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Tory ministers are ‘running out of excuses’ on public sector pay as treasury announces £5bn budget surplus
Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital, central London, as nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland take industrial action over pay. Picture date: Tuesday December 20, 2022.
TORY ministers are “running out of excuses” on public-sector pay, the TUC charged today after the Treasury announced an unexpected income tax surplus of more than £5 billion last month.
Every January, the government tends to take more in tax than it spends in other months due to the amount it receives in self-assessed taxes, according to the Office for National Statistics.
But the highest self-assessed income tax receipts since records began in 1999 meant Whitehall spent less than it received in tax, leaving a whopping £5.4bn surplus.
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