LABOUR has called the Tory public-sector pay rise announced today a “mendacious” PR stunt and unions accused the government of paying workers “what they can get away with.”

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss said that the government was implementing the largest pay rise for British workers in almost a decade, after scrapping the 1 per cent pay cap for around one million workers.

However, Labour shadow Treasury minister Peter Dowd attacked the government’s “slash-and-burn” pay policy, accusing the Tories of doing “nothing to repair damage” caused by years of pay restraint.