Theresa May secretly agrees to end public sector pay cap as senior Tory MPs march on No10
Posse of senior Conservatives were told the 1 per cent limit will end to give five million state workers’ pay a decent hike
THERESA May has secretly agreed to end the public sector pay cap after 20 senior Tory MPs marched on No10, The Sun can reveal.
Amid a bitter Cabinet row, the PM and her Chancellor have publicly insisted the 1% cap on state wage rises until 2019 will stay.
But during a secret meeting with Mrs May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwell, the posse of senior Conservatives were told the duo WILL end it to give five million state workers’ pay a decent hike.
They were also told the announcement will come later in the year, so the PM is not seen to be giving in to “Comrade Corbyn”.
The delegation - which included at least three ex-ministers and a former party chairman – demanded the showdown on Wednesday afternoon.
Among the group were ex-Tory chair Grant Shapps, the PM’s policy board chief George Freeman and former justice minister Andrew Selous.
One MP at the meeting told The Sun: “Gavin told us that the PM completely accepts there needs to be some big changes of style and tone, but she can’t be seen to be pushed around by Comrade Corbyn.
“Instead, she and Hammond will invite the pay review bodies to come back with bigger settlements in due course.
“We all came away very happy with what we heard.”
Under the PM’s plan, ministers will quietly tell pay review bodies who scrutinise state wages every year that they are now free to recommend rises above 1%.
The Chancellor will then announce it during his Budget in the Autumn.
In total, more than 40 backbench Tory MPs have now told No10 and the Treasury they want the seven year cap on the pay of nurses, soldiers and cops to end.
The rebellion is the most serious threat yet to the weakened PM’s authority since her general election disaster.
As Mrs May only has a working majority of 13 after her deal with the DUP, the rebel group can comfortably force through their demands by a Commons vote.
Publicly yesterday, Mr Hammond was still standing by the cap, as he again insisted that there was “no change in the government’s position”.
But in a hint over the U-turn ahead, the Chancellor also told the Commons: “Our pay policy has always been designed to strike the right balance of being fair to our public servants and fair to those who pay for them.
“That approach has not changed, and we continually assess that balance.”
Mr Shapps told The Sun last night: “We’re all fed-up with austerity, but we must learn the right lessons from this election.
“We lost because we offered people a long list of punishments, rather than hope and failed to fight for better livelihoods for everyone from the hospital nurse to the aspirational small business owner.”
Downing Street has argued that the pay cap has protected hundreds of thousands of state jobs.
Other Tory backbenchers also spoke out on the tinderbox issue yesterday.
One, Johnny Mercer, vowed: “I will persistently be a loud voice to remove the public sector pay cap for frontline workers”.
Another, Tom Tugendhat, added: “This is a matter for the budget not the Queen’s Speech. I’ve spoken to the Chancellor about it”.