COMMENTING on the Chancellor’s autumn statement, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘When you are self-harming you should stop, not look for better sticking plasters.
‘With the economy still scraping along the bottom, unemployment set to rise and the Chancellor missing his own debt target, we need a fundamental change in direction, not more muddling through.
‘Cuts, austerity and squeezed living standards stretch seemingly without end into the future. What is missing today is any vision of a future economy that can deliver decent jobs and living standards – it’s pain without purpose.’
Dave Prentis, General Secretary of Unison, said: ‘Today’s statement is more proof that the Chancellor neither knows nor cares about what ordinary working people in this country are going through.
‘The austerity agenda means that families across the country have even less to spend on everyday essentials, while tax winners at the top have more.
‘Raising personal tax allowances is small beer for families facing rising food and energy bills.
‘The budget in March was certainly not the Chancellor’s finest hour and the statement today will do nothing to restore confidence in his ability to drag the country back into growth.
‘It is time to give the economy an adrenaline shot. The Chancellor’s plans are simply not working, his economic policies are in tatters – debt is rising, growth is flatlining and unemployment is still unacceptably high.
‘We heard nothing today that showed the government is prepared to face the challenge head on and invest substantially in infrastructure, in building much needed homes, and putting money into people’s pockets to get them spending and boosting the economy.’
He added: ‘The Chancellor’s autumn statement is more bad news for the public services that millions of people rely on every day.’
He said ‘He is piling on the pay pain for millions of public sector workers.
‘A 1% increase on the heels of a 3-year freeze that has cut pay in real terms by 15%, is another blow for hard-working public service workers and their families.
‘Public services including the NHS, schools and higher education, council services for young and old alike are all under the Chancellor’s cosh.
‘He has failed to deliver on his growth targets and in getting the country out of recession and people across the country are suffering as a result.
‘By targeting the public sector for sustained cuts he is also hitting the private sector. Public sector workers and their families have been hard hit by the pay freeze and 1% would mean less money to spend in their local shops and businesses, strangling growth and damaging further the chance of economic recovery.’
Family Action chief executive Helen Dent said: ‘There is very little in this Autumn Statement for families.
‘Both families in and out of work are struggling desperately to make ends meet and balance their family books.
‘The Chancellor hasn’t done enough to stem the lines of families at food banks, he hasn’t done enough to protect vital services that families need, he hasn’t done enough to make work pay and ensure children with parents in and out of work are not pushed further into poverty
‘He hasn’t done enough to help families build a stable home.
‘The biggest investment we can make in reducing future spending on prisons, health and social services in the future is intervening early in the lives of family and children to address disadvantage and poverty now.
‘While £5 billion investment in science schools and transport is welcome the value will not be recognised if it is at the price of cuts to the money available for early intervention and welfare.’
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said: ‘We would be delighted if education is seen as a spending priority, but we would be extremely disappointed if most of any extra funding for education is diverted into highly expensive and unproven Academy and Free Schools, while the other 90% of state-funded schools received nothing.
‘Any additional money would be put to much better use in funding initiatives with a proven track record of improving young people’s educational achievement such as SureStart or the scrapped education maintenance allowance, or in investing in training and developing our teachers, rather than encouraging those with no teaching qualifications to start Free Schools.
‘Academies and Free Schools are not cost-effective; only last month the National Audit Office revealed that the Department for Education diverted £1 billion from other schools to support over-budget Academies in the past two years alone.’
The union Unite said: ‘George Osborne’s credibility is in tatters following today’s autumn statement.’
Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, said: ‘George Osborne’s credibility is in tatters. His addiction to austerity has strangled growth and risks not just deferring recovery but trashing the economy altogether. He is cutting his way to national calamity.
‘Borrowing is up and tax receipts are down, while incomes are squeezed and consumer confidence evaporates. Once thriving high streets are becoming pock-marked with boarded up shops and “for sale” signs thanks to Osborne’s failure.
‘And the threat of a spending review early next year suggests that there is worse to come.
‘He is caught in the same death spiral as we saw to grim effect in Greece and Ireland, announcing one set of plans and targets, failing to meet them, cutting more, setting more targets and so on and so on.
‘Even by his own standards his failure is miserable. Growth targets are missed and the country faces a bigger deficit at the next election than when he took over as Chancellor.
‘Last year’s promise of £21 billion in investment has failed to materialise. £5 billion worth of investment has to be welcomed, but it is small beer given the scale of the problems before us, and much of that money is earmarked to deliver the highly political Free Schools programme while low-income kids cannot stay in education.
‘Working men and women will ask, where are the jobs? Are my loved ones better off? Can we face the future without fear? This statement offers them no change and no hope.
‘Osborne’s chill wind is howling through the households of millions of ordinary people. It will punish our people for years to come unless we have a change of course and a government that invests in growth and jobs.’
In response, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: ‘It is glaringly obvious that not only is the millionaire chancellor George Osborne wildly out of touch with the lives of millions of people in this country, but also that his economic plans are miles off course.
‘Two years ago we said austerity wouldn’t work and we were right. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now, but the Chancellor is refusing to change track, presenting a smoke and mirrors statement that will do nothing to boost our ailing economy.
‘Such a toxic combination of arrogance and economic illiteracy would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious, if real people’s lives and communities weren’t being torn apart by this government’s failed policies.
‘Instead of using hard-working public servants and those entitled to benefits as a political football, the Chancellor should admit his mistakes, invest in public services and chase down the tax dodgers who deprive our economy of tens of billions of pounds a year.’
For all of the sound and fury of the union leaders over the budget, there is a complete boycott of any call for action to remove this anti-working class government from power before it turns the whole nation into paupers for the benefit of the banks.
This leadership does not intend to call any action to defend the working class and the poor. Its replacement by a revolutionary leadership is a matter of the most extreme urgency – of life or death for the working class and the poor.