Senior pay awards to go ahead

Judges, senior military officers and higher civil servants have survived Labour's threat to stop the second phase of their pay rise being implemented later this year.

Treasury ministers have found that they cannot halt the second tranche of this year's "top people's" pay award put in place by the then Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, as they had hoped while in Opposition.

However, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has not ruled out freezing senior salaries next year and will look at the issue again in the autumn.