British public sector workers such as teachers and doctors are set to receive inflation-busting pay rises worth 9.4 billion pounds ($12.1 billion) that will pressure the public purse but help avoid disruptive industrial action, the government said on Monday.
The new Labour government said it would make cuts to public spending in other areas, finance minister Rachel Reeves said as she blamed the previous Conservative administration for covering up the scale of the black hole in the public finances.
"I have today set out our decision to meet the recommendation of the pay review bodies, because the previous government failed to prepare for these recommendations in their departmental budgets," Reeves told parliament as she announced the pay rises.
"They come at an additional cost of 9 billion pounds this year," she said.
But the pay rises, based on the advice of independent pay review bodies, also seek to balance the pressure on public finances with the need to curb industrial unrest and address staff retention. Governments are not bound by the review bodies' recommendations although they have usually accepted them.
Strikes by doctors, nurses, teachers and civil servants over pay in the last two years have heaped pressure on vital public services including the state-funded NHS.
The Trades Union Congress, Britain's umbrella union body, warned in the run-up to this month's election of public sector strikes if the new government did not sufficiently raise workers' pay. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party won a landslide victory in the July 4 vote.
About 1.3 million NHS workers - including nurses and paramedics - and around 500,000 teachers will receive a pay rise of 5.5%.
Junior doctors, who have staged a series of strikes over pay since early last year, will receive an average 22.3% pay rise over two years.
Armed forces staff will receive 6%.
($1 = 0.7785 pounds)
