Cabinet minister George Eustice stressed there is a “difficult public finance environment” after Dua Lipa used her Brit Awards acceptance speech to call for an NHS pay rise.
Lipa was the big winner at the female-dominated Brit Awards, which marked the return of live music to the O2 Arena after more than a year.
She won both best female solo artist and the coveted best album award, using her first speech to call for a pay rise for NHS workers and her second to demand a posthumous bravery award for 20-year-old Folajimi Olubunmi-Adewole, who recently died after jumping into the River Thames to save a woman.