Angela Eagle: Why I believe the Government’s economic plan has backfired

Dec 14 2011 by Lorna Hughes, Wallasey News

NOVEMBER’S autumn statement has confirmed that David Cameron & George Osborne’s reckless economic plan has completely backfired.

Plan A has failed. Families, pensioners and businesses know it’s hurting, but in the autumn statement we’ve found out that it isn’t

working either.

The government is set to borrow a staggering £158 billion more than they planned a year ago – the bill for the economic failure, higher unemployment and bigger benefits bill that their failed plan has created. And they’re going to break their pledge to balance the books by 2015 – the structural deficit will not be eliminated until 2016/17.

Like every other country we’ve got to get our deficit down and that means tough decisions on tax and spending cuts. Everyone is agreed on that. The question is not if you do it, but how you do it.

As Labour and others warned a year ago, if you try and cut spending and raise taxes too far and too fast you risk making things worse, not better.

And George Osborne has been forced to admit that growth will be lower this year and every year until 2014 and unemployment will rise next year and will be higher than previously forecast next year and every year until 2015.

In Parliament I’ve called on the Government to back Labour’s five point plan for jobs including a temporary VAT cut to give families a £450 boost, tax breaks for small firms taking on extra workers and a tax on bank bonuses to fund 100,000 jobs for young people.

We are determined to show there is a better way – to get our economy moving again, create jobs now, build a better economy for the future and so get the deficit down.