TUC urges infrastructure spending

Unions backed demands for a £30bn injection of taxpayers’ cash into house building and other infrastructure projects, with research showing it could benefit the economy in the long run as well as kick-starting short-term growth.

By The Newsroom

Published 13th May 2013, 10:32 BST

The TUC said the figures, produced for it by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), reinforced its demands for an end to the Government’s “self-defeating austerity”.

It looked at the impact of spending an extra one per cent of GDP for two years – £30bn – on growth, debt levels, unemployment and inflation in both normal and “crisis” economic conditions.

Devoting it to infrastructure, as opposed to easing Whitehall cuts, had the best positive impact in the long run, with even a modest impact on productivity reducing the debt to GDP ratio in crisis times, the NIESR model suggested.

The TUC attacked the “painfully slow” progress in starting £310bn of infrastructure projects identified by the Government’s national plan.