Public sector staff are due to receive a pay rise after working on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chancellor has announced.
Rishi Sunak has approved almost 900,000 payrises, which will affect doctors, teachers and police officers, after a tough few months for many.
The increase is above the inflation rate and will mean that teachers and doctors will see the biggest increase, at 3.1 percent and 2.8 percent respectively.
Also included in the announcement are police, prison officers and National Crime Agency staff, who will get a 2.5 percent rise in pay, and members of the armed forces will see a two percent uplift.
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However, a glaring omission from the new pay announcement are NHS nurses and social care staff. More than 300 members of the NHS have died from the deadly virus, a lot of whom were caring for patients when they caught it.
Nurses have been on a separate pay plan since 2018, which will be reviewed in 2021. This has seen all nurses receive pay increases of at least 6.5 percent since 2017/2018.
Care workers in the private sector - many of which work in residential care homes for the elderly - will not be included.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: "These past months have underlined what we always knew, that our public sector workers make a vital contribution to our country and that we can rely on them when we need them.
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"It's right therefore that we follow the recommendations of the independent pay bodies with this set of real-terms pay rises."
Members of the judiciary and senior civil servants will have their pay topped up by two percent.
The awards have been recommended by independent pay review organisations, with the Government choosing to accept them all this year.
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New wages will be backdated to April for the armed forces, prison officers, NHS staff and senior civil servants.
Police and teachers will have their new pay scales from September, as their pay schedule runs from September to August.
TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "These rises are welcome, but there's still a long way to go to restore pay after a decade of real terms cuts.
"Many public sector workers, like job centre staff and local government workers, aren't getting these rises. They deserve a decent pay settlement too.
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"And the Government should urgently announce a pay rise for social care workers, who put their lives on the line to care for others during this pandemic."
Featured Image Credit: PA