NUT: “This budget will continue to divide society"
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
3:13 PM
Following today’s Budget statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said:
“This budget will continue to divide society. The period since the election has highlighted the point that public spending cuts hit growth. Reducing public spending even further is an unbelievably backward move.
“Attacks on public sector pay and jobs will simply reduce spending power and further depress the economy at a time when investing in the public sector is essential to secure growth. Threats to national pay structures are yet another unjustified attack on public sector workers and will hit spending power hard in the poorest areas of the country.
“While the Chancellor rewards the most well off in society with his cuts to taxes for the wealthiest, youth unemployment and child poverty rates are soaring. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that if the Coalition Government’s current policies continue unchanged, child poverty will rise by around 100,000 every year. Failing to address these issues will have major human, social and economic costs. We are clearly not all in this together.
“High quality education is essential to economic growth, yet this Government has failed on its promise to protect investment in schools and colleges. While the Government pursues its unnecessary and expensive academies and Free Schools agenda, the majority of schools and colleges are left struggling to cope with the effects of cuts to schools’, colleges’ and local authorities’ budgets. No Government can afford to underfund society’s future; cuts in education undermine not only the economy, but social cohesion as well.”
END pr32-2012
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