and Conservative MPs also raised concerns, as unions staged demonstrations around the country.
The rail minister, Huw Merriman, sought to reassure MPs over what he said were industry-led proposals to cut costs, with revenue falling after the pandemic.
Merriman said he believed that staff were better deployed on station concourses rather than “behind a glass screen”, adding: “I give the commitment again from the train operators that no currently staffed station will become unstaffed as a result of these changes.”
The comment prompted an unusual intervention from the Commons speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who highlighted issues in his Chorley constituency.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle told Merriman that at Chorley “the proposal is only to have someone available nine until four, which is half the time the ticket office was [open] … What you are being told isn’t the case.”
Department for Education to 'reprioritise' existing budgets for pay rise
The Department for Education is to raid its existing budgets for £1.4bn to help fund the 6.5% pay rise offered to teachers in England, as part of the deal announced between the government and the teaching and school leader unions.
How pay rises would be funded was a major sticking point, with the unions insisting that pay increases come with extra resources from the government rather than being met from school budgets, as has happened in the past.
Today’s joint announcement from No 10, the DfE and the unions stated: “Importantly, the government’s offer is properly funded for schools. The government has committed that all schools will receive additional funding above what was proposed in March, building on the additional £2bn given to schools in the autumn statement.”
The government had argued that its previous offer – amounting to an average rise of 4.3% – could be afforded out of the £2bn increase last year, a position supported by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
But the “additional funding” being promised to pay for the higher increase announced today will come from the DfE, with an extra £500m in the 2023-24 financial year and £900m in 2024-25. The DfE said it will “reprioritise” its existing budgets “while protecting core budgets”.
The DfE said it would also provide a hardship fund of up to £40m “to support those schools facing the greatest financial challenges”.
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The president of the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association Dr Naru Narayanan has said it is unlikely the prime minister’s announcement will bring an end to industrial action:
Instead of serious negotiation on doctors’ pay we’ve had a grandstanding PR stunt which remains scant on detail.
The government has known the pay review body recommendations since May, but is still sitting on its detailed findings. This underlines why we are calling for root-and-branch reform of the system.
What we do know is that this is in an imposed outcome with funding apparently coming from NHS cost-cutting. Slicing into health budgets is no way to resolve industrial action centred on staffing and retention, and overall a concern for patient care.
Imposing it in this like-it-or-lump-it way is also a total misreading of the mood on the ground.
The petulant refusal to negotiate we’ve heard from the prime minister today won’t help at all and betrays a level of immaturity at the heart of government.
There is a way to resolve industrial action by doctors, but that’s going to require serious discussion and acknowledgement of the central issue, which is over a decade of real-terms pay cuts. Without this it’s highly doubtful we’ll see an end to strikes.
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Mike Clancy, the general secretary of the Prospect union, which represents staff at organisations such as the Met Office, Health and Safety Executive and Natural England, has said:
For a prime minister and chancellor who came into office promising economic stability, the chaotic handling of this process will inspire little confidence in workers worried about their futures during the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
The fact that they are taking a knife to public services to pay for these pay rises signals that they have learned nothing from the austerity years.
More than a decade of underfunding left us unprepared for the pandemic with public services across the board at breaking point.
In particular, freezing civil service recruitment in the Ministry of Defence is a disastrous error that risks putting our nation’s security at risk. The department already has thousands of vacancies, and many of these civil servants work directly supporting the effort to win the war in Ukraine.
It’s time the government recognised the value of its public services and allocated the money required to maintain them properly.
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Gove gives evidence to Covid inquiry
Michael Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, is giving testimony to the Covid inquiry.
During the pandemic, Gove served as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and Cabinet Office minister. You can follow his testimony here:
It is perhaps notable that Sunak tries to head off criticism that it has taken a great deal of time – and not a small amount of strife, including the cancelled appointments and lengthening NHS waiting lists he explicitly cites – for his government to come up with this offer.
