MPs in move to make Osborne keep his word on rises for low-paid

Published on Sunday 3 July 2011 17:04

A LABOUR MP will today attempt to amend the government's Finance Bill to force Chancellor George Osborne to make good on a promise to give the lowest-paid public sector workers a £250 pay rise.

In his emergency Budget a month after taking office last year, Mr Osborne imposed a two-year pay freeze on public sector workers but promised those earning 21,000 or less would receive a flat pay rise of 250 in each of those years.

The Chancellor said the measure would benefit 1.7 million workers, but Labour MP Frank Field revealed he had unearthed official information suggesting only 715,000 were, in fact, getting the rise.

Backed by senior Labour MPs David Blunkett, John Mann and John McDonnell, Mr Field is tabling an amendment to the Finance Bill, which would reduce the tax liability of all public-sector workers earning less than 21,000 by 250 to ensure they get the extra money in their pay packets.

If selected by the Speaker and approved by MPs, the amendment could cost the Treasury 500 million.

In response to a parliamentary question from Mr Field, Treasury minister David Gauke recently revealed the flat pay rise would go only to workforces under ministerial control or that had their own pay review bodies, including civil servants, doctors and dentists, NHS staff, teachers, the armed forces and prison officers.

But the Birkenhead MP calculated this would mean about one million of the 1.7 million low-paid workers mentioned by Mr Osborne missing out.

Mr Field said: "'We are all in this together' has been the constant refrain of the coalition government. Yet here is a policy which could not be further away from this aim.

"Yet again, it is the lowest-paid workers in our society who are suffering.

"Today, MPs have the opportunity to secure the deal George Osborne made with low-paid public sector workers in his first Budget.

"I hope they embrace the opportunity and vote for the amendment."

• A good work ethic is more important than skills in securing a first job, according to a report.

An overwhelming 82 per cent of employers rated attitude and work ethic as important when recruiting for "entry-level" posts, compared with only 38 per cent who named literacy and numeracy.

The report, from the Centre for Social Justice think tank, called for a fourth "R" - responsibility - to be added to schools' traditional core subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic.

The report found that poor work attitudes among the long-term jobless were the major barrier to tackling unemployment.