Austerity in Britain

UK Public funds 'may be cut by third'

Spending on services like police, defence, transport and justice could be cut by a third by 2017/18 under Government spending plans, a report warned.

London Evening Standard,

6 February, 2013

The plans suggest 1.2 million job losses in the public sector by that date, 300,000 more than predicted by the Government's official forecasters, according to the Green Budget published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The respected economic think-tank said Chancellor George Osborne's failure to hit deficit reduction targets means tax rises or "substantial" additional cuts in welfare benefits are likely after the 2015 general election to avoid "hard to contemplate" cuts in Whitehall budgets.

The fiscal position may force the Chancellor to raid pensioner benefits, the NHS, schools or overseas aid, hitherto protected from cuts, said the report.

The IFS said: "Over the last 30 years, tax rises announced in the year after a general election have averaged £7.5 billion. Considering this trend, and in the context of the current fiscal situation, further tax rises following the next election would not be surprising."

Mr Osborne is due to borrow £64 billion more than he planned by 2015, due to the poor performance of the economy, and borrowing is likely to be higher this year than in 2012, the IFS found.

With the public finances failing to come into balance as quickly as Mr Osborne had hoped, IFS director Paul Johnson questioned whether the Chancellor can continue to shield the NHS, schools and overseas aid from cuts.

The Government said it will continue to protect these three areas from cuts in the spending review for 2015/16, now being negotiated but Mr Johnson said extending protection further would mean spending on other departments - like the Home Office, Defence and Environment - falling by a third by 2017/18.

If the budget for defence equipment was protected, as Prime Minister David Cameron has suggested, that figure would rise to 35%.

Whitehall departments have so far relied heavily on job losses to meet the Chancellor's austerity demands, and if they continued to do so at the same rate, 1.2 million public sector jobs could go by 2017/18, compared with the 900,000 forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, said the IFS.

Suicide rate in Northern Ireland up by 100 per cent

The House of Commons has been told that death by suicide in Northern Ireland has increased by 100 per cent in less than 15 years.

BBC,

6 February, 2013

The figures were revealed by the North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds during a parliamentary debate at Westminster.

The DUP deputy leader told MPs that his constituency had one of the highest suicide rates of any part of the United Kingdom.

Mr Dodds said around 300 people take their lives in Northern Ireland yearly.

Addressing MPs in the Commons on Wednesday, Mr Dodds outlined the figures in north Belfast.

"It is 25.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2006-11 and in the last five-year period we have available, that has crept up to 25.9 per 100,000," he said.

The debate at Westminster was lead by the South Antrim DUP MP Willie McCrea.

He raised the issue of the role the internet can have in suicide.

He told MPs that more needs to be done to protect young people from websites which give instructions on how to take your own life.

Personal experience

He told the Commons: "In recent years there have been several widely-reported cases of individuals taking their own lives having used websites that have provided explicit information on suicide methods or have been used to facilitate suicide pacts."

Foyle MP Mark Durkan spoke about the impact of suicide on his own family when a friend of his mother died.

"I have experienced suicide in my family more than once. I have also experienced suicide from people that have been regarded as close or good friends, or family friends," he said.

He said he was "stuck with the questions and the answers that will never come".

Care and support minister Norman Lamb said the suicide prevention strategy recognised that the media had a significant influence on what children do and think.

"It is deeply worrying that young people can easily be exposed to such pernicious material on the internet, but we shouldn't dismiss the internet as only a source of harmful material, it also provides an opportunity to reach out to vulnerable people who might otherwise refuse support," he said.

Labour's Madeleine Moon referred to Office for National Statistics data which she said showed there was an increase in suicides in the UK.

In 2011 she said there had been 6,045 suicides, an increase of 7.8% on the previous year.