Boris Johnson will do away with public sector pay freezes, Health Secretary and ally Matt Hancock has said.

Leadership rival Jeremy Hunt made enemies in the NHS when he imposed new contracts on junior doctors in 2016 and oversaw the slowest period of investment in the NHS since its foundation.

Mr Johnson's supporters have moved to capitalise on the weakness, with Mr Hancock telling the Times that public sector workers would get a “fair” pay rise under Mr Johnson.

Mr Hancock said: “Now that there's money available we need to show the public sector some love - they do a brilliant job for the country,

”People in the public sector need to be properly rewarded for the brilliant job they do.

Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Show all 5 1 /5 Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Made-up quote for The Times Johnson was sacked from The Times newspaper in the late 1980s after he fabricated a quote from his godfather, the historian Colin Lucas, for a front-page article about the discovery of Edward II’s Rose Palace. “The trouble was that somewhere in my copy I managed to attribute to Colin the view that Edward II and Piers Gaveston would have been cavorting together in the Rose Palace,” he claimed. Alas, Gaveston was executed 13 years before the palace was built. “It was very nasty,” Mr Johnson added, before attempting to downplay it as nothing more than a schoolboy blunder. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Sacked from cabinet over cheating lie Michael Howard gave Boris Johnson two new jobs after becoming leader of the Conservatives in 2003 – party vice-chairman and shadow arts minister. He was sacked from both positions in November 2004 after assuring Mr Howard that tabloid reports of his affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt were false and an “inverted pyramid of piffle”. When the story was found to be true, he refused to resign. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Broken promise to boss In 1999 Johnson was offered editorship of The Spectator by owner Conrad Black on the condition that he would not stand as an MP while in the post. In 2001 he stood - and was elected - MP for Henley, though Black did allow him to continue as editor despite calling "ineffably duplicitous" PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Misrepresenting the people of Liverpool As editor of The Spectator, he was forced to apologise for an article in the magazine which blamed drunken Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and suggested that the people of the city were wallowing in their victim status. “Anyone, journalist or politician, should say sorry to the people of Liverpool – as I do – for misrepresenting what happened at Hillsborough,” he said. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson ‘I didn’t say anything about Turkey’ Johnson claimed in January, that he did not mention Turkey during the EU referendum campaign. In fact, he co-signed a letter stating that “the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote Leave and take back control”. The Vote Leave campaign also produced a poster reading: “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”

“Higher pay, not higher taxes, means a pay rise for everyone, including in the public sector.”

A two-year public sector pay freeze was introduced under David Cameron before rises were capped at 1% until 2017 under austerity measures.

Mr Hancock added he had just given junior doctors an 8% pay rise over several years and claimed this showed “the days of pay freezes are over”.

However, a spokesman for the Royal College of Nursing, which represents over 300,000 nursing staff in England, said warm words would not help pay the bills of workers whose pay still lagged behind levels a decade ago.

He said: “Warm words about public sector workers won't get any new prime minister very far.

”The wages of too many still lag behind where they were 10 years ago in real terms.

“Until their pay matches the education and skills required, the Government will struggle to fill the 40,000 vacant nurse jobs in England.”