STUC on DUP – Conservative Pact

June 26th 2017

STUC on DUP – Conservative Pact

June 26th 2017

Responding to the DUP- Conservative confidence and supply agreement, Grahame Smith, General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) said:

“Today a Government that consistently pleads poverty when it comes to funding public services like health and education, paying wages of public sector workers or supporting infrastructure, found £1.5 billion to keep power. After years of austerity, this cynical deal with the DUP will inevitably stick in the throats of workers, particularly when the money is so obviously being spent to bail out an unpopular and weak Prime Minister. The question now becomes what extra money will be found for health and education across the rest of the UK? With crisis levels growing, it is not only Northern Ireland that needs or deserves a cash injection.

“The negotiations around this deal have revealed the weakness of the UK Government. With Brexit negotiations already underway it is difficult to have confidence that the UK Government is able to competently undertake the complexity of the task.

“Much of our economic future depends on what is agreed over the next two years. To entrust it to a Government, in hock to the DUP, with little plan for the future and which has already revealed its negotiating style to be aggressive and incoherent seems like economic suicide. Even with this expensive but limited confidence and supply agreement in place the demise of this Government appears inevitable. “

ENDS

For further information contact Helen Martin 0141 337 8100