Millions spent in city

Ged Taylor continues his anti Government campaign (August 17) but as usual uses unsubstantiated figures.

He claims Sunderland has been trashed by the Government’s policies. He of course ignores the hundreds of millions spent by the Government in Sunderland alone.

Ged could also do a bit of research. He would find documents in the Common’s Library that show across the whole of England, Government spending per head in the North East is second only to London. These figures show this to be the case from 2012 to 2017.

Ged then moves to zerohour contracts (ZHC). He made the claim that two million people are on these contracts. Figures produced by the independent ONS show that 2.8% of the working population are on ZHC, which is about 900,000 a reduction over the last 12 months. However surveys show 59% of those on ZHC want to be on them as it suits their home life, studies etc. So what would Ged say to these 530,000 people? Sorry but you can’t have what you want.

He then moves to food banks. He claims four million people are using them. The Trussell Trust estimates there were 1.2million visits to food banks. However they qualify that by saying there are no figures that show how many of these are multiple visits.

There is no mention by Ged of record numbers of people in work or record low unemployment including youth unemployment.

He may also want to reflect on the fact that Government borrowing has fallen to its lowest level in a decade. Alan Wright