Dear John

I am writing to you regarding today’s announcement of the public sector pay awards for 2020-21.

Today, we are accepting the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies and announcing a significant, real terms pay increase between 2-3% for around 900,000 public sector workers across seven workforces, around 20% of total public sector workforce. For the majority, this is the third inflation busting pay rise in a row following lifting of the public sector pay cap at the end of 2017/18.

Our public sector workers deserve to be recognised for their hard work as it is their commitment and dedication that ensures our essential public services continue to be delivered to those that need it, even during challenging and uncertain times.

These awards cover the Armed Forces, Teachers, Police Officers, the National Crime Agency, Prison Officers, Doctors and Dentists, the judiciary, senior civil servants and senior military personnel. The Devolved Administrations are responsible for the salaries of public sector workers in line with devolved areas of responsibility, including Teachers and NHS workers.

More than one million NHS workers continue to benefit from the three-year Agenda for Change pay deal, under which the starting salary for a newly qualified nurse has increased by over 12% since 2017/18.

This deal delivers a real terms pay rise for all nurses this year, and averages 4.4% for those not already at the top of their pay scale. The Agenda for Change pay deal has also increased the lowest starting salary within the NHS by over 16%. The Government has also agreed a pay deal that provides junior doctors with a minimum 8.2% pay rise over four years. 2

Social care is rightly an area of intensive interest from Members. Pay for social care workers is set independently of central government and is outside the scope of Tuesday’s announcement. The vast majority of care workers are employed by private sector providers who ultimately set their pay. Local Authorities work with care providers to determine a fair rate of pay based on local market conditions. In April this year, the Government increased the National Living Wage by 6.2% to £8.72 an hour, benefiting an estimated 2.4 million people, including social care workers. We have also delivered a Budget this year that cut the cost of living for hard working people, for example by giving a typical employee around £104 next year by cutting National Insurance.

We are conscious that public sector pay awards must deliver value for money for the taxpayer. The coronavirus is having a very significant impact on the economy, labour market and the fiscal position. In May 2020, public sector pay was up by 3.7% on the year before, compared to a fall of 1.2% in the private sector. Public sector pay awards announced today will be significantly more than the average in the private sector, where the OBR’s central scenario assumes a fall in average earnings. Therefore, for reasons of fairness, we must ensure that across this year and the spending review period, public sector pay levels retain parity with the private sector.

I enclose the table below setting out the breakdown of today’s announcements. Individual Secretaries of State lead this process for their relevant workforces and will lay Written Ministerial Statements setting out further details of each award.

Best wishes,

RT HON STEVE BARCLAY MP

The so called Recovery and Resilience fund agreed after much wrangling on Monday night will do practically nothing to help EU economies recover from the pandemic policies. There is no pubic analysis of the damage done to large sectors of the EU economy by lockdown, no plan for aviation or hotels. It is a very important step on the road to full political union, establishing the important principles that the EU can borrow on the balance sheet of all the member states, and can transfer money from richer to poorer countries following such borrowing.

The grant and loan money in the fund totalling Euro 560bn after haggling will be disbursed over a four year period starting next year. Nothing will be raised and spent in 2020, when the need is greatest, and maybe under 60bn Euro in 2021 according to an EU Commission cash flow forecast. In other words this scheme is not going to rescue the EU economy and is going to make no visible contribution to the recovery for at least the first 18 months after the crash. The other Euro 190 bn will be added to existing EU spending programmes in future years, taking the new borrowing to the promised Euro 750bn.

It is not actually about the virus. It is about the political ambitions of the new Commission, and the need of France and Germany to reaffirm faith in the project of ever closer union at a time of major divisions of opinion on that goal. The UK’s dogged resistance to the project is rightly no more. It is better we leave than continue to oppose the central thrust of the project. Instead the Netherlands led a group of five so called frugal countries who object strongly to a larger budget and to sharing their tax revenues with poorer nations. Two of them have also refused to join the Euro, seeing how that takes you a long way on the road to European integration. Denmark has a legal opt out from Euro membership, whilst Sweden simply declines to meet the Treaty obligation to join.

The Commission has used the Covid 19 damage as a means to lever a bigger budget out of the member states, to be applied to the priorities of the Commission as set out before the pandemic intervened. The overriding priority is to push the Green Revolution. The favoured example of a project suitable for funding is 1 million electric vehicle charger points around the EU. To bring that about individual member states will need to incorporate national roll out of such points in their National Plans and submit them to the EU for money.

Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Could we make a study of essential technologies where dependence on China would leave us very vulnerable and then have a strategy for developing those at home or with our allies?

The Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Dominic Raab): My right hon. Friend is right, particularly in relation to 5G, but there are the other areas, and that is exactly what we are doing.

The government has recently issued a White Paper setting out how the UK’s single market and customs union will work as we leave the EU’s single market and customs union.

The legal powers for our single market stem from the original laws and terms of the Union, and from the removal of the EU powers under the EU Withdrawal Act. The White Paper reminds us of the fundamental principles of the UK market, which rests on the principle that any company can supply goods and services throughout the UK. High standards will be maintained by UK laws and regulations.

The government proposes “enshrining the principle of mutual recognition into law” ensuring regulations are recognised across the UK. It also wishes to repeat in law the principle of non discrimination so companies can trade freely throughout the UK.

These issues will be contested by the SNP. Ever keen to bind us into common rules and laws with the EU in the name of their single market, they will doubtless oppose similar rules and regulations at UK level. Given their belief that they needed the common rules to carry on selling into the EU, they should be more worried about their ability to sell into the rest of the UK and grateful for legal reassurance offered by the Union government. Scotland sells more to the rest of the UK than to the rest of world together and more than to the whole EU of course.

The government needs to ask how much legislation it actually needs to continue these trading practises and principles, that pre dated our membership of the EU.

The government is offering more powers to devolved Administrations as we reclaim powers from the EU. As the White Paper says they will respect devolution, ensuring the devolved administrations “receive powers over many more policy areas than they currently hold as part of the EU, whilst ensuring that all intra UK trade remains frictionless”. There will be transfers of power in 160 policy areas, whilst ensuring common frameworks to keep the single market together.

How much further would you go with devolution? How should the government respond to an SNP that wishes to use these issues to drive a wedge into the Union?

The government has announced the National Funding formula figures for schools and constituencies. These figures tell us how much money the government has allocated per pupil and per school. Councils provide services to local schools and have some powers over the actual payments.

The Wokingham constituency is to get a 5.2% increase in cash , bringing the total to £87.16m. Per pupil funding averages £5.544 compared to a national minimum of £5150 for each secondary pupil, and £ 4364 compared to a national minimum of £4000 for each primary pupil. These figures are averages for schools in both the West Berkshire and Wokingham parts of the constituency.

There is also extra money for schools to allow catch up for the missed weeks of teaching for many pupils owing to the lock downs. This will be £80 per pupil.