Corbyn’s pledge to PCS

Jeremy Corbyn became the first ever Labour leader to address PCS conference and pledged that a Labour government would return national pay bargaining to the civil service and repeal the hated Tory Trade Union Act.

He also gave assurances on pay saying it was "time for the public sector (1%) pay cap to end and to restore good industrial relations in the civil service."

Condemning the Tory austerity agenda of cuts, closures and low wages he stressed that this was "a political choice being made by this government, not a necessity"; the cap on pay in the civil service continued, while consultants were brought in on very high levels of pay.

He also pledged that Labour would invest in HMRC, pointing out the inherent contradiction of the government cutting jobs in the department when billions of pounds were being lost in uncollected tax revenue. He said: "This government doesn’t seem to understand that job cuts mean tax not collected" and he called for “a properly staffed HMRC".

He also paid tribute to PCS as a "fantastic campaigning union", to which "the door is always open" and said he looked forward to working with the union on policy development.