How the labour movement reacted to Rishi Sunak’s 2022 Spring Statement

Rishi Sunak delivered his Spring Statement this afternoon. The Chancellor announced a cut to fuel duty of 5p per litre for 12 months, raised the threshold at which workers start paying National Insurance contributions (NICs) and outlined an income tax cut of 1p to be implemented in 2024.

Crucially, Sunak did not scrap his National Insurance hike planned for April – despite calls from both opposition and Tory MPs. Rachel Reeves said the measures announced by the Chancellor showed that he “does not understand the scale of the challenge” prompted by the crisis.

Responding to the statement from Sunak today, the Shadow Chancellor highlighted that the Chancellor has “put up taxes on families and businesses a staggering 15 times” over the past two years and accused the Tories of being “the party of high taxation, because they are the party of low growth”.

Here’s what the rest of the labour movement had to say…

Trade unions

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said the Spring Statement “has failed families who need help now” and highlighted that the “small print shows that pay packets are now expected to fall in value by £11 a week this year”.

“After 12 years of Tory government, Britain needs a pay rise. But this Chancellor has no plan to get wages rising and give working people long-term financial security,” she said.

Unite’s Sharon Graham argued the Spring Statement “just tinkers around the edges” of the cost of living crisis, saying: “Workers will still be facing sleepless nights worrying about how to make ends meet, overwhelmed by rocketing prices.”

UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “The Chancellor had the wriggle room to deliver widespread relief across NHS, care, council, police and school services. It’s outrageous he chose not to.

“Public servants that the country placed so much faith in over the past two years have been badly let down. High-quality, properly staffed public services are essential for us all. That requires investment in staff.”

GMB general secretary Gary Smith declared that it is “time Rishi Sunak stopped fretting about being the next Tory leader and focused on providing real help for working people when they need it”, adding: “His talk of tax cuts in the distant future may win votes from his backbenchers, but it does nothing to help people now.”

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes criticised the government for not making public transport cheaper amid “spiralling, out of control fuel prices”. He argued Rishi Sunak “will be remembered for being the Chancellor who looked the other way as working people struggled with rising energy bills and inflation”.

Prospect’s Mike Clancy declared that, despite “the welcome shift” in the National Insurance contributions threshold, the Chancellor had “failed to provide immediate relief for rising bills and pressure on incomes”.

The general secretary argued that “existing budget allocations for R&D, defence and other critical areas have been effectively downgraded in real terms as the Chancellor took no action to adjust them in light of higher costs they now face”.

Labour Party

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden said the Chancellor “hasn’t got a clue” and has “left households and businesses to fend for themselves in the middle of a devastating cost of living crisis”.

He added: “Rishi Sunak is raising taxes again and again, only to offer crumbs just before an election. This is a cynical Chancellor who is asking struggling families to pay for the Tory election campaign. The British people will see through it.”

Also commenting this afternoon, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “Millions of Scots are being forced to choose between heating and eating – what the Chancellor is offering does not touch the sides.”

He criticised Sunak for not introducing a windfall tax on energy companies and failing to focus on job creation, describing the statement as “a series of soundbites that only tinker around the edges”. He argued: “These are the wrong choices, and the wrong answers to a national emergency.”

“The Chancellor hasn’t got a clue. He lives in another world,” deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner tweeted. “He’s left households and businesses to fend for themselves in the middle of a devastating cost of living crisis.”

Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey said there was “a deafening silence on defence from the Chancellor” and emphasised the need for the government to “respond to new threats to UK and European security following Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.

Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds tweeted: “Spring Statement coming to an end. In the face of such historic pressures on UK households, the Chancellor hasn’t even come close to meeting the scale of the challenge.”

Shadow International Trade Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds wrote: “Instead of taxing the bumper profits of North Sea oil & gas companies, the Chancellor took money out of the purses & wallets of people up and down the country.”

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Ashworth argued the Chancellor “could have done something to help ‘those in need’ today” but instead imposed “severe” real-terms cuts to support including Universal Credit, disability benefits and the basic state pension.

“Today’s Spring Statement failed to deal with the energy crisis or to produce an energy efficiency plan,” Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband tweeted, describing the Chancellor’s announcements this afternoon as “totally inadequate”.

Andy McDonald said measures outlined today “don’t go anywhere near enough to address the worst cost of living crisis in decades”, adding: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the time is right to fight for a £15 per hour minimum wage.”

Marsha de Cordova tweeted: “Cutting income tax rate and raising NI drives a wedge between taxation of unearned income and earned income. The Chancellor is penalising workers at the expense of rentiers, and is leaving those who cannot work at the mercy of runaway inflation.”

Charities, think tanks, