Liz Truss disowns plan to cut public sector pay outside London

Liz Truss has been forced to U-turn on plans to cut civil service pay outside London after a furious outcry from Conservative MPs and the Conservative Tees Valley mayor.

A spokesman for her leadership campaign said there had been a “wilful misrepresentation of our campaign” but confirmed she was abandoning plans for regional pay boards for civil servants or public sector workers.

“Red wall” MPs including Jacob Young and Richard Holden raised alarm at the policy announced overnight, as well as former cabinet minister Simon Hart, who said it would amount to cuts of nearly £3,000 for workers in Wales.

Her opponent Rishi Sunak’s campaign said the £8.8 billion in savings on pay outside London touted in a release by Truss on Monday night could only be made with cuts across the whole public sector, including teachers, nurses and the armed forces, estimating an average of about £1,500 (about €1,800) each for employees outside southeast England.

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[ Penny Mordaunt backs Liz Truss in contest to be next Tory leader ]

By midday on Tuesday, Truss’s campaign admitted it would ditch the plan and said it had not been the intention to cut pay.

“Current levels of public sector pay will absolutely be maintained,” a Truss spokesperson said. “Anything to suggest otherwise is simply wrong.

“Our hardworking frontline staff are the bedrock of society and there will be no proposal taken forward on regional pay boards for civil servants or public sector workers.”

Big gaffe

The first big gaffe of the campaign from Truss, who is the favourite to win the race, delighted some MPs supporting Sunak — with one calling it her “dementia tax moment”, referencing the time former Conservative prime minister Theresa May was forced to U-turn on her social care policy.

After the policy was announced overnight, Ben Houchen, Tees Valley mayor and a backer of Rishi Sunak, said there was no way the figure could be achieved without pay cuts outside London that would hit “levelling up”.

“Actually speechless,” he tweeted. “There is simply no way you can do this without a massive pay cut for 5.5 million people including nurses, police officers and our armed forces outside London. So much that we’ve worked for in places like Teesside would be undone.”

Holden, the MP for North West Durham, said Truss must “dump the policy” saying the only way savings could be achieved would be pay cuts for doctors and nurses and police officers. Chris Clarkson, the MP for Heywood and Middleton, said: “I’m not sure a promise to cut people’s pay based on where they live will survive first contact with focus groups, let alone reality.”

Young, the MP for Redcar, tweeted: “Doubt this is the vision of ‘hope’ Penny Mordaunt spoke about yesterday ... Hope for Northerners’ pay being cut? [Truss] needs to row back from this policy urgently.”

Mr Sunak has narrowed the gap with Ms Truss in the leadership race, with the foreign secretary leading by only five points in the latest poll of members.

The former chancellor’s campaign team have stressed in recent days that they are finding a much tighter race on the ground than the most recent YouGov poll suggested a fortnight ago, which gave Truss a 24-point lead.

The latest poll was conducted by Techne for a private client but data tables have been released for the poll of 807 Conservative members. — Guardian