Fuming Tory MPs slam Liz Truss’s civil service shake-up plan as a ‘terrible idea’ and anti-levelling up

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FURIOUS Tory MPs have lashed out at plans by Liz Truss to link public sector pay to the regional location of workers.

Yesterday the wannabe PM vowed to cut down on Whitehall waste by making £8.8 billion of savings in the civil service.

Liz Truss’s plans to cut down on Whitehall waste have been slammed as anti-levelling up

Liz Truss has pledged to replace national pay scales with regional ones

But to do that Ms Truss admitted she would replace civil servant national pay scales with regional pay boards.

The boards would determine pay-packets based on the standards of living in local areas where civil servants reside.

This morning Tory MPs slammed the idea as anti-levelling up, arguing it would widen regional inequality and punish hard-up Brits in deprived areas the most.

A Rishi Sunak campaign source told HOAR: “You can imagine this on the Labour and Lib Dem leaflets in a general election. It’s going to cost a lot of votes.”

Critics pointed out that in order to make the £8.8 billion of savings Ms Truss promised, she would have to slash the pay of public sector workers beyond the civil service too.

The Foreign Secretary’s opponents argued millions of heroic nurses, police officers and members of the armed forces would have their pay-packets cut by a whopping £1,500.

But Ms Truss’s team hit back, categorically denying the leadership hopeful’s plan involves any cuts to public sector pay.

A spokesperson for Liz Truss said: “Over the last few hours there has been a wilful misrepresentation of our campaign.

“Current levels of public sector pay will absolutely be maintained. Anything to suggest otherwise is simply wrong.”

Conservative poster boy for levelling up, Ben Houchen, slammed Ms Truss’s idea as a “ticking time bomb that will explode ahead of the next general election”.

The Tees Valley Mayor said: “There is simply no way you can do this without a massive pay cut for 5.5m people including nurses, police officers and our armed forces outside London.

“Liz Truss’s campaign is explicit that their savings target is only possible ‘if the system were to be adopted for all public sector workers’.”

Tory MP Steve Double said: “This is a terrible idea and would be hugely damaging to public services in Cornwall where we already struggle to recruit NHS staff.”

Labour and trade unions also joined in the avalanche of condemnation this morning.

They said Ms Truss’s plan would leading to a £7.1 billion hit to local economies in Yorkshire, the North and the Midlands.

Angela Rayner said: “Liz Truss is utterly out of touch with the British public. Her fantasy plan would hammer the north and slash the pay of nurses, teachers, and police officers facing the biggest cost of living crisis in a generation.

“If Liz Truss is handed the keys to Number 10, workers outside the M25 will see their pay levelled down as she kicks out the ladder.”

Did you miss our previous article…
https://hellofaread.com/politics/a-third-of-tories-would-vote-for-boris-johnson-to-be-leader-again-despite-slew-of-scandals-which-prompted-brutal-coup/