Osborne speech - UNISON reaction

UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis, reacting to Chancellor George Osborne’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference, said:“The Chancellor’s fine words about all being in this together are not being matched by action. He was clearly setting the scene for the huge cuts in public spending to pay for the banks’ failure that he will announce in the comprehensive spending review. It’s nonsense to claim that draining our schools and hospitals of funds will liberate them.“He talks of fairness, but all his announcements are about capping and cutting benefits. And his rhetoric, about asking the richest to pay their fair share, rings hollow because he fails to spell out either how he will do that or what that “fair share” means.“He may have made the right noises for his own Party conference, and played to petty ignorance about people on benefit, but the British people will take no comfort from this speech and have reason to fear what is round the corner. “Public spending cuts will hit the poor, the sick and the vulnerable and will have a devastating impact on local economies and local small businesses that rely on the public sector for survival.”