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“For pay awards to go beyond inflation they will have to be met by productivity improvements,” Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman told reporters.<\/p>\n
Inflation – which measures price changes over time – is predicted to average 2.6% next year.<\/p>\n
The pay recommendations will now be considered by public sector pay review bodies and a final decision made by the government next year.<\/p>\n
Asked about strike threats, the PM’s spokesman said the government “clearly values” public sector workers and had given them their “first meaningful pay increases for several years in July”. <\/p>\n
But, he added, the government had been “upfront” about the need to take “tough decisions” to after inheriting a \u00a322bn “black hole” in the public finances from the previous government.<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for Sir Keir said the Conservatives’ “scorched earth approach and failure of leadership” had led to strikes in the NHS.<\/p>\n
But unions say pay is still failing to keep pace with the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n
The BMA has said the recommended pay rise for 2025\/26 “indicates a poor grasp of the unresolved issues from two years of industrial action”.<\/p>\n
Royal College of Nursing general secretary and chief executive Prof Nicola Ranger described the pay recommendation as “deeply offensive”.<\/p>\n
The National Education Union said it fell “well short of the urgent action needed”.<\/p>\n
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “We all know the pressure on public finances from the mess the Tories left things in. <\/p>\n
“But as the government’s evidence acknowledges, the recruitment and retention crisis in our public sector has been driven in part by pay.”<\/p>\n
He said it was “hard to see how you address the crisis in our services without meaningful pay rises”. <\/p>\n
And he called on the government to hold a “serious conversation” with unions and workers about pay and public service reform. <\/p>\n
Asked whether there are plans for ministers to meet union general secretaries to discuss pay, Sir Keir’s spokesman said: “There will always be engagement throughout the pay review body process that is usual, and we’ll obviously conduct the process in a collaborative way.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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