MoD: Royal Navy, British Army and RAF troops to receive above inflation pay rise from Labour government

Troops from the Royal Navy, British Army and RAF will get a six per cent bump in their salaries following an announcement in the House of Commons today. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has issued a raft of pay increases for public sector workers.

This includes a 5.5 per cent boost for teachers and nurses, five per cent for prison service workers and 4.75 per cent for police personnel. Junior doctors will be handed a 20 per cent hike over two years in a bid to resolve their long-running pay dispute and end strikes.

In response to Labour MP Jon Trickett, who welcomed and praised the public sector pay programme and criticised the Conservatives’ “crazy austerity ideological programme”, Ms Reaves said: “I think that we do owe it to our armed forces, our prison officers, our police forces, our nurses and our teachers to reward them properly for the work that they do, and that’s what we did today in implementing in full the recommendations of the pay review bodies.

“I would also echo the views of (Mr Trickett) that a return to austerity would be no way to run our economy. It resulted in growth haemorrhaging in the last parliament and all the damage that did both to living standards and money for public services.”

Paul Nowak, general secretary of the TUC union, said: “Her approach stands in stark contrast to the previous government, who played political games with the pay review bodies. I hope this is the crucial first step in dealing with the recruitment and retention crisis blighting our schools and hospitals. And it will need to be accompanied by a long-term plan for the public sector workforce.”

The cabinet minister was challenged in parliament after claiming that the Conservatives left a £22bn black hole in the public finances, which the shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt described as “fictitious”. He added: “She’s caved into the unions on pay, left welfare reform out of the King’s Speech, soft-pedalled on our productivity programme, and that is a choice, not a necessity.”

Spending cutbacks have been announced such as the scrapping plans to reform the social care system and cutting the winter fuel allowance for pensioners not receiving benefits. The next budget is scheduled for October 30.