Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact on NHS Workforce productivity and moral of the salaries of Band 2 and Band 3 NHS employees in the Agenda for Change being below the National Living Wage.

On 12 February, we accepted the NHS Pay Review Body’s recommendation on headline pay for Agenda for Change staff, which resulted in a 3.3% consolidated pay uplift to all pay points. Band 2 staff in England saw their minimum basic full time pay increase to over £25,200. As a result, their entry level hourly rate now sits approximately 21p per hour above the National Living Wage for 2026/27.

The Government amended the Low Pay Commission’s remit to ensure they included an assessment of the cost of living when making recommendations on minimum wage rates.