Independent pay review bodies have reportedly told ministers millions of public sector workers should be given a 5.5% increase in pay.
The proposed above-inflation increase for teachers and around 1.3 million NHS staff, reported by The Times, is well above the figure the government is thought to have been preparing for.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government could need up to £10bn to cover such a pay increase if all public sector workers were given the 5.5% rise, an economist has warned.
There are more than 500,000 teachers in the UK.
At present, the government is believed to have budgeted for an increase of somewhere between 1% and 3%, with inflation currently at 2%.
Paul Johnson, the director of the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies, said he was “not terribly surprised” by the figure, which would be in line with pay rises across the economy and would cost an extra £3bn for schools and the NHS alone.
“In terms of the cost, there isn’t a specific number that is budgeted for schools, it’s probably 1 or 2%, it’s certainly nothing like 5.5%, so we’d certainly be looking at at least an additional £1bn on schools’ costs relative to what they’re currently expecting,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.
“And a number at least double that across the NHS if the proposals for the NHS are similar, which it appears that they might be.”
An increased pay rise could pose a significant challenge to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s first budget, which is likely to come in the autumn. Labour had promised to control borrowing and ruled out a string of tax rises during the election campaign.
Schools and hospitals are unlikely to be able to meet the 5.5% pay rise from their existing budgets without making cuts elsewhere.
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