The government will have tough choices to make if it wants to avoid more industrial action and disruption, as ITV News Political Correspondent Shehab Khan reports
There will be no further funding to meet pay increases for teachers and NHS staff, if they exceed the government's spending budgets, Downing Street has said, as unions warn of further industrial action.
The independent pay review body is reportedly recommending increases of as much as 4% for some public sector workers like teachers and 3% for NHS workers, according to The Times.
However, the government has only budgeted for a 2.8% rise for public sector workers and Downing Street says there will be no funding beyond what was set out in the Budget.
Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday that no decisions had been made on the recommendations, saying “we are not at that stage of the process”.
He told ITV News: "We accepted the pay recommendation last year, we were able to settle those disputes. Nobody wanted our nurses and doctors in industrial disputes.
"The pay review bodies are now going through the process making their recommendations and we'll consider them as we always do, that's part of the annual cycle."
Asked if he accepts that any rejection of pay rises could lead to further walkouts, the PM said: "Well I don't think anybody wants to see strikes.
"Doctors and nurses don't want to be on strike, patients don't want to see strikes, so obviously we want to do as we're doing now which is work with NHS staff, not pit against them which the last government did."
But Downing Street was clear on Monday that the government would not be providing any extra funding for increases above 2.8%.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “There’ll be no additional funding for pay if recommended awards exceed what departments can afford.”
Last year, the government accepted the pay review bodies’ recommendations of increases of between 4.75% and 6% in an effort to end long-running strikes across the public sector.
But the prospect of either a lower award this year or departments having to take money from elsewhere to fund pay rises has raised the possibility of further strikes.
Unions ITV News spoke to say they are not ruling out further industrial action if necessary and any pay rise needs to be fully funded.
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General Secretary of the National Education Union, Daniel Kebede, told ITV News: "I appreciate the government have tough decisions to make, but whilst there was a pay award last year that was accepted by the profession, 14 years of Conservative Government saw pay freezes and pay cuts and has, quite frankly, brought the system to the brink of crisis."
He added: “No one wants to take strike action but of course as a trade union we do stand ready to act industrially if we need to.”
However, there are concerns that it could be too much of a strain on the public purse at a time when the economy is barely growing.
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Agreeing to the pay rises would mean the government would have to either raise the money or make cuts elsewhere.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies' Paul Johnson said: "As ever, the government's got choices about if it's increasing pay, it can either pay less on other things - maybe less in the way of public services - or it'll have to increase taxes to pay for them.
"Those are the choices that you always have. There's certainly no room to increase pay and do all the things the government wants to do."
