Brown: No blank cheques on pay

Gordon Brown will today deliver a grim message to the big public service unions that there can be "no blank cheques" on pay.

With nurses, doctors, teachers and others queuing up for double-digit awards, the Chancellor will give the strongest warning yet that the bulk of the extra billions pledged in his Budget must go on better services - not into pay packets.

Mr Brown is to lay down the law in a speech in London to one of the main public-sector unions, Unison.

The text of his speech declares: "Those of us who believe passionately in public services have a special responsibility to ensure their effectiveness. We understand that there can be no blank cheques, that the days of something for nothing are over in our public services."

Giving clear notice that any pay increases that do come through must be matched by reform, the Chancellor goes on: "We also know that we can only deliver world-class public services if strings are attached and we change, update and modernise to ensure that public services can best serve the public."

The strong words are the clearest signal yet of the concern among ministers that the promised extra investment in hospitals, schools and other key services must not be swallowed up by the workforce. Nurses' leaders have already called for a series of large pay increases, funded by the Budget promise of £40 billion extra for the NHS over the next five years, in order to attract more recruits and stop others from leaving.

There are clear government fears that they will be joined by many more public-sector workers, from teachers to police, once the rest of the Government's spending programme is decided later this year. Leaders of several of the big unions are set to join a rally in London later today, under the Unison umbrella. The twin aims are to push for more generous pay awards and to resist reforms seeing further tasks contracted out to the private sector.

Mr Brown declares: "There must be responsibility in pay agreements. Just as sustained economic growth demands responsibility in setting private-sector pay, so a sustained commitment to better public services demands responsibility in setting public-sector pay, and discipline will be our watchword."