The Workers Union has challenged the government to find extra money to boost the British economy.
The announcement came after Boris Johnson pledged an extra 5 billion pounds for infrastructure spending. The government hopes the additional funds will launch a post-COVID-19 recovery by fighting flagging growth and unemployment.
This will not, however, be new money; instead the government plans to bring existing capital spending projects forward. This means 1.5 billion pounds will be spent on new hospitals, with 100 million allocated for road projects.
Elsewhere, schools are set to receive over £1 billion as part of a ten-year building plan. Other beneficiaries include infrastructure projects in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Workers Union says
Chief spokesman for the Workers Union, said: ‘This is a blatant attempt to move money around the system. What’s being offered is a drop in the ocean compared to the cash that our European competitors are spending on economic recovery. To make matters worse, this money was already earmarked for infrastructure; all the government has done is change the timetable.’
Mr Morgan suggested that the UK will need to match recent developments in mainland Europe to avoid the worse effects of the crisis: ‘In recent weeks we’ve seen Germany annouce a 130 billion Euro package for their economy. Whichever way you look at it, Johnson’s pledge seems profoundly inadequate.’
During a speech in the West Midlands, the Prime Minister was keen to align his spending plans with Franklyn D.Roosevelt’s “New Deal”. This was a series of measures designed to alleviate the fall out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
In response, Mr Morgan said: ‘It’s absurd for the PM to suggest that his plan is even remotely comparable to Roosevelt’s New Deal. The White House poured close to 40 percent of their pre-1929 GDP into that project. By contrast, Johnson is offering 0.2 percent of ours.
‘Let’s have some realism and take the chest-beating out of this. We need a much bigger investment in infrastructure, training and housing. We also need the government to start addressing the issue of low-paid, low-quality work in the “shadow” economy. It’s only by doing this that we will rebuild the country as a place that works for everybody.
The Workers Union – Britain’s hardest working union
