London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Backlash after Bank boss says don't ask for big pay rise

Backlash after Bank boss says don't ask for big pay rise

Unions have reacted with fury after the Bank of England boss urged workers not to ask for big pay rises, to help stop prices rising out of control.

Andrew Bailey told the BBC wage rises needed to be moderate with firms showing "restraint" in pay talks.

When asked whether the Bank was asking workers not to demand big pay rises, Mr Bailey, said: "Broadly, yes."

Downing Street and the Treasury distanced themselves from Mr Bailey's comments.

The GMB union branded the comments a "sick joke", while the TUC said calls for pay restraint were "ill-founded".

"Telling the hard-working people who carried this country through the pandemic they don't deserve a pay rise is outrageous. It's a sick joke," said Gary Smith, GMB's general secretary.

TUC head of economics Kate Bell said increasing pay at a slower rate would "make the squeeze on family budgets even tighter".

"Energy prices are pushing up inflation - not wage demands. Britain needs a pay rise - not another decade of lost pay and living standards," she added.

And Unite lead Sharon Graham said workers did not need "lectures" from Mr Bailey "on exercising pay restraint".

"Let's be clear, pay restraint is nothing more than a call for a national pay cut."

When asked about Mr Bailey's comments, the prime minister's official spokesman said: "Well, it's not something the prime minister is calling for. We obviously want a high growth economy and we want people's wages to increase."

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said on Thursday that it was not his job to set private sector wages, and that the right way to achieve higher wages was through greater productivity.

Inflation, the rate at which prices are rising, is on course to rise above 7% this year and average close to 6% in 2022.

This means prices are expected to climb faster than pay, putting the biggest squeeze on household finances in decades, with workers set to experience the biggest hit to their take-home income since 1990.

Workers are currently getting pay rises of just below 5% on average.

Mr Bailey was paid £575,538 including pension, in the year from 1 March 2020, more than 18 times higher the median annual pay of £31,285 for full-time employees.

He said that while it would be "painful" for workers to accept that prices would rise faster than their wages, he added that some "moderation of wage rises" was needed to prevent the rise in the cost of living becoming entrenched.

"I'm not saying don't give yourself a pay rise. This is about the size of it [any rise]... we do need to see restraint," he added.

The Treasury supported Mr Bailey, with chief secretary Simon Clarke saying it was "important that pay restraint is observed".

The boss of British Gas owner Centrica, Chris O'Shea, told the BBC he could see both sides.

"If this is a temporary spike in inflation and wages rise to meet that temporary spike, then the people paying those wages have to pass on that cost and that's where you get into the wage price inflation spiral.

"But if you are trying to figure out how to pay for your groceries at Aldi, then its not enough to sit and say well I'm not going to do this... you are worried about paying your bills, you're worried about feeding your family, you're worried about heating your home. "


Meanwhile, the High Pay Centre think tank said Mr Bailey's comments "while not ill intentioned" were "frankly absurd" and "insulting".

It said the cost of living hike followed more than a decade of wages stagnating, during which the top executives were paid 86 times more than the average worker.

"It's time that those with the broadest shoulders genuinely start to take on more of the burden of the economic challenges we face," it said.

Certain industries and professions are seeing bigger pay increases due to labour shortages. For example, lorry drivers, who are in high demand, have received wage hikes of up to 20%.

Olaf Dziewirz, transport manager at haulage firm The Best Solutions Hull, told the BBC he increased the wages of his lorry drivers twice last year to retain his 34-strong workforce and attract new drivers.

In total, his drivers received a £7,000 rise, taking average salaries to £39,000 a year and pushing up what his business spends on wages to between 30% to 40% of its total costs.

Mr Dziewirz said "big blue chip companies" were paying "extremely big amounts", especially in the run-up to Christmas, with some offering as much as £44 an hour.

He said his firm's wage rises had been covered by increasing its prices, but added "ultimately it [the cost] comes back to the end consumer".

'Difficult period'


Mr Bailey said the rise in living costs would not ease until next year, with the UK facing a "difficult period" ahead.

"We're going to start coming out of it in 2023, and two years from now, we expect inflation back to a more stable position," he added.

The Bank increased interest rates from 0.25% to 0.5% on Thursday, the same day millions of households were informed they will have to pay an extra £693 a year on energy bills from April.

Rising gas and electricity costs are the main factors pushing up prices across the economy.

The rise in energy bills has led the government to announce measures to cut energy costs for many households by £350 through a combination of rebates and council tax cuts to ease the impact.

However, Mike Brewer, chief economist at the Resolution Foundation, said by not targeting "families most in need of support, and by trying to minimise the cost of support to the public purse", households would still face significant bill rises and higher bills "for many years to come".

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said on Thursday that it was "not sustainable to keep holding the price of energy artificially low".

"For me to stand here and pretend we don't have to adjust to paying higher prices would be wrong and dishonest," he said.


Bank of England boss: 'Don’t ask for a big pay rise'


Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×