No blank cheques for trade unions over pay, says Reeves

Junior doctors have been offered a rise worth 22% over two years, which if accepted would bring an end to industrial action from the BMA union that has seen hundreds of thousands of appointments cancelled since March 2023.

Train drivers in the Aslef union have been offered a three-year deal, including a 5% backdated pay rise for 2022/23, a 4.75% rise last year and 4.5% this year.

The new Labour government has also dropped attempts by the previous Tory administration to change drivers’ working practices as part of the deal, which could end more than two years of walkouts on the railways.

Those two deals followed a decision last month to accept a series of above-inflation rises of around 5.5-6% for other public sector workers recommended by official pay review bodies.

The Treasury has estimated that those deals will cost an extra £11.6bn more than budgeted for by the last government, which had allocated cash for rises of 2%.

But in her Guardian interview, Ms Reeves said there were “massive recruitment and retention problems” in the public sector, and not accepting the recommendations would have been “very damaging”.