Bank of England chief backtracks on pay restraint comments

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The governor of the Bank of England has appeared to backtrack on his comments that employees should not ask for pay rises in order to curb inflation.
Earlier this month Andrew Bailey said there needed to be a “moderation of pay rises” after inflation hit a 30-year high of 5.4% in January. The CPI rate of inflation is expected to peak at 7.25% in April 2022.
His comments came under fire from trade unions and even the prime minister, whose spokesperson said: “We obviously want a high-growth economy and we want people’s wages to increase.”
However, responding to questions from MPs on the Treasury committee this week, Bailey appeared to climbdown on his plea for restraint, stating: “I’m not saying people should not take pay rises. I did make the point it was in the context of large pay rises. And my concern is the second-round effects. If everybody tries to get ahead of the shock we’ve had from outside, then we’ll get the second-round effects and it will get worse. That’s the problem.”
He said that pay restraint should be employed by “everybody”, yet struggled to answer when asked how much he was personally paid compared with the median UK wage of £31,285.

“[It’s] substantially higher. It’s somewhere over £500,000, I can’t tell you exactly what it was. I don’t carry that around in my head,” he said.
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