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Philip Hammond to announce pay boost for nurses in Budget amid pressure from Cabinet
Philip Hammond is preparing to announce a cash boost for the NHS as part of a bid to take on Labour and face down his critics, the Telegraph understands.
The Chancellor will use this week’s Budget to offer a pay rise to nurses, following pressure from Cabinet colleagues and Conservative MPs, and the threat of winter strikes if he fails to issue a “positive signal” to NHS staff.
The policy will be part of a set of announcements, also including a broad sweep of measures to increase house building, which Mr Hammond hopes will meet Jeremy Corbyn’s party on key battlegrounds and head off growing disquiet in the Cabinet and No 10 over his chancellorship.
The disclosure comes as Cabinet sources warned on Saturday that the Chancellor had to address the key areas of education and the NHS in order to address public concerns that MPs have already made clear to Mr Hammond were fatal to the party in many constituencies in June’s election.
Separately, in her first media intervention since stepping down from the Cabinet, Priti Patel today voices a view shared by a series of senior Eurosceptics that the Chancellor should use the Budget to set out a “clear” and “positive” plan for post-Brexit Britain.
Writing in the Telegraph, the former international development secretary states that making the most of the opportunities provided by the vote mean “being positive, bold and dynamic, with a clear plan for a clear vision of a successful country and economy – an approach I hope will underpin this week’s Budget”.
Lord Lamont, the former chancellor, also said it was important to “be positive about Brexit”.
He said: “Whether Brexit is a success doesn’t depend on Brexit, it depends on what we do with it.”
Mr Hammond also announces reforms for on-road testing of driverless cars to put the vehicles on UK roads by 2021, as part of plans to “build an economy fit for the future”.
Furthermore, there will be funding for new 5G mobile networks, artificial intelligence, and a “retraining partnership” between trade unions and the CBI.
Other measures are expected to include the package on house building, which could benefit from a £5 billion boost to the Government’s balance sheet afforded by a technical change in the accounting status of housing associations.
Mr Hammond is also expected to announce a reduction in the waiting period for Universal Credit payments from six weeks to around four.
A Cabinet source said of this weekend’s announcements: “Plastics taxes are great but people care about the NHS and education. That’s where Labour will attack us and we need to show we know those are two of the things that are most important to people’s lives.”
The Chancellor is understood to be preparing to announce that new funds to boost nurses’ pay will be put aside in order to meet the recommendations of a formal review body that will report next year.
The Royal College of Nursing is demanding a 3.9 per cent rise. A rise of 3 per cent is likely to cost an extra billion pounds.
Mr Hammond’s plan to announce a pay increase for NHS nurses follows intense pressure from Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, and Tory MPs including Sarah Wollaston, the chairman of the health select committee, and Maria Caulfield, a practicing nurse.
MPs have warned that in some areas the seven-year public sector pay freeze was a significant factor in the party’s general election defeat.
An increase was announced for police and prison officers in September and the Royal College of Nursing has threatened to hold strike ballot discussions “within days” of the Budget if Mr Hammond does not issue a “positive signal” about raising their pay above the rate of inflation when the NHS Pay Review Body issues recommendations in the Spring.
Mr Hunt told MPs in October that the pay freeze “wasn’t sustainable” and would come to an end next year.
Dr Wollaston and Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, have warned that an increase must be paid for by the Treasury, rather than attempt to find it from within stretched health service budgets.