Spending Review represents kick in the teeth for key workers

November 25th 2020

Spending Review represents kick in the teeth for key workers

November 25th 2020

Workers across Scotland will reject Chancellor’s public/private con trick.

Responding to Rishi Sunak’s Spending Review, Roz Foyer, STUC General Secretary, said:

“This Spending Review is a kick in the teeth to those very same workers Rishi Sunak was clapping months ago.

“Despite thousands of workers in the private sector surviving on furlough pay at 80%, Rishi Sunak choose to attack public sector pay. This is a levelling down agenda, not a levelling up one.

“Very few people will be fooled by his attempts to pit care workers against shop workers or low paid council workers against low paid cleaners. All need a decent pay increase, and they all need it now. If the Chancellor wants to equalise public sector and private sector pay, he should have ensured that workers cannot be furloughed on less than the minimum wage and increased the minimum wage to at least £10 per hour. 18 pence on the minimum wage is pennies, when we need pounds.

“£250 for lower paid public sector workers is the exact same policy introduced by George Osborne in 2010 and still amounts to a pay cut for many.”

Foyer also criticised other funding announcements:

“This was the moment to announce a massive fiscal stimulus to drive a green recovery and the Chancellor totally missed it. While we await details for the new National Infrastructure Bank and funding for the devolved administrations, the figures announced come nowhere near the amount needed.

“Moreover, instead of devolving funding and power to local communities, the Levelling Up Fund centralises control in Whitehall and enables the Treasury to pick and choose which pet projects it will support.

“Cutting international development funding to 0.5% of GDP shows that for all its talk of global Britain, this Government doesn’t really care for world’s most vulnerable.

“The Chancellor’s statement also did nothing to address the gaping holes in our social safety net. With unemployment likely to rise to 7.6% next year, the Government must commit, as a minimum, to continuing the £20 uplift in Universal Credit so people can weather that storm while they look for work.

“Workers in Scotland know that key workers deserve a pay rise. They will see through Rishi Sunak’s con trick.”

ENDS

For more information, please contact Dave Moxham, Deputy General Secretary, on 07891026870.