Matt Hancock is pushing to increase statutory sick pay from £98.85 a week in a bid to create a healthier nation, it has emerged.
The Health Secretary wants to help workers take time off if they are ill after previously admitting he could not live on the current rate of sick pay, The Times reports.
He argued increasing pay would help boost the economy by keeping people healthy while speaking at a meeting of the government’s Covid-operations committee this week
But the move is thought to be opposed by the Treasury, who are concerned about the cost to employers.
This time last year the Government enacted legislation allowing people to claim statutory sick pay from the first day of illness rather than the previous fourth day in order to stop people coming into work when unwell at the start of the pandemic.
I m looking forward to Wednesday s grilling of NS&I s top brass by members of the powerful Treasury Select Committee over their calamitous running of the Government s savings bank.
It should make for entertaining viewing as the executives, led by chief honcho Ian Ackerley, are made to squirm.
As we have reported extensively in recent months, NS&I was inundated with complaints last year as the quality of its customer service plunged to depths that even deep sea divers would avoid.
Phones weren t answered, letters weren t responded to promptly and promises to customers were not kept.
Pig s ear: NS&I was inundated with complaints last year as the quality of its customer service plunged
Boris Johnson during Prime Minister s Questions in the House of Commons
If PMQs told us anything, it was that both Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson realise just how politically toxic it would be if nurses really do get a 1% pay rise. The Labour leader used all six of his questions on the topic, ramming home his new soundbite “the mask really is slipping” from the Tories’ claims to be the party of the NHS. No wonder his local election campaign on Thursday will have the slogan “a vote for Labour is a vote to support our nurses”.
Starmer is smart enough to know too that he will become Captain Foresight if the PM is indeed forced to U-turn on the pay offer. And in the most interesting bit of the exchanges, Johnson hinted strongly at that change of tack, saying: “Of course, we will look at what the independent pay review body has to say, exceptionally, about the nursing profession, whom we particularly value.”