Member

More troubling still are the amendments that seek to remove any upper limit on pay and terms that the appropriate authority can approve. The current clause rightly enables the appropriate authority—ultimately accountable to Parliament and the taxpayer—to set a cap on pay and conditions. These amendments would remove that safeguard entirely, allowing pay and contractual terms to be set exclusively by collective agreement or contracts, regardless of cost or sustainability. This would amount to an open invitation for spiralling costs, endless pay disputes and the imposition of terms that the public purse may simply be unable to bear. It would, in effect, take Government Ministers and commissioners out of the picture and hand a blank cheque to unions and employers, without a mechanism to ensure value for money or fiscal responsibility.