In a major speech in London tomorrow (Friday) the Shadow
Chancellor will demand provide the necessary
funding for local councils in next week’s Spring Statement.
He will argue that the best way to support the national economy
is by strengthening local economies; and reveal new figures that
show the true scale of shifting the burden of austerity onto many
local authorities, using them as “human shields” to drive through
spending cuts that have led to 795,000 fewer local government
staff since 2010.
will also reiterate his
calls for to provide the additional £2
billion by 2020 that is needed to end the Tory-made crisis in
children’s services.
MP, Labour’s Shadow
Chancellor, will say in a speech tomorrow:
"Next week, the Chancellor will stand up in Parliament
and deliver what he and his aides are working very hard to
convince us will be a non-event. The Spring Statement, we are
told, will be little more than an update on the nation’s
finances.
“Perhaps he will want to dig out whatever positive nuggets the
official forecasters will provide. But there is an air of
unreality about all this.
“This is a Government still committed to the austerity spending
cuts the Tories first announced in June 2010. They seem
absolutely blind to the economic evidence and the pain and misery
they have caused.
“Former Chancellor was crowing – actually
boasting – about what his austerity plan has achieved, last week.
The occasion was a return to budget surplus on day-to-day
spending, three years later than intended. A three year delay in
reaching a target that himself had previously
abandoned – that’s some achievement!
“And I suspect, if market and other expectations are correct,
that may attempt a small brag of
his own when presenting next week’s borrowing figures. Any
boasting will be misplaced. The picture in the official
statistics remains as bad as ever under this Government.
“Britain has the lowest rate of growth this year of any major
developed economy, and the Government’s own figures show that
real wages are still falling.
“But these abstract national figures don’t show us the real
impact of austerity and economic failure.
“You can see it every day, here in London. It’s the stories of
the misery and ruined lives that add up to a national tragedy.
It’s the schools so short of cash that they have to write begging
letters to parents for pens and pencils. Or it’s the desperate
increase in children taken into care because councils can’t
provide the early intervention they used to.
“It’s when, on Parliament’s doorstep, a homeless man is found
dead, just days after he had been applying for work.
“This is the sixth largest economy on the planet. It is an
immensely wealthy society. London has more billionaires living
here than any other city in Europe. And yet every night on the
streets of this city there is another rough sleeper.”
On cuts to local government
“New figures show that local government has lost 795,000 staff
since 2010. That’s the direct impact of austerity. It means
understaffed services with overworked employees.
“It means some of those services we rely on in our everyday lives
– from street sweeping to refuse collection – are stretched to
breaking point.
“And some of the most vulnerable of our children and young people
are left without the support they need.
“The number of children being taken into care is the highest
since 1985, but children’s services are today heading for a £2bn
deficit in their funding.
“The Chancellor must take the opportunity, next week, to bring
forward the funding our councils need and stop using them as
human shields to drive through his spending cuts.
“Inaction is simply unacceptable and irresponsible.”
Ends
Notes to editors
- · The
total figure of local government employees across the UK as at
September 2017 was 2,104,000.
- · The
comparable figure for September 2010 was 2,899,000 - so numbers
have fallen by around -795,000 (Source: ONS Public Sector
Employment September 2017)
