Press Release -    22 June 2010  -        For Immediate Release

South East employers unfairly hit by Osborne budget!

Today’s budget will damage the competitiveness of employers in the South East just as the region begins to recover from recession, warns Labour’s South East Euro MP Peter Skinner.

Tory chancellor George Osborne announced that companies in the South East would not be exempt from £5,000 national insurance savings that competitors throughout the rest of the UK would benefit from. Mr Skinner commented; “Osborne is wrong to apply a one-size fits all approach to the South East”. He added ” the South East is not London, it contains some poorer areas also in need of further investment; this will damage the South East economy and make its companies less competitive.”

Budget not fair and not forward-looking!

The Euro MP criticised the Chancellor’s budget as relying on unfair and non-progessive means to get Britain out of recession. He said; “We all know that the debt needs to be cut, but the Chancellor’s plans will impose burdens on those least able to bear them. An increase in VAT will hit pensioners and the unemployed hardest”. In addition to this Mr Skinner commented the cuts in public services as welfare will mean that we will soon feel the pinch of the coalition’s cuts.

Another Lib Dem let-down

Mr Skinner also said “What else is poignant in all of this is that Lib Dems have been willing participants not just cheerleaders to the Tory axeman. Clegg and Cable told us that under the Lib Dems there would be no return to Tory cuts but they’ve let down all those people who put their faith in them to deliver a fairer Britain.”

Government showing no faith in Young People

Mr Skinner rounded on one particular aspect of today’s budget saying; “Most depressingly the real losers from today’s budget will be the South Eaast’s children and young people,” said Skinner. “Many school children will be denied free school meals, meanwhile the Future Jobs Fund, created with the aim of getting 150,000 young people into work, has been ditched, along with child trust funds”. Mr Skinner continued; “For those of us who supported a government intent on eradicating child poverty this is budget is depressing reading. The chancellor has shown that this government has trust in wielding the axe and hoping for the best and no faith in the future.”

ENDS