The Chancellor of the current Government of the United Kingdom, George Osborne MP has released his first Budget as chancellor of a majority Conservative government, having previously been limited by the demands of the Liberal Democrats.

The 'emergency' Budget will give the government its first chance to follow its own policies unopposed. So far the predicted outcome of Osborne's Budget as suggested by the Press Association is that his priorities are to make £12 billion welfare cuts and to raise the threshold of inheritance tax. Young people are predicted to be some of the worst affected by Osborne's summer cuts and some newspaper briefings are claiming that the Chancellor will scrap tax credit wage subsidies completely for under-25s and remove housing benefit from young job seekers.

Austerity measures will increase child poverty and Westminster are changing the rules in defining this. Mr Duncan Smith announced plans to remove the official measure, which defines a child as being in poverty if it is in a household with less than 60% of the national median average income.

This is from Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, on the budget.

"The welcome move on a higher minimum wage cannot disguise the truth that this is a budget that damages the economic security of working families, and takes us further down the road to being a two-nation economy, with higher child poverty for millions and lower taxes for the better off."

We have long called for a genuine living wage, but no single wage level can take account of family size, so families which appear to gain under this proposal may end up worse off overall if cuts to child benefit, child tax credits and working tax credits go ahead. It’s vital that any savings the government makes through higher wages are re-invested to help families with children.

Last week, the government declared it would invent its own measure of child poverty; today’s budget announces cuts that will increase child poverty on the measures everyone else uses. Contrary to what the chancellor said, absolute child poverty has risen by half a million since 2010 – and the fall in child poverty happened in the coalition’s first year in office, before key benefits were cut.

Instead, the government will define poverty not in terms of money, but by measuring the number of workless households and educational attainment of children. It will leave the UK as the only OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) country not using the 'relative indicator', the internationally accepted measure of poverty.

"Maintenance grants for students - paid to students with family incomes below £42,000 - to be scrapped and converted into loans from 2016/17" - yet another blow to students who will come out of further education in debt and will go into work (if they're lucky) with that burden over them.

Public sector pay to rise 1% a year for four years.

MPs, however, will receive an 11% pay increase THIS year.

Greece has just held a referendum to reject the austerity measures that were forced upon them, which succeeded. 80% of the Greek bailout funds went directly into loan payments to European Union banks. All that public tax payer money from across Europe has been laundered through Greece into the coffers of private banks, along with all the Greek money being collected from loan payments and tax hikes the "bailout" funds didn't cover. It's a bailout for the banks, not Greece.

Marina Prentoulis, a British-based Greek academic and member of the radical Greek governing party Syriza, said this: “The Greek referendum has shown that the politics of fear are coming to an end. Across Europe, the up-to-now dominant narrative of austerity as the only solution to the crisis is being challenged. Europe has to go back to its founding principles: democracy, equality and social justice.”

We, the people of the United Kingdom, can do it too. The severe measures that are being taken are detrimental to the health and well being of the majority of the population of the UK. Protesters such as Disabled people against cuts, urged the government to publish figures showing how many people have died after having their benefits cut. The welfare secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, initially denied any such figures existed, but you, Mr. Cameron, have since promised to release the statistics.

62% of the UK electorate did not vote for your party, Mr. Cameron, so why should we accept your austerity measures without being consulted?

We believe the people of the UK should, like the people of Greece, be given a referendum to decide whether to accept or reject current austerity measures.

 

Please support this petition to the PM to implement a national referendum.

Thank you.