Teachers are right to argue for a better deal, says shadow education secretary

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson says a compromise in the teachers’ pay dispute could be “somewhere in the middle” of the 12% rise demanded by staff and the 5% offered by Government. The Government has offered teachers pay awards of between 5% and 8.9%, depending on their position, but education workers say this is nowhere near enough to address a real-terms pay cut and the impact of inflation running at more than 10%. Pressed on where the compromise should be reached on the scale between 5% and 12%, Bridget Phillipson told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “It’s often somewhere in the middle and that’s why it’s a process of negotiation about pay but also about terms and conditions.”