Paul Nowak: Little sign of George’s ‘march of the makers’

We remain as dependant on financial and business services in London and the South East as ever. For all his rhetoric about creating a network of northern powerhouse cities, our economy is one of the most regionally lopsided in the developed world.

The Budget did little to address the need for urgent investment in regional infrastructure. The total spent on schools, hospitals, roads and energy projects has fallen by £15bn over the last Parliament.

While the TUC welcomes flagship schemes such as HS2 that will connect London to Leeds, we also need spending on day-to-day infrastructure.

At a time when London is benefiting from a £15bn investment in Crossrail, many commuters in Yorkshire and across the North are rattling around on 30 year-old rail buses.

Perhaps the most striking feature of George Osborne’s performance was what he chose to leave out. There was no mention of the NHS and nothing about tackling Britain’s housing crisis. With interest rates at rock bottom, last Wednesday’s Budget would have been the perfect time to announce to a radical new programme of house building in Yorkshire and across the UK.

Think of the boost that would have given to construction companies and the local economy. According to Shelter, every £1 of public investment in housing generates £3.50 back to the economy. And think of the boost that would give to people crying out for good-quality affordable homes. Research published by the TUC shows that Hull is the only area left in Yorkshire where house prices are still less than four times the average local salary.

Even previously affordable areas, such as Bradford and Rotherham, are now out of reach for many locals with house prices at least five times the average wage. A generation of young people face the prospect of never owning their own home. And their parents face subsidising them long after they were expected to fly the nest.

The Chancellor would like us to believe that Help To Buy is a panacea for dealing with our housing problems but it is not. It has done little to arrest the sell-off of Britain’s social housing stock with only one home replaced for every ten sold off. Help To Buy’s main achievement has been to push house prices up.

Yorkshire needs a better deal for workers and industry. The Government should be doing far more to help manufacturers in the region to grow and expand, especially in energy-intensive industries like steel.

At a time when our competitor nations are spending heavily on supporting companies to become greener, the failure to act is a false economy. Unless we increase investment in low-carbon technologies, now we will not be able to compete in the future. We know that with the right planning and support great things can be achieved. Just last year the European Commission announced that it would award up to £240m to the White Rose carbon capture project in Selby.

This needs to happen on a more regular basis. World-leading manufacturing is crucial for creating the high-skill, high-wage jobs we need. We can’t build a lasting recovery on the back of zero-hours contracts and low-paid self-employment.

Watching the Budget you could be forgiven for thinking George Osborne had delivered us to a promised land of milk and honey. The reality is very different.

Poverty pay has become more entrenched over the last five years, one in five workers in Yorkshire earning below the living wage. In some Parliamentary constituencies, such as Barnsley East and Huddersfield, this number rises to one in three.

There are tens of thousands of workers in the region who don’t even make enough to benefit from the Government’s personal tax allowance. Those who do will be hit by cuts to in-work support, such as tax credits, as part of the Government’s planned £12bn cuts to social security.

The story isn’t much better for middle earners either. Average pay in Yorkshire is £2,380 lower than it was in 2010 – that’s nearly £50 a week. Even with inflation hitting record lows – the result of falling oil prices rather than government action – it is likely to take years for wages to recover to their pre-recession levels.

We are not, as the Chancellor claims, out of the woods. And we are certainly not “all in it together”. While hard-working families have seen their pay tumble, City directors have seen their pay skyrocket.

FTSE 100 bosses earn just in two days what most Yorkshire workers earn in a whole year.

Growth depends on a better-balanced economy, with workers getting a fairer share in their pay packets through improved collective bargaining, corporations paying their fair share of taxes, and short-term shareholder interests kept in check. We need a new plan for investment in long-term growth that has infrastructure, skills and decent jobs at the heart of it.

• Paul Nowak is the TUC’s Assistant General Secretary.