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Rishi Sunak has insisted that there will be no return to austerity in his spending review next week.
Faced with the job of balancing the UK’s books in the clutches of the coronavirus pandemic, the chancellor told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “You won’t see austerity next week.
“What you will see is an increase in government spending on daily public services and a fairly significant one, in addition to the increase we had last year.”
He did not deny reports that he could impose a salary cap on millions of public sector workersbut he said decisions had to be made “in the context of the broader economic climate. “
“I think it would be fair to also think about what is happening with wages, with jobs, with hours, throughout the economy when we think about what is right in the public sector,” he said.
Unions have reacted angrily to the reports, although front-line NHS doctors and nurses are expected to be exempt.
It comes as the chancellor was prepared to present a £ 3bn new spending package to help the NHS recover from the pandemic in the next spending review.
The NHS will get £ 1 billion to address delays by catching up on checks, scans and operations that were delayed by COVID-19.
Around £ 1.5 billion will be used to alleviate the pressures on the health service and £ 500 million will help support mental health services.
Mr Sunak will also release the long overdue National Infrastructure Strategy for £ 100bn of long-term spending to help tackle the climate crisis and invest in transport.
In addition, it will also announce changes to the Treasury “green book”, a set of rules for determining the value of government plans believed to favor London and the south-east of England.
