Gordon Brown sparked an immediate backlash yesterday after freezing ministers’ pay and seeking to limit rises in MPs’ salaries.

The Prime Minister was aiming to set an example of restraint to the public sector. However, the move to withhold the 1.5 per cent rise due to ministers this year, and to attempt to hold back MPs’ pay, is likely to provoke a backbench rebellion.

A senior minister described Mr Brown’s surprise move on ministerial pay as “gesture politics of the worst kind”. Mr Brown was inviting ministers to wear a hair shirt as a stunt, the minister said.

The idea that it would make other public-sector workers limit their pay rises was “cloud cuckoo land”. “Nobody asked us, nobody consulted us,” the minister added.

Mr Brown announced the freeze at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. He said that ministers would not accept a pay rise “given the importance of public-sector pay restraint at a time of economic uncertainty”. Ministers will still receive the general MPs’ pay rise.

David Cameron and a few senior Conservatives who receive ministerial salaries are also to forgo the rise to which they are entitled this year.

The Government also rejected proposals from an independent review for MPs to be given three £650 catch-up pay rises on top of their annual increases, and proposed that the public sector link that will determine their salaries should be less generous than the one proposed by the report.

MPs will be given an opportunity in a Commons debate next month to override the Government’s wishes and opt for the recommendations in the report from Sir John Baker.

The Government’s preferred option would give MPs a rise of about 2.5 per cent, while the proposal from Sir John would mean a rise of 3.5 per cent.

Sir John also revealed in his report that three senior MPs had called, in evidence to him, for the current salary of £61,820 to go up to £75,000 after the next general election.

An influential backbencher predicted that many MPs would defy the Government. “We are getting it in the neck from the public anyway. We might as well take the money and run,” he said.

The Government did back Sir John’s proposal that MPs should no longer vote on their own pay rises. It also proposes that MPs’ pay increases should be linked to the median average of rises paid to a wide range of public-sector workers. Mr Brown also accepted recommendations from the Senior Salaries Review Body for pay rises next year of 1.5 per cent for senior civil servants, 2.2 per cent for senior military officers and very senior NHS managers, and just over 2.5 per cent for judges.

Ministers’ pay should go up in line with that of senior civil servants, who will receive a 7 per cent increase over the next three years.

Theresa May, the Shadow Leader of the Commons, described the move by ministers to give up their pay increases as a gesture. She said that it was also a “distraction” from the central issue of the day, which was “the rising cost of living for families across the country”.

The Government’s decision to award in two stages the 2.5 per cent pay rise recommended for public -sector workers — meaning that they were effectively getting 1.9 per cent — prompted anger from the unions.

A spokeswoman for Unison said: “It is all very well ministers giving up their pay increase, but this is small comfort to millions of public-sector workers who are faced with an effective three-year pay cut.”

The union is balloting its local government members on possible strike action over a pay offer of 2.45 per cent.

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