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.

Mr Dowd went on to say that the announcement represents a further real-terms pay cut after eight years of the same.

The pay increase includes 2.75 per cent for prison officers, 3.5 per cent for teachers, 2.9 per cent for the armed forces, and 2 per cent for police, junior doctors, general practitioners and dentists.

The scrapping of the 1 per cent cap has raised concern among unions, which have been campaigning for a 5 per cent pay rise, about wage imbalances and potential divide-and-rule tactics by the Tories.

NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said that ministers will need to explain “why some teachers deserve less than others” and end the culture of “only paying teachers what they can get away with.”

Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon hit out at the “exodus of experienced prison staff” caused by real-terms pay cuts, saying that this pay rise “is not going to reverse that.”

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth also called on the government to offer a “sustainable pay deal” which recruits more doctors into the NHS workforce, as well as urging an end to the “mismanagement” of the NHS.

Unite national officer Jim Kennedy said: “Prison and probation staff have seen their pay packets shrink by thousands of pounds in real terms while their jobs have become harder and in some case nigh on impossible because of Tory cuts and austerity.”

Unite national officer for health Sarah Carpenter said: “There is huge anger among doctors in England … The announcement will do little to boost flagging morale.

“Doctors have just had enough and feel they can no longer safely care for their patients.”

Over the last decade, consultants have seen their earnings shrink by 19 per cent, GPs by 20 per cent while junior doctors have experienced a 21 per cent drop — she added.