Liz Truss secretly plotted to hit public sector workers with a 'big stick' over pay

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A leaked recording of a private meeting with Treasury officials, obtained by the Mirror, has prompted Liz Truss to claim she adopted a "cynical and deliberate strategy" of preventing public opinion compensation from the sector

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Question Time: NHS worker expresses frustration over salary

Tory leadership hopeful Liz Truss has urged officials to “speak softly but carry a big stick” on public sector wages during her time as Treasury minister.

The former chief secretary said she wanted to make pay deals for nurses, teachers, soldiers and police "so complicated that no one knows what the overall figure is".

A leaked recording of a private meeting with Treasury officials, obtained by the Mirror, prompted claims that she had adopted a 'cynical and deliberate strategy' of maintaining public sector wages.

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Union leaders have criticized Ms Truss' 'smoke and mirrors' approach while hard-working civil servants have endured a brutal decade of pay cuts and freezes.

At the time of the recording in 2017, Theresa May's government had just announced that the 1% cap on public sector wage increases, in place since 2010, had been lifted.

Foreign Secretary and Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss walks outside Downing Street in London (

Picture:

REUTERS)

But Ms Truss told her aides the Treasury would always 'police' pay rises - although she warned them against being 'too explicit' about it via the budget.

The future prime minister has claimed in recent days that bigger increases in the latest pay cycle will lead to a “wage and price spiral” that will worsen inflation.

But in the recording, she said, "I think you go for softer policies that are tough, rather than tough policies that aren't.

"The main idea behind the change in how we look at the salary cap is that we're actually going to be controlling spending quite tightly through departmental budgets."