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Corbyn slams 'broken-promise' budget

JEREMY CORBYN condemned Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget yesterday as a series of sticking plasters holding together a huge “broken promise” to the hardworking people of Britain, who will continue to suffer under austerity.

Leading the response to the Budget, Mr Corbyn said the proposals announced will “not undo the damage done” by the squeeze on spending.

The Labour leader referred to Prime Minister Theresa May’s recent claim that austerity is over.

He told the Commons: “The Prime Minister pledged austerity was over — this is a broken-promise Budget.

He said: “The government claims austerity has worked, so now they can end it. That is absolutely the opposite of the truth.

“Austerity needs to end because it has failed.”

He continued: “What we’ve heard today are half-measures and quick fixes while austerity grinds on.

“And far from people’s hard work and sacrifices having paid off, as the Chancellor claims, this government has frittered it away in ideological tax cuts to the richest in our society.”

In his Budget, Mr Hammond promised £1.7 billion a year extra for universal credit (UC) and offered a lengthy defence of the scheme, praising the “tenacity” of its founder Iain Duncan Smith.

Mr Hammond said he has already delivered £3.5bn in transition help, including £1.5bn at last year’s Budget, and that now there would be another £1bn over five years for transition, including unexplained “additional protections.”

Labour MPs protested that it would not be enough.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell had urged MPs over the weekend to vote down the Budget later this week if the government does not stop the roll-out of universal credit, its flagship benefit reform scheme, in order to fix its numerous problems.

Suggesting that the roll-out would not be slowed or stopped, Mr Hammond claimed in his speech that 2.4 million families with children would benefit by the UC “work allowance,” the amount earned before benefits start tapering off, which will be increased by £1,000 a year at a cost of £1.7bn a year once roll-out is complete.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka commented: “Universal credit has been a disaster for claimants and the cash injection today will do nothing to deal with the inherent structural problems that are blighting thousands of lives.”

The government will miss its own target to increase the standard national minimum wage — branded the “national living wage” — to £9 an hour by 2020. It is set to rise from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour for workers aged 25 and over next April.

In his response, Mr Corbyn criticised pay levels for public-sector workers, saying: “Every public-sector worker deserves a decent pay rise, but 60 per cent of teachers are not getting it. Neither are the police nor the government’s own Civil Service workers.”

Mr Corbyn condemned the government for not setting money aside to compensate for pension payments lost by the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi), who held a protest in the Commons public gallery before the Labour leader started his speech.

He said: “There was not even recognition, let alone money set aside, for the women born in the 1950s who have been denied pension justice.”

Labour and SNP MPs stood up to applaud the group of about 20 women looking on in the public gallery, one of whom held a banner which read: “The Great Pension Robbery.”

They were then escorted out by ushers for causing a commotion.

 

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