The Prime Minister’s comments drew anger from unions, who said he was ‘completely out of touch’ with the challenges facing stretched public sector workers on the ground
Rishi Sunak claimed the Government wasn’t asking stretched public services to do “anything heroic” by demanding they work harder to help ministers find billions of pounds of savings.
The Prime Minister insisted public services, such as the NHS and town halls, must return to pre-pandemic levels of productivity, which the Tories believe could save £20 billion a year. But his comments drew anger from unions, who said he was "completely out of touch" with the challenges on the ground.
Speaking at the Commons Liaison Committee, Mr Sunak said: "So no one is asking anything heroic; it's just a return to where we were. Obviously the private sector has managed that, so just a return to where we were is worth £20 billion a year. We're going to grow public spending but we've got to focus on getting more out of the money that we've put in so that we can responsibly cut people's taxes."
Unison Assistant General Secretary Jon Richards told the Mirror: “The Prime Minister is completely out of touch. The pandemic backlog has piled on the pressure. And there are too few staff to meet the demands being made of super-stretched services. Health and council workers are already working above and beyond. Remarks like these could convince more to throw in the towel and head for jobs where they’ll be appreciated better."
Rachel Harrison GMB National Secretary, said: “Public sector workers are already desperately overworked, underpaid and still recovering from harrowing effects of global pandemic- asking for more from them is a sick joke. The PM doesn’t live in the real world – his government trashed this countries economy and cut the heart out of public services – asking hard up workers to dig him out of the hole is an absolute liberty.”
Mr Sunak also denied there was a "crisis" in local government funding, despite councils like Birmingham, Nottingham and Woking going bust last year. In a tetchy exchange, Labour MP Clive Betts pointed out that councils' spending power has been slashed by 30% since 2010.
Mr Sunak retorted: "I wouldn't characterise it that way. Of course there are challenges, particularly with inflation, which is why… the overriding economic priority of the Government was to bring inflation down because that will help local councils with their finances too, as well as helping families up and down the country.”
During the 90-minute grilling, Mr Sunak reaffirmed his commitment to the pensions triple lock, saying it would be affordable to keep it in place for the whole of the next Parliament. But he also came under pressure over the divisive Rwanda deportations plan, which is currently tied up in the Lords. He refused to say whether the Government had struck a deal with an airline to carry out deportation flights – despite No10’s insistence that these could still go ahead in the Spring.
The PM also mocked his predecessor Liz Truss's claims she had been undermined by the "deep state". "I probably wouldn’t tell you if I was [a member]," he said.
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