The prime minister says he has agreed to honour the independent bodies’ recommendations. But that came after nearly three weeks of ministers talking up the idea that he might not.
Moreover, public sector pay negotiations in general have been dragging on for many months, with several rounds of strikes causing significant disruption. Critics will ask why, if the prime minister think this is such a reasonable offer, it could not have been made earlier.
It is also worth noting that the offer still constitutes real-terms pay cuts for millions of workers, coming on top of what unions say have been many years of the same.
They are also nowhere near, in percentage-point terms, the 12.4% nominal increases junior doctors have been offered in Scotland. And that is not to mention the 26% the BMA has said would be needed to return the realterms pay of junior doctors’ in England to pre-Tory government levels.
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Downing Street has released a full transcript of Rishi Sunak’s speech announcing the new pay offer.
When making decisions on pay, as your prime minister, I have a responsibility to be fair. Fair to public sector workers who do so much in the service of our country, but also fair to taxpayers who ultimately fund our public services.
And the best way we’ve found of making fair decisions about public sector pay are the independent pay review bodies.
They were called for by the unions themselves. And, for over four decades, they have been the independent arbiters of what is fair and responsible. Those bodies have considered a range of evidence about where to set this year’s pay. And their recommendations to government are for public sector pay rises to go up by a significant amount.
Now, clearly, this will cost all of you as taxpayers more than we had budgeted for. That’s why the decision has been difficult and why it has taken time to decide the right course of action.
I can confirm that, today, we’re accepting the headline recommendations of the pay review bodies in full. But we will not fund them by borrowing more or increasing your taxes.
It would not be right to increase taxes on everyone to pay some people more; particularly when household budgets are so tight. Neither would it be right to pay for them by higher borrowing, because higher borrowing simply makes inflation worse.
Instead, because we only have a fixed pot of money to spend from that means government departments have had to find savings and efficiencies elsewhere in order to prioritise paying public sector workers more.
Now there is a clear message here. There are always choices, budgets are not infinite. When some ask for higher pay, that will always create pressures elsewhere costs which must ultimately be borne by the taxpayer – or spending less on our other priorities.
So that’s our decision. And having honoured the independent pay review process, I urge all union leaders to accept these pay offers and call off their strikes.
Already, earlier this year, the NHS staff council representing over half a dozen unions, and over a million NHS workers made a significant decision and voted to accept our pay offer and suspend strikes.
I’m grateful to them and their members. And, today, in response to the news of our decision, I’m pleased to say that we’ve had another major breakthrough. All teaching unions have just announced that they’re suspending all planned strikes immediately.
Teachers will return to the classroom. Disruption to our children’s education will end. And the unions have themselves confirmed that this pay offer is properly funded. And so, they’re recommending to their members an end to the entire dispute.
So it is now clear: Momentum across our public services is shifting. The vast majority, who just want to get on with their life’s calling of serving others, are now returning to work.
And, in that spirit, I want to address those yet to do so. Now that we’ve honoured the independent pay recommendations, I implore you: Do the right thing, and know when to say yes.
In particular, for doctors and consultants, I would say this: We have a national mission for all of us to make the NHS strong again. The government has not only made today’s decision on pay, we’ve backed the NHS with record funding, delivered the first ever fully funded longterm workforce plan and met the BMA’s number one ask of government, with a pensions tax cut worth £1bn.
So, we should all ask ourselves, whether union leaders – or, indeed, political leaders – how can it be right to continue disruptive industrial action?
Not least because these strikes lead to tens of thousands of appointments being cancelled every single day, and waiting lists going up, not down.
So, today’s offer is final. There will be no more talks on pay. We will not negotiate again on this year’s settlements. And no amount of strikes will change our decision. Instead, the settlement we’ve reached today gives us a fair way to end the strikes. A fair deal for workers. And a fair deal for the British taxpayer. Thank you.
Rishi Sunak said “it’s not about cuts” but about departments reprioritising resources.
