Migrants, including young children, walk up the beach in Dungeness, Kent, after being brought ashore by the RNLI (Picture: PA)
Pay increases for public sector workers will be partly funded by raising the fees migrants pay to access the NHS and make visa applications.
In the wake of months of strikes, Rishi Sunak confirmed teachers will be given a 6.5 per cent pay rise, while junior doctors will receive a six per cent rise.
Police officers, who are banned from taking strike action, will receive the biggest uplift with a seven per cent increase.
When asked how it will be funded, the prime minister said: ‘What we have done are two things to find this money.
‘The first is we’re going to increase the charges that we have for migrants who are coming to this country when they apply for visas.
‘And indeed, something called the immigration health surcharge, which is the levy that they pay to access the NHS.
‘So all of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over a billion pounds.’
At the Downing Street press conference, Mr Sunak said today’s offer was ‘final’, adding: ‘There will be no more talks on pay.
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An inflatable craft carrying migrant men, women and children crosses the shipping lane in the English Channel (Picture: Getty)
‘We will not negotiate again on this year’s settlements and no amount of strikes will change our decision.’
But with no new borrowing to fund the deals, government departments will have to ‘reprioritise’ spending, Mr Sunak said – raising fears of cuts across public services.
It comes as junior doctors began a five-day walkout – the longest yet in England. Hospital consultants are also set to strike next week.
The PM called on the British Medical Association to help ‘make the NHS strong again’ by calling off the strikes.
‘The Government has not only made today’s decision on pay,’ he said. ‘We’ve backed the NHS with record funding, delivered the first ever, fully funded long-term workforce plan and met the BMA’s number one ask of government, with a pensions tax cut worth £1 billion.
‘So, we should all ask ourselves, whether union leaders – or indeed political leaders – how can it be right to continue disruptive industrial action?
‘Not least because these strikes lead to tens of thousands of appointments being cancelled – every single day and waiting lists going up, not down.’
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‘All of those fees are going to go up and that will raise over a billion pounds,’ Rishi Sunak said.
