Corbyn challenges May on pay cap

JEREMY CORBYN has pressed Theresa May to lift the public sector pay cap – in the last Prime Minister’s Questions session before the House of Commons summer recess.

The Labour Leader spoke about the lives of ordinary public sector workers, who endured a pay freeze when the Tory/Lib-Dem Coalition came to office and a 1% cap on wage increases since the freeze ended. In effect, these workers have had a pay cut over the last seven years as their pay has not kept up with inflation.

The Prime Minister replied that public sector workers could only be paid what the country can afford and she recognised that many of them made sacrifices in order to work in the public sector. Her priority was to strengthen the economy in the hope that one day it would be able to deliver pay increases.

Theresa May’s answer is something of a bluff. As many Labour Party politicians said during the election campaign, austerity is a political decision, not an economic necessity. If the UK pays ordinary public sector workers lower wages, they will have less to spend in the shops. If the Government were to invest in public sector workers by increasing wages (even by just restoring the value cut since the Tories came to office), their increased spending power could boost domestic demand. Economists have cited flagging domestic demand as one of the main factors stopping the UK economy growing.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party had promised, during the General Election campaign, to end the public sector pay cap if Labour were to form the next government. They fell just short of this aim – not least because of squabbling Labour rebel MPs such as Rushanara Ali and Mike Gapes who spoke out against Corbyn and his manifesto.

Not for the first time, Theresa May pointed out that she could not find enough money to lift the cap and blamed the lack of the readies on what Gordon Brown did nearly ten years ago. Jeremy Corbyn pointed out that the Prime Minister had been able to find £1 billion easily enough when she needed to buy DUP support for her minority Government.

Labour will be planning to keep the pressure on Theresa May’s Administration over the summer – as will several leading Tory MPs, who fancy they could do a better job as Prime Minister.

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