{"id":33783,"date":"2024-07-21T07:56:05","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T11:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/britains-treasury-chief-vows-to-run-the-economy-with-iron-discipline-amid-demands-for-pay-raises\/21\/07\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-07-21T07:56:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T11:56:05","slug":"britains-treasury-chief-vows-to-run-the-economy-with-iron-discipline-amid-demands-for-pay-raises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/britains-treasury-chief-vows-to-run-the-economy-with-iron-discipline-amid-demands-for-pay-raises\/21\/07\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain’s Treasury chief vows to run the economy with ‘iron discipline’ amid demands for pay raises"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LONDON (AP) \u2014 Britain\u2019s new Treasury chief<\/a> said Sunday she will run the economy with \u201ciron discipline,\u201d but suggested she\u2019ll give public sector workers an above-inflation pay raise to help end a wave of strikes<\/a> and strife.<\/p>\n

The Labour Party government<\/a> is under pressure from supporters and trade unions to spend more on salaries and welfare benefits, two weeks after it was elected on promises not to hike personal taxes or increase public borrowing,<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people know that things are a mess,\u201d Treasury chief Rachel Reeves<\/a><\/span><\/span> told the BBC, arguing the previous Conservative government had left \u201cpublic services on their knees, a tax burden at a 70-year high, debt almost the same size as our entire economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to level with people about the scale of the challenge and then begin to fix the foundations,\u201d she said. \u201cI am going to run our economy with iron discipline, bringing stability back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The center-left Labour Party won a landslide election victory<\/a> on July 4 on a promise to get the U.K.\u2019s sluggish economy growing, unleash a wave of housebuilding and green energy projects and patch the country\u2019s frayed public services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It faces a wary, weary electorate eager for relief from a cost-of-living squeeze<\/a> that saw interest rates top 11% in late 2022 after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and the tax-cutting plans of briefly serving Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss.<\/p>\n

Inflation has fallen back to 2%, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s<\/a> government wants to settle strikes by thousands of hospital doctors that have put more strain on the creaking state-funded National Health Service. Nurses, teachers, railway staff and other public-sector workers have also held walkouts over the past year to demand higher pay.<\/p>\n

The Times of London reported that the independent bodies that advise on public sector pay had recommended a 5.5% raise for teachers and around 1.3 million NHS employees. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, said that could cost the government 3 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) more than it had budgeted for.<\/p>\n

Reeves, the country\u2019s first female chancellor of the exchequer, said the government was looking at the recommendations and would find a way to give workers a raise and \u201cmake the sums add up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a cost to not settling, a cost of further industrial action, a cost in terms of the challenge that we face in recruiting, retaining doctors, nurses and teachers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The government is also under pressure from anti-poverty groups and many Labour lawmakers to scrap a policy introduced by the Conservatives that limits a widely-paid welfare benefit and tax credit to a family\u2019s first two children. The new government says it can\u2019t afford to abolish the two-child cap.<\/p>\n

Conservative lawmaker Jeremy Hunt, Reeves\u2019 predecessor as Treasury chief, said it was \u201cabsolute nonsense\u201d to claim his party had left the economy in the worst state in decades after its 14 years in office.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe wants to lay the ground for tax rises,\u201d he said of Reeves. \u201cShe should have been honest about that before the election.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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LONDON (AP) — Britain’s new Treasury chief said Sunday she will run the economy with “iron discipline,” but suggested she’ll give public