The prime minister said:
We are reprioritising. So we are asking departments to reprioritise to support public sector workers and that will mean in other areas – it’s not about cuts, it’s just about focusing on public sector workers’ pay rather than other things.
And I’m really pleased that the teaching unions specifically have said that this pay offer is properly funded.
He said “no cuts will need to be made” in schools.
Fees for migrants' visa applications and NHS access will rise 'significantly' to help fund public sector pay increases
The government will help fund public sector pay increases by “significantly” raising fees for migrants’ visa applications and NHS access, Rishi Sunak said.
The prime minister told a Downing Street press conference: “What we have done are two things to find this money.
“The first is we’re going to increase the charges that we have for migrants who are coming to this country when they apply for visas.
“And indeed, something called the immigration health surcharge, which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS.
“So all of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over a billion pounds.”
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New pay offer is 'final', says Sunak
Rishi Sunak offered a warning to trade unions and workers still involved in strikes and industrial action.
He told a Downing Street press conference that the new pay offer is “final”.
“Now there’s a clear message here. There are always choices. Budgets are not infinite. When some ask for higher pay, that will always create pressures elsewhere,” he said.
“It is now clear momentum across our public services is shifting. The vast majority who just want to get on with their life’s calling of serving others are now returning to work.
“Today’s offer is final. There will be no more talks on pay. We will not negotiate again on this year’s settlements and no amount of strikes will change our decision.”
He said the accepted recommendations were a “fair deal for the British taxpayer”.
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Rishi Sunak has confirmed the public sector pay rises will not be funded by more government borrowing.
He told a press conference in Downing Street:
Those [pay review] bodies have considered a range of evidence about where to set this year’s pay. And their recommendations to government are for public sector pay rises to go up by a significant amount.
Now clearly, this will cost all of you as taxpayers more than we had budgeted for.
That’s why the decision has been difficult, and why it has taken time to decide the right course of action.
I can confirm today that we are accepting the headline recommendations of the pay review bodies in full, but we will not fund them by borrowing more or increasing your taxes.
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All four teaching unions recommend accepting pay offer in joint statement with PM
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, have issued a joint statement on pay alongside the general secretaries of the four education unions – Mary Bousted, Kevin Courtney, Geoff Barton, Paul Whiteman and Patrick Roach – as well as the general secretary-elect of the NEU, Daniel Kebede.
“This is the largest ever recommendation from the school teachers’ review body (STRB),” it said.
“A 6.5% increase for teachers and school leaders recognises the vital role that teachers play in our country and ensures that teaching will continue to be an attractive profession. The government has accepted the STRB’s recommendation and has agreed to bring forward wider reforms to reduce teacher and leader workload in partnership with all four unions.
“Importantly, the government’s offer is properly funded for schools. The government has committed that all schools will receive additional funding above what was proposed in March, building on the additional £2bn given to schools in the autumn statement.
“The government will also provide a hardship fund of up to £40m to support those schools facing the greatest financial challenges.
“ASCL, NAHT, NASUWT and NEU will now put this deal to members, with a recommendation to accept the STRB recommendation. This deal will allow teachers and school leaders to call off strike action and resume normal relations with government.”
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The prime minister is holding a press conference following the news that he has agreed to give millions of public sector workers a pay rise of at least 6%.
You can follow the stream below. We will bring you the latest from it shortly.
Sunak agrees to public sector pay rises of 6% plus without raising budgets
Millions of public sector workers will be given a pay rise of at least 6%, but government departments have been told to fund the rise from within existing budgets.
Police officers, junior doctors and teachers in England are among those who would benefit after the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, accepted all the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies.
Senior government figures are understood to have been concerned about the effects of the pay boost on stubbornly high inflation.
Earlier this week, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, ruled out providing any extra money funded through borrowing. The move will leave departments facing difficult decisions about how to reallocate spending, with potential knock-on effects for frontline services cuts.
The Treasury had budgeted for pay rises of about 3.5%, meaning between £3bn and £5bn will need to be found across Whitehall to make up the shortfall.
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Rishi Sunak’s report back from the Nato summit in the Commons earlier passed by with barely a mention of the defence secretary’s comments that Ukraine should show “a bit of gratitude” for the military aid it has received from the west.
The PM appeared keen to draw a line under the row and when Ben Wallace was praised by the Conservative backbencher Mark Francois for his support to Ukraine, he was not name-checked by Sunak in his reply.
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, did, however, ask the prime minister “to correct the record” after an overnight tweet from Sunak which said: “Labour didn’t want me to attend Nato this week.”
The opposition leader told MPs that “on the contrary, we were delighted that he was there, because in an ever more dangerous world, we must be united” and emphasised his party’s commitment to Nato dating back to its foundation under the postwar Attlee government.
Last week the veteran Labour backbencher Chris Bryant had criticised Sunak for his lack of attendance at prime minister’s questions, to which Sunak had responded by saying the clash with the Nato summit was unavoidable.
“It’s a bit rich for you to attack me for missing prime minister’s question time,” Sunak said during tense exchanges in which the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, increasingly interrupted to control the noise in the chamber.
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The Times’s political editor, Steven Swinford, is reporting that Rishi Sunak has accepted the recommendations of “all public sector pay review bodies”.
It means that millions of public sector workers, including teachers, doctors and police officers, could get pay rises of 6% or more – but it will be funded from existing budgets.
He outlines the projected increases in the tweet below.
Sunak has approved the following public sector pay rises:
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) July 13, 2023
Teachers: 6.5%
Junior doctors: 6%
Police: 6%
Prison officers: 6%
Armed forces: 5-6%
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Labour said the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal risks report demonstrated the government would “never match the ambition” of the UK public.
The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said:
This report shows just how far we are falling behind our peers, how exposed our economy is, and again highlights that the government is failing to take action in areas like energy security to help get bills down.
It tells you all you need to know that the cost of government borrowing has risen faster in the UK than elsewhere in the G7 and faster than at any time in the last 40 years.
There are serious decisions to be made by this Tory government to restore some security in our economy, to get a grip on inflation, and to stop people’s bills rising.
Instead, this new evidence and falling growth figures today show they will never match the ambition of the British people.
It’s time for them to step aside and let Labour restore our national economic and financial security, driven by our mission to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7.
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Jeremy Hunt says government will take 'difficult but responsible' decisions on public sector pay
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said the government would take “difficult but responsible” decisions on public sector pay, ahead of the announcement of settlements for millions of workers.
He told MPs that “it is important to deliver on the prime minister’s priority to get debt falling and to control borrowing to avoid adding inflationary pressures and risk prolonging higher inflation”, PA reported.
“That means taking difficult but responsible decisions on the public finances, including public sector pay, because more borrowing is itself inflationary,” Hunt said.
His comments came in a written statement responding to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal risks and sustainability report.
The budget watchdog’s report warned that the public finances are in a “very risky” period after a series of shocks left them in a “vulnerable position” on tackling challenges such as an ageing population.
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The Home Office will offer “no more concessions”, a government source has told the Guardian, after peers made numerous changes to plans designed to tackle the small boats issue.
The House of Lords voted to reinstate provisions to the illegal migration bill that were removed by MPs earlier in the week.
In a series of votes that went on until the early hours of Thursday, peers inflicted nine defeats on the government – triggering “ping pong”, meaning the draft legislation will go back to the Commons next week.
Ministers hope the bill will be passed before the summer recess, which starts next Friday.
BBC chief Tim Davie will be questioned in parliament about the corporation’s leadership following the Huw Edwards scandal.
The BBC director general, acting chairwoman Dame Elan Closs Stephens and policy director Clare Sumner have been called to appear before the Lords Communications Committee on Tuesday.
The peers will raise a range of issues, including “in light of recent events, what concerns have been raised about the adequacy of the BBC’s governance arrangements and how it is addressing these”.
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Labour would make it “impossible” for the prime minister not to take action where appropriate in cases of suspected misconduct by bringing the ministerial standards process further into the public domain, Angela Rayner said.
The party’s deputy leader said it is currently “at the prime minister’s whim whether they open an investigation” into accusations, PA Media reported.
Labour would create an independent ethics and integrity commission with stronger powers than the current system and force it to report to parliament annually, Rayner said.
“The prime minister would find it impossible then to not carry out those functions and do what is required, because that transparency is there,” she said.
Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) on the picket line outside Leeds General Infirmary at the start a five-day strike amid the continuing dispute over pay, the longest walkout of its kind in the history of the NHS.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner claimed Boris Johnson is not “just one bad apple” as she made the case for an overhaul of the public standards system.
Speaking to the Institute for Government, she said:
Take Boris Johnson as just a random example – a very effective confidence trickster. He certainly sounded like the typical good chap but I don’t think there are many serious people who would call him that now.
From unlawfully proroguing parliament to breeding a culture of rule-breaking at the heart of Downing Street during a global pandemic, then lying about it.
She said “this isn’t all about him” and that Conservative MPs, including the current prime minster Rishi Sunak, “enabled him and propped him up”.
Rayner added:
I’m afraid Boris Johnson wasn’t just one bad apple.
Over the last decade, standards in public life have been relentlessly eroded by Tory sleaze and scandal, from serious breaches of the ministerial code to the revolving door between ministerial office and lobbying.
The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has hit a new record.
An estimated 7.47 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of May, up from 7.42 million in March, NHS England said.
It is the highest number since records began in August 2007.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak has made cutting waiting lists one of his priorities for 2023, pledging in January that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.
A junior doctor on the picket line outside the University College Hospital in London said she is “worried” for the NHS’s future.
Rebecca Lissmann, 29, told the PA news agency:
I feel worried because people sometimes compare medicine to the aviation industry but if they’re short-staffed a flight gets cancelled, if we’re short-staffed an operation might be cancelled.
I was on a long weekend on call the other week and I was essentially doing the job of two people. If something went wrong these patients are my responsibility.
We want to deliver care that we’re proud of and what we would want our family to receive but that’s not possible at the moment.
I look at my rota and there’s gaps where they need people to fill shifts; these shifts are getting advertised in WhatsApp groups.
Sunak and Hunt due to meet to finalise public sector pay deals
Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are finalising decisions on pay for millions of public sector workers against a backdrop of a doctors’ strike, a weak economy and persistent high inflation.
The prime minister and chancellor are meeting on Thursday to decide whether to accept the recommendations of pay bodies which are thought to be suggesting rises of around 6-6.5% for a variety of professions from medics to teachers, PA Media reported.
A failure to accept the reports would provoke further rows with the unions, a problem underlined as junior doctors embarked on their longest walkout yet in England on Thursday.
The Treasury has ruled out increasing borrowing to pay for wage rises, meaning any extra cash for workers may have to come from raiding existing departmental budges, potentially meaning cuts to services.
The current level of CPI inflation is running at 8.7% and Sunak – who has promised to cut it to about 5.3% by the end of the year – wants to avoid pay increases which could fuel a wage-price spiral.
The wider economic challenge facing the Chancellor and prime minister was illustrated by official figures showing the UK economy contracted in May.
Written statements listed on Thursday’s order paper show ministers are due to give updates on the NHS, police, teachers, the armed forces, civil service and the justice system.
Disruption to thousands of planned appointments is expected as junior doctors in England on Thursday started their longest walkout yet in protest over pay.
The strike started at 7am and ends at the same time on Tuesday.
A junior doctor on the picket lane outside University College Hospital in central London said many medics are considering moving abroad to work.
Arjan Sing, 27, who works in the capital, told the PA news agency:
Medicine is one of those careers you have to start planning for from about the age of 14 so people spend their lives planning their career.
Those people are now thinking of leaving and they’re now making concrete plans to leave.
There are all these countries that care about their doctors and our government is not respecting us.
People have seen this coming and doctors have realised they work in a global market, they’re not restricted to this country.
NHS Providers has urged both sides to resume talks in a bid to head off more industrial action.
Deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said:
The impact of these disputes is fraying the fabric of the NHS, held together by a unique sense of commitment and shared endeavour across the workforce that has served it so well over so many years. We lose that at our peril.
The disruption for many thousands of patients and the potential harm of delaying their treatment is a huge and growing risk for the NHS to manage.
Trusts will hardly have time to draw breath after a five-day walkout by junior doctors before consultants strike for two days, followed by a two-day strike by radiographers.
The domino effect of repeated waves of industrial action is eroding the fundamental relationship between trust leaders and their staff.
Trust leaders understand the strength of feeling among striking staff, who they value and work with for patients every day, and why they are taking action. Trusts will continue to do everything they can to limit disruption and keep patients safe but that’s getting harder and more expensive with every strike as the cost of hiring cover grows, and with staff dissatisfaction increasing as disputes remain unresolved.
Eight consecutive months of industrial action across the NHS are taking their toll not just on patients, with more than 651,000 routine procedures and appointments forced to be rescheduled, but on already overstretched services - hampering efforts to cut waiting lists.
Sunak won’t meet NHS waiting times pledge if strikes continue, warn health bosses
Rishi Sunak’s pledge to cut NHS waiting times will be impossible to meet if strikes are still disrupting care beyond the summer, health service chiefs have privately warned ministers.
The prime minister promised in January that “NHS waiting lists will fall” when he outlined five pledges, reflecting “the people’s priorities”, by which voters should judge his performance, he said.
However, NHS England has told ministers that hospitals will not be able to ensure that Sunak fulfils his pledge because of the disruption caused by junior doctors’ ongoing strikes.
Services, including surgery and outpatient appointments, will be hit again from Thursday when tens of thousands of junior doctors in England take part in a five-day walkout – the longest stoppage in NHS history. It will be their fourth bout of industrial action since March.
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Junior doctors begin five days of strikes
Good morning. Junior doctors are beginning a five-day strike in England today.
It is being described as the longest walkout of its kind in the NHS’s history amid ongoing protests over pay in the health service.
The strikes are being held amid speculation the government will say if it is going to accept recommendations from pay review bodies affecting public sector workers including teachers, civil servants and NHS workers.
There is speculation that the bodies have recommended rises of between 6% and 6.5%.
BMA leaders urged the Government to return to the negotiating table in a bid to resolve the long-running row, which has already led to a series of strikes and thousands of cancelled operations and consultations.
BMA leaders Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi said:
Today marks the start of the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS’s history, but this is still not a record that needs to go into the history books.
We can call this strike off today if the UK Government will simply follow the example of the government in Scotland and drop their nonsensical precondition of not talking whilst strikes are announced and produce an offer which is credible to the doctors they are speaking with.
The pay offer on the table to junior doctors in Scotland and how it was reached throws into sharp relief the obstinate approach being taken by the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay.
The Health Secretary has said there can be no talks while strikes are planned - Scotland has proved him wrong. He said above 5% wasn’t realistic - Scotland proved him wrong. He refused to even acknowledge the concept of pay restoration - Scotland proved this is not only possible but essential.
The BMA leaders said talks have to be resumed, adding:
The government’s refusal to talk with junior doctors in England who have strikes planned is out of keeping with all norms of industrial action.
Doctors have a right to expect that as in Scotland, and as in many other recent industrial disputes, talks will continue right up to the last minute to try and reach a deal without the need to strike.
The complete inflexibility we see from the UK government today is baffling, frustrating and ultimately destructive for everyone who wants waiting lists to go down and NHS staffing numbers to go up.
The government has missed chance after chance to provide a credible offer and potentially bring to an end the industrial action by junior doctors in England and whilst there are differences between junior doctors and governments in England and Scotland, the UK government has far more financial freedom to give doctors what they deserve.
We’ll bring you the latest updates on this and other political stories throughout the day.
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