News from Sheffield Labour

Sheffield Labour MP brands Clegg’s unemployment speech “complacent and contradictory”

Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield South East, has attacked Sheffield Hallam MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem Leader, Nick Clegg’s speech on worrying unemployment figures released yesterday, calling it “complacent and contradictory”.

“With unemployment rising above 2.5 million, youth unemployment increasing to 972,000, and the economic recovery stalled, we need a real plan for jobs if we’re to get the economy growing again and so get the deficit down.

“We need an investment plan, funded by repeating the tax on bank bonuses, to build affordable homes and get young people off the dole and into work.

“The government doesn’t seem to understand that you can’t train apprentice bricklayers, plumbers and electricians unless there is new building work for them to work on. By not investing, we’re stopping economic growth now and building up inflationary pressures for the future.

“Nick Clegg says that the Government is not going to sit on its hands while the economy stumbles along, but that is precisely what he and George Osborne are doing.

“No investment is being brought forward to support jobs and the Government is simply carrying on with cuts and tax rises that go too far and too fast.”

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