Hi ,
Here are two statements:
- Without investment in peoples' health, opportunities, and wellbeing, our economy can't thrive.
- People unable to work due to sickness or disability should lose support.
These contradict each other, right? But the government is currently arguing both are true: it's pursuing an expansion in workers' rights and sick pay through the Employment Rights Bill, which it argues will help the economy by helping workers do better. At the same time, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is leading plans to cut £6bn from welfare by dramatically reducing the support available to people unable to work. This contradiction offers an insight into the way many governments are struggling to address the symptoms of our inequality crisis without addressing the root cause.
The Employment Rights Bills, due for votes in parliament today and tomorrow, recognises this inequality. The original plan of the New Deal for Working People was a major shift in power from bosses to workers and, although the most transformative elements have been stripped out of it over years of watering down, it's still the first expansion in workers' rights in a generation. Trade unions have called it "game-changing"; ministers have argued that "if you treat your staff well, you’ll have better recruitment, better retention, better productivity and overall, a better, successful business.”
But the Spring Statement, planned for 26 March, doesn't look like it believes that's true. Instead of improving conditions to improve outcomes, the government is arguing that harsh cuts to welfare, and to the living conditions of people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, are the right thing to do – describing the current system as unfair and "contrary to those deep British values that if you can work, you should." Charities have warned that the claims of reform are a mask for £6bn of planned cuts that will throw up to 700,000 people into poverty. It's almost impossible that cuts on this scale won't make the system more unfair.
Other departments are likely to see big cuts in the Spring Statement too, with green investment at GB Energy being briefed to the press as a particular possibility. These cuts would be as self-defeating as the previous 15 years of austerity was, not to mention the harm they'll cause to all of us.
Wealth taxes, increases to taxes on income from wealth, closing loopholes and cracking down on avoidance could all raise tens of billions to invest in people. Instead of raising revenue by harming the most vulnerable, taxing the rich would also start rebalancing our dangerously unequal economy, benefiting all of us.
So, what do we do? We're asking people to sign our petition demanding the government tax the rich and invest in the rest of us.
On top of that, on 25th March, we'll be joining War on Want and other organisations to hold a rally outside the Treasury demanding taxes on the rich. |
