This Northerner's ~completely shocked, I tell you.
Former ministers warned last night that looming government cuts risked deepening the country's north-south divide by hitting poorer regions heavily reliant on public-sector jobs.
Tomorrow the government will announce an additional £6bn of cuts for this financial year. MPs representing northern areas have demanded radical changes to protect funding in regions with vulnerable economies. Rosie Winterton, shadow leader of the house and the former minister for Yorkshire and the Humber, warned the cuts "will suck everything down south".
The government has described the first round of cuts as "modest" but warned that more pain will be felt in the following years. David Laws, the Treasury chief secretary, has said the country is moving "from an age of plenty to an age of austerity" in public finances. Tomorrow's announcement will be followed by an emergency Budget next month.
Winterton, the MP for Doncaster Central, warned the cuts risked devastating northern economies struggling to emerge from recession. "The government must rethink its strategy of regional funding," she said, arguing that the north of England needed the type of protection already given to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Phil Woolas, the former immigration minister and MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth in the north-west, agreed, saying it would be wrong to cut health budgets evenly across the country, because that would hit the areas with the lowest life expectancies hardest. He argued that abolishing the regional development agencies, which has been suggested, would be deeply damaging and said it was notable that the coalition government had been slow to appoint ministers representing the regions of England. And of those in the cabinet a tiny minority represent constituencies that are not in the south.
Many fear that the axe will fall most heavily on areas with high levels of public-sector employment, such as the north-east and Wales. Woolas pointed out that in the north-east almost one in two women worked in the public sector. "So low-paid women workers face the brunt of the cuts," he said.
It comes as The Smith Institute, a think-tank, calls for a "Barnett formula for the north" to replicate the mechanism that redistributes extra money to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Its director, Paul Hackett, said: "Without it the cuts will disadvantage the northern regions and risk taking us back to the north-south divide of the 1980s."
The government is expected to hit quangos in the first round of cuts. Among those at risk are the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, The Infrastructure Planning Commission and regional development agencies.
Source: The Guardian
Tomorrow the government will announce an additional £6bn of cuts for this financial year. MPs representing northern areas have demanded radical changes to protect funding in regions with vulnerable economies. Rosie Winterton, shadow leader of the house and the former minister for Yorkshire and the Humber, warned the cuts "will suck everything down south".
The government has described the first round of cuts as "modest" but warned that more pain will be felt in the following years. David Laws, the Treasury chief secretary, has said the country is moving "from an age of plenty to an age of austerity" in public finances. Tomorrow's announcement will be followed by an emergency Budget next month.
Winterton, the MP for Doncaster Central, warned the cuts risked devastating northern economies struggling to emerge from recession. "The government must rethink its strategy of regional funding," she said, arguing that the north of England needed the type of protection already given to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Phil Woolas, the former immigration minister and MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth in the north-west, agreed, saying it would be wrong to cut health budgets evenly across the country, because that would hit the areas with the lowest life expectancies hardest. He argued that abolishing the regional development agencies, which has been suggested, would be deeply damaging and said it was notable that the coalition government had been slow to appoint ministers representing the regions of England. And of those in the cabinet a tiny minority represent constituencies that are not in the south.
Many fear that the axe will fall most heavily on areas with high levels of public-sector employment, such as the north-east and Wales. Woolas pointed out that in the north-east almost one in two women worked in the public sector. "So low-paid women workers face the brunt of the cuts," he said.
It comes as The Smith Institute, a think-tank, calls for a "Barnett formula for the north" to replicate the mechanism that redistributes extra money to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Its director, Paul Hackett, said: "Without it the cuts will disadvantage the northern regions and risk taking us back to the north-south divide of the 1980s."
The government is expected to hit quangos in the first round of cuts. Among those at risk are the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, The Infrastructure Planning Commission and regional development agencies.
Source: The Guardian