All in this together.....?
Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 13:06, Fri 2 December 2011:
It’s been a depressing week on the economy.
Chancellor George Osborne’s autumn budget statement was a litany of bad news.
Public borrowing to overshoot by a massive £158 billion as a result of his failed policies.
Unemployment to rise to nearly 3 million by the end of next year.
Growth a paltry 0.9% this year and 0.7% next.
The news was especially bad – once again – for women and families.
Working tax credit frozen.
A planned increase in child tax credit cancelled.
Children lose three times as much as the bankers in this budget.
Overall, under this government, women are a massive £2billion worse off.
Things aren’t set to get any better. The chancellor also announced that when the current pay freeze ends for public sector workers, they’ll receive only a 1% increase in the following two years.
That massively affects women, who make up around two thirds of public sector employees.
And they’re already being hit with an extra 3% surcharge for their pensions – which was why many public sector workers went out on strike this week. How can low-paid workers find this additional amount when the cost of living’s rising and their pay isn’t keeping up?
I’d went to meet some of those who’d gone out on strike early in the morning. They asked MPs to make sure they got into parliament to challenge Ministers on their plans. So I asked the Minister, Francis Maude, if the government is serious about negotiating on public sector pensions. He said he was, but the truth is that Ministers haven’t even bothered to pick up the phone to the unions in the past month.
No one wants to see teachers, health workers, local authority staff, civil servants out on strike, and it’s vital that both sides get round the table and thrash out a deal. But that’s hard when Ministers aren’t even talking direct to union reps direct.
Private sector workers fare no better. The cuts to tax credits and benefits affect them too. I really can’t understand why the government’s singled out ordinary working for families for so much of the pain. The government want us to believe there’s no alternative to all this. Remember the last time a Prime Minister told us that? But even Mrs Thatcher didn’t go as far as this lot.
And there is an alternative: Labour’s 5-point plan for jobs and growth.
What worries me is that the longer the government bury their head in the sand, attack families’ living standards, the harder it will be for the economy to grow. If people aren’t working they’re not paying taxes. Public borrowing and the benefits bill go up.
18 months in, it’s crystal clear that the Tory-led government is mismanaging our economy. Their policies are hurting but they aren’t working. Tuesday’s announcement simply reinforced how out of touch they are.
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