Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the government of France's decision to allocate eight billion euros for a pay increase for healthcare workers who have worked during the COVID-19 pandemic; whether they plan to do the same; and if not, why not.

This Government has already invested the largest cash settlement in the National Health Service’s history by backing the NHS Funding Act 2020 as well as clearing billions of pounds worth of NHS debt for NHS trusts, and the Government is committed to ensuring the NHS will continue to receive whatever it needs to respond to COVID-19.

Over one million NHS staff are already benefitting from multi-year pay and contract reform deals which have seen the starting pay for a nurse rise by over 12% and the lowest paid in the NHS increase by over 16%.

On 21 July, the Government announced that it had accepted in full the recommendation of the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration for a 2.8% pay rise, back dated to April 2020 for consultants, specialty doctors, salaried general practitioners and dentists.

For 2020/21 we expect to rely on the independent Pay Review Bodies. The Review Body process is the established independent mechanism for pay recommendations for public sector workforces. The NHS Pay Review Body will return to making pay recommendations for NHS staff within its remit group in 2021 and the Government will carefully consider these recommendations when we receive them.