{"id":4704,"date":"2015-07-08T15:26:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T14:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=4704"},"modified":"2015-07-09T15:37:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T14:37:51","slug":"budget-will-punish-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=4704","title":{"rendered":"Budget ‘will punish millions’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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George Osborne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget risks taking Britain backwards with further austerity and fails to realise the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ambition of boosting productivity, Unite warned today (Wednesday July 8).<\/p>\n

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Cuts to tax credits and help with soaring housing costs combined with continued pay restraint in the public sector will hold back the economic recovery warned Unite, and cause government to miss its already dwindling growth targets.<\/p>\n

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Commenting Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe fear is that the promise of a national living wage does not go far enough or fast enough to plug the hole that many families face in their finances because of this budget.<\/p>\n

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Cutting help<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCutting help with low incomes and high housing costs will punish millions of households who have already seen their incomes fall by \u00c2\u014140 per week since the financial crash. While the exclusion of younger workers from the national living wage is another reminder that this government has little else to offer them but workfare exploitation or poverty pay.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHaving faced almost a decade of collapsing wages, the millions across the public sector who keep our country running will be furious that they face a further four years of pay pain.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe slower pace to the pain of austerity will be no comfort to people just about surviving. The last Tory government left us a less equal, divided country. I fear once again we have a Tory party ready to take this nation backwards.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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On productivity and economic growth McCluskey added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bGrowth has been revised down again by the chancellor and the promised budget \u00e2\u20ac\u0098surplus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 has slipped because austerity economics do not work.”<\/p>\n

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Another way\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But he added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere is another way. With interest rates at rock bottom, today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget was a sorely missed opportunity to borrow to build and invest through an industrial strategy to boost productivity.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need an industrial strategy that includes a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098made in Britain, bought by Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 public procurement policy to help boost manufacturing and promote sustainable growth.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite said that a budget for fairness to take Britain forward should have included:<\/p>\n