Don’t let the markets scare you off investing, Unite tells Healey

Unite has warned the government not to let fear of the financial markets stop it investing in Britain’s economy, ahead of next week’s budget. The union said the failed Liz Truss budget of 2022 “cannot be an excuse for doing nothing”. It warned that timidity risked leaving working-class people without the change they were promised.

Chancellor John Healey delivers his first budget – and the first of Andy Burnham’s premiership – on Wednesday 28 October. Commentators have urged the government not to invest more than the markets will stand. The word from Westminster is reportedly that there will be no additional borrowing.

Responding to those warnings, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Political cowardice wrapped up as sensible politics will not be forgiven. The working class are demanding change now, not warm words and little action.”

Graham drew a sharp line between Truss’s package and borrowing to invest. She said the 2022 budget was a set of unfunded tax cuts. That was not the same as borrowing to create assets that sit on the government’s books.

“The markets have been punishing us anyway,” she said. “If we have a clear, costed strategy to get Britain back on its feet they will accept it. What nobody wants is death by a thousand cuts. The markets will adapt if we have a plan based on investment in our industries, including buy British.”

The union argues that tinkering at the edges will leave Britain further behind its competitors in building new industries and the jobs that come with them.

“We can’t keep allowing the ‘computer says no’ brigade to drag Britain into a doom cycle,” Graham said. “Progressive taxation and borrowing to invest in assets that drive jobs and growth has to be better than managed decline.”

Unite is also pressing for tax measures to raise money for the Treasury and ease cost-of-living pressures on workers and communities, with the super-rich firmly in its sights. “For too long the super-rich have been left virtually untouched whilst the working class pay,” Graham said. “The working class are literally on their knees – they cannot pay anymore. Something must be done now. Jam tomorrow will not be enough.”

The intervention comes as the Treasury weighs how much room it has. At the spring forecast in March, the Office for Budget Responsibility left £9.9bn of headroom against the fiscal rules. It warned that a modest rise in borrowing costs could wipe that out. Healey has already promised a Budget “built on fiscal discipline”.