Chancellor is locking in poverty for the long term, blasts Corbyn
JEREMY CORBYN was today set to claim that Philip Hammond’s Budget was “not tackling injustices but locking them in for the long term”.
The Labour leader was to criticise the Chancellor at the despatch box over poverty, living standards, wages and for protecting the super-rich. On Mr Hammond’s pledge to put the country on the path to prosperity, the Leftwinger said: “There is a crisis of low pay and insecure work. Our country is marked by growing inequality and injustice.
“People were looking for support and help from this Budget — they have been let down,” he was expected to say.
Mr Corbyn also ramped up his support for trade unions campaigning for higher pay. This renewed emphasis on union activity was likely to alarm moderate members and came 24 hours after Labour dropped four points behind the Tories in the latest polling.
With low pay affecting one in four women, and one in six men — according to Mr Corbyn — he was to claim that union action was the best way of unlocking higher wages.
“If we want workers earning better pay less dependent on in-work benefits then we need to strengthen trade unions, the most effective means to boost workers’ pay,” he was to say.
His criticism of Mr Hammond was to focus on how pay is lower for most people than it was in 2010, rising personal debt and that five million people earn less than the living wage.
This is a million more than five years ago, according to Mr Corbyn.
He was to say: “Falling pay, slow growth and rising poverty... and this is what the Chancellor has the barefaced cheek to call a ‘strong economy’.
“Instead of ‘tackling burning injus- tices’ as the Prime Minister promised, this Government is tossing fuel onto the fire. It’s not as if this Government isn’t doing its best to protect tax havens and their clients in the meantime.
“The Paradise papers have again exposed how a super-rich elite are allowed to get away with dodging their taxes. Too often it feels like one rule for the rich and another for the rest of us.”
Labour’s campaign in the run-up to the Budget was for the Chancellor to fix the Universal Credit welfare system, lift the public sector pay cap and invest in health, education, local government and housing.
On Brexit, the Labour leader was to claim that businesses were delaying investment and planning relocations because the Government was failing to provide clarity. Concern over a “nodeal” scenario with the European Union would turn Britain into a “tinpot” tax haven that could hurt jobs and living standards further, he was to claim.