Senior Tories are putting May under pressure to axe the public sector pay freeze

Reuters

LONDON — The cabinet is putting pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May and Chancellor Philip Hammond to end the public sector pay cap which has frozen pay for public workers since 2010.

A number of senior ministers have suggested that the Treasury should ditch a number of austerity measures in response to public weariness, including the cap introduced by former Prime Minister David Cameron that has seen public sector pay frozen at one percent rises for the last seven years.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said on Wednesday that above-inflation wage increases for the public sector is something that government must think about enacting.

"This is something we have to consider, not just for the army, but right across the public sector as a whole," he said.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is another cabinet minister who has spoken about the possibility of reversing the policy of the 1% pay cap, telling the BBC ministers would "have to think through" proposed changes.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will increase pressure on Chancellor Hammond by asking him to agree a better deal for nurses, the Times reports. The newspaper says Hunt will use a "very constructive letter" from the Royal College of Nursing in an attempt to persuade Hammond to relax the pay cap.

On Wednesday the Conservative minority government defeated a Labour amendment which called for an end to the public sector pay cap plus a reversal of cuts to public services. The Tories defeated the amendment with the aid of the Democratic Unionist Party by 323 votes to 309.

However, on the same day, Prime Minister May appeared to perform a double u-turn on the issue of the public sector pay cap. The prime minister's spokesperson first told the press that the government would look again at the policy, before changing tack and insisting later in the day that "the government policy has not changed".

Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell described the confusion as a "shambles" in a tweet posted yesterday.

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/880091360799449088
This war between Number 10 and the Treasury isn't sustainable. Shambles. https://t.co/qb8hfbHYCc

 A number of Tory MPs have urged the government to ease its austerity programme ever since May failed to retain her parliamentary majority at the June 8 general election, including backbenchers like Heidi Allen. She tweeted:

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/879732684511162370
New DUP cash must surely mean funding will be urgently reviewed for pub sector wages, schools, social care, Univ Credit across whole UK too?

Another Conservative MP, Sarah Wollaston, told the Guardian: "I’d agree with the points that have been made that it’s time for us to think again about the impact of the public sector pay cap, because there’s no doubt in my mind that seven years of this cap is now having a significant impact on morale within the health service, and across our wider public sector."

The 1% pay rise cap for public sector workers has been in place since 2012 and is expected to remain until at least 2018/19.

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See Also:

• Theresa May U-turns twice in one day on lifting the cap on public sector pay

• Support for ending austerity surges as Corbyn forces vote on scrapping government cuts

• Theresa May's cabinet is beginning to tear itself apart over Brexit

SEE ALSO: Theresa May U-turns twice in one day on lifting the cap on public sector pay

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