During an Urgent Question to the Minister in the House of Commons on Monday regarding nurses' pay, Richard said that hundreds of thousands had lost their jobs during the pandemic and millions had been furloughed and they and small businesses will be looking to the government for support.
Richard said: "I wanted to highlight during the exchanges that the government's has to balance all of the many calls on the taxpayer and the NHS Pay Review Body will come back with a recommendation on nurses' pay."
"Due to the challenging economic environment, the government made the tough decision to freeze pay rises for the majority of the public sector workers this year but are continuing to provide pay rises for NHS workers, on top of a £513 million investment in professional development and increased recruitment. Over one million NHS staff will continue to benefit from multi-year pay deals agreed with trade unions, which have delivered a pay rise of over 12 per cent for newly qualified nurses and will increase junior doctors’ pay scales by 8.2 per cent."
It is expected that the independent pay review bodies will issue their report in late Spring and the government will consider their recommendations carefully.
