Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of restoring the pay of junior doctors to a level equivalent in real terms to the pay they received in 2008.

Junior Doctors are in a pre-existing multi-year pay and contract reform deal, which ends in March 2023. The upcoming pay round is the appropriate time to discuss pay after the multi-year deal ends.

Outside of multi-year agreements, the independent pay review body (PRB) process is the established mechanism for developing pay recommendations. PRBs are made up of industry experts who carefully consider evidence submitted to them from a range of stakeholders, including government and trade unions. They base their recommendations on several factors including the economic context, cost of living, recruitment and retention, morale, and motivation of NHS staff.