LOCAL MP SLAMS SHAM OF PUBLIC SECTOR PAY DEALS

Tony Baldry MP calls for fair public sector pay

North Oxfordshire MP, Tony Baldry, has condemned the Government's handling of public sector pay.

Speaking during a parliamentary debate, Tony said that the cost of honouring the police pay deal would be less than the £33 million the Home Office wasted on the aborted asylum accommodation centre at Bicester.  Tony also outlined how it is "miserably unfair" that Government pay awards for nurses would be staggered and even rejected outright for prison officers. 

Tony Baldry called on the Government to be honest over public sector pay awards for key workers.

Tony Baldry MP said:

"It is little surprise that the Police Federation called on the Home Secretary to resign. The total cost of honouring the police pay round in full is some £30 million. I cannot help but note that the National Audit Office found that the Home Office wasted £33 million in my constituency alone on an aborted proposal for an accommodation centre for asylum seekers at Bicester. Not a sod was turned nor a brick laid, yet somehow the Home Office ended up spending £33 million. Police officers are being short-changed because of the incompetence of Home Office Ministers. Why on earth should they believe the Home Secretary when she says that the Government would implement in full any three-year settlement when the Government have chosen not to honour an existing public sector pay claim?"

"The people who will pay most for the Government’s financial incompetence are key public sector workers. The Chancellor’s proposed three-year pay deals will affect only the 5.5 million workers on the public payroll. There might be some justification for that if public sector pay were racing ahead of private sector salaries, but that is no longer the case. The most recent figures on the record show that private pay is rising faster than public pay, and the Government have broken various implied contracts with public sector workers."

"It is not just police officers. Nurses’ pay increases were staggered to make their pay increase worth 1.9 per cent., and an independent recommendation to award prison officers a 2.5 per cent. pay rise in April was rejected by the Government and replaced with an offer of 1.9 per cent. That is a breach of compact and covenant by the Government. It is bad personnel management and bad human relations, and it is miserably unfair that key public sector workers should be treated in that way."