Lack of investment perpetuates our woes

WARNING of two lost decades for pay rises, the Institute for Fiscal Studies dismissed reports that the Chancellor had ushered in the end of austerity.

The institute calculated that cuts to public services, apart from the NHS, would amount to seven per cent by 2023. They predict that families face another ten years of stagnant wages and deep spending cuts. Britain is on course for the longest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s.

As usual it’s the poorest among us who will be hardest hit. The Resolution Foundation think tank forecast that the poorest one-third of households are set to be an average of £725 worse off in 2022 compared with 2015.

Whereas the richest third are forecast to be better off by an average of £185. Is that fair? Is it ethical? No, but it’s typical of this Tory Government – take from the poor and give to the rich.

If that is not bad enough, the IFS predicted that Britain’s national debt may not return to its pre-financial crisis level until “well past the 2060s.”

The Resolution Foundation said that Britain’s productivity levels were running at their weakest levels since the Napoleonic wars. Productivity is the key driver of living standards.

I wrote in 1993, in my book Creating a World Class Organization, that unless UK companies increased their level of investment in R&D, plant, equipment, technology and training, Britain will continue to lag behind its main competitors and living standards continue to fall. Bryan D Prescott

Caerphilly