On the plane to Lithuania, the prime minister said that his approach to public sector pay embraces the need to ensure that pay rises are “fair, affordable and responsible”. If a pay rise is fair, it is fair to both sides, meaning that it is also affordable. If it’s affordable and fair it is, by definition, responsible. So the question is what does the PM mean by “fair”?
Is it fair for teachers, already working ridiculously long hours, to lose their planning, preparation, and assessment time regularly because staff shortage/absence means that extra lessons and duties must be covered? Is it fair that junior doctors receive such poor remuneration given the long hours and high level of responsibility they must manage? Or that nurses are run ragged trying to manage wards without enough staff and certainly without enough experienced staff?
This is in a climate of regular government criticism of the public sector, profligate levels of government spending in other areas (immigration control, Covid contracts, HS2, etc...), and expensive squabbling about economic dogma within this nasty, divisive Conservative Party. What does Rishi Sunak mean by “fair”? We should be told.
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