In her first major speech as Shadow Chancellor, will tomorrow (Friday 3
July) call on the government to “recognise the scale of the
challenge we face” by committing to a “Back to Work Budget
focused on jobs, jobs, jobs”.
As well as setting out four tests the Chancellor’s ‘Summer
Economic Statement’ must meet to deliver for Britain, she will
call on the government to extend furlough schemes in areas that
are forced into local lockdowns, “so that localised second waves
don’t wash away businesses and jobs in their wake”.
Ms Dodds' four tests for the recovery are:
-
A focus on creating, supporting and protecting
jobs
-
That it produces a bounce-back effect across the
country
-
That every project announced is carbon neutral or carbon
reducing
-
That the government commits, at the very least, to not
increase taxes or cut support for low and middle-income people,
during the recovery period
Highlighting the government’s record of over-promising and
under-delivering on investment over the last decade, Ms Dodds
will say: “We need guarantees of delivery, not just warm words.
For 10 years, the Conservatives have talked and talked: they have
not built.”
And she will also criticise the Chancellor for taking a
‘wait and see’ approach to supporting the economy, when action is
needed now to prevent an unemployment crisis. The Shadow
Chancellor will say “the reward for months of sacrifice cannot be
a redundancy notice”.
The Chancellor has also been reported to be reluctant to
support individual areas of the economy because he doesn’t want
to ‘pick winners.’ The Shadow Chancellor will pour scorn on the
Chancellor’s belief that “helping a local pub or family-run
restaurant that has been boarded up at the direction of
government is somehow cheating the natural order of
things”.
On supporting businesses:
“It has been heartbreaking to hear from many of them [small
business owners] in recent weeks, how they feel their businesses
slipping through their fingers because of a temporary lack of
cashflow even though with the right, targeted support now, they
would be perfectly viable in the long term.
“That frustration, that anger, at working hard all your
life, playing by the rules, doing the right thing, waiting your
place patiently in the queue, only to find it snatched away from
you by a combination of this terrible crisis and government’s
refusal to help. That isn’t about ‘picking winners’. That’s basic
fairness.”
On the government’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to
ending support schemes:
“As with the lifting of lockdown, what we have now is an
exit without a strategy. Government must abandon its
one-size-fits-all wind-down of the Job Protection and
self-employed schemes.
“We need a targeted strategy that acknowledges that workers
in struggling sectors cannot and should not be treated the same
way as workers in sectors that are already back to full capacity.
This is not about ‘picking winners’, in the Chancellor’s words.
It is about protecting those who have lost - through no fault of
their own. It is about giving people across the country a fair
chance. The reward for months of sacrifice cannot be a redundancy
notice.
“This week we saw a wave of companies announcing enormous
job losses - because the government is refusing to shift from its
one-size-fits-all approach. To avoid the same flood of redundancy
notices for workers within smaller companies later on this month,
government must act now - and abandon its one-size-fits-all
approach.”
Ends
Notes to editors
-
The Shadow Chancellor’s first major speech – ‘Jobs, Jobs,
Jobs’ – will take place 09:30 tomorrow from Labour’s Southside
HQ
-
Business groups and journalists have been invited to ask
questions via video link after the speech concludes
