In May 2015 public sector net debt (excluding public sector banks) rose above £1,500 billion or £1½ trillion for the first time. Over the past four years, government borrowing has moved further and further above the original plans (see). Spending cuts have harmed the economy more than expected,…Read more…
Public sector jobs – the regional dimension
Earlier today the Office for National Statistics published the quarterly Public Sector Employment figures. I suppose the headline was the fact that the number working in public sector jobs has fallen another 43,000 over the past year, but I was just as…Read more…
Two simple messages for David Cameron on Europe
Today I’m meeting Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament. Tomorrow, he’s meeting David Cameron to talk about Britain’s future in the EU. I’m asking Martin to make two clear points to David Cameron: 1. Cutting workers’ rights won’t win…Read more…
Kicking the trade agreements can down the road
Trade deals are stalled due to popular pressure In both the European Parliament and Congress. What’s going on? When the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations were launched in 2013, veteran Tory politician Ken Clarke MP was at his most avuncular when he said that…Read more…
CPI inflation: no surprises, not out of woods.
When the inflation numbers are moving from positive to negative territory it is difficult to avoid excitement about ultimately small changes, driven to some extent by erratic and exceptional factors. Today Britain moved out of deflation, alternatively …Read more…
High levels of underemployment still remain
Our recent analysis shows that underemployment (people who have fewer hours of work than they want) remains nearly a million higher than before the recession. The findings come ahead of new unemployment data to be published this week, which are expecte…Read more…
Survivor pensions: the legacy of inequality continues
For pensioner couples, the death of a partner can lead to financial worry as well as grief for the one left behind. For this reason, many defined benefit pension schemes continue to pay a proportion of the pension to the survivor. But thanks to a littl…Read more…
#TTIP with the US comes second: #CETA with Canada comes first
Trade deals haven’t been so high profile since the 1999 ‘battle for Seattle’, when the World Trade Organisation was met with a wave of anti-globalisation protests. In the US, first the Senate then the House of Representatives have seen pitched battles over ‘Fast Track’…Read more…
Congress deals blow to trade deals as US wakes up to worker concerns
Just a couple of years ago, US unions attacking trade deals because they cost jobs and lowered wages were accused of bogus economics, protectionism and worse (they still are in some circles.) Now their views are expressed even by centrist Democrats and…Read more…
MEPs urge Congress to allow climate action in trade deals
Today, the US House of Representatives is debating whether to allow President Obama authority to negotiate trade deals for the next 6 years without significant Congressional scrutiny. In what is normally referred to as the ‘fast track’ procedure, the House will be asked to agree a…Read more…
Cameron’s new migration plans: skills gaps & undercutting need to be divorced from fantasy targets
Yesterday David Cameron announced that he had written to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), the independent body which advises the Home Office on migration policy, asking them to look into ways of reducing non-EU migration for work to the UK in the following ways: restricting work visas to…Read more…
If you mean it, put it in writing: unions to Cameron on NHS & #TTIP
At Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, David Cameron repeated – yet again – his claim that we should trust him that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP – the EU-US trade deal) would have no impact on the NHS. Under fire from Labour Leader Harriet…Read more…
Cameron must come clean about his plans to renegotiate our rights from Europe
When he was asked during Prime Minster’s Questions today about his plans for re-negotiating rights for working people set out originally under the European Social Chapter, David Cameron gave the ominous answer that it would include: “some of the issues under what was called the social…Read more…
Workers are wealth creators too – Give them a fairer deal
Good reputations are hard to build and all too easy to lose. Of course business isn’t the only institution in Britain facing a crisis of trust. But unlike others, business can end up paying a high price in lost profit, productivity and jobs. Unions argue that no one has a greater interest in the…Read more…
Budget surplus target plays politics with economic growth
Is it possible that anybody thinks the budget surplus law apparently to be announced in the Mansion House speech is about anything other than politics? It’s definitely stupid economics. Inevitably spending was higher and taxes were lower in the UK after the financial crash, and we had a small…Read more…
“Government should put us on track for a low-carbon world.”
Business Green is running an online poll showing that 84 per cent of respondents believe that the low carbon economy “will not prosper under a Conservative government.” Such anxieties may help explain why, so early in this administration, 80 businesses have paid for a full page letter in the FT….Read more…
#TTIP vote postponed: blow to G7 hopes of an early EU-US trade deal
This afternoon, we heard that the votes in the European Parliament due for Wednesday lunchtime on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) had been postponed. Various reasons for the postponement have been given, and there are different explanations of what the postponement means…Read more…
Graduates’ pay still lower than seven years ago
This morning the government released the quarterly Graduate Labour Market Statistics for England, which allow us to look at post-graduate, graduate and non-graduate employment rates and salaries since 2006. You wouldn’t know it from the government’s spin, but graduate pay has been slipping for two…Read more…
#TTIP: What MEPs will be voting on this Wednesday
This Wednesday, the European Parliament will vote on what message to send to the negotiators of the EU-US trade and investment deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). They won’t (yet) be voting on whether to accept the deal, partly because the vast bulk of it…Read more…
The Chancellor bemoans Labour’s household debt record, but official figures show the pace of borrowing rising rapidly and debt on his watch likely to hit an all-time high
In the Independent today, James Moore reported Frances O’Grady’s remarks on household debt. These followed the Queen’s Speech economy debate last week, when Tory backbencher Mark Garnier attacked Labour’s record: “Does the Chancellor agree that the £1 trillion rise in household debt…Read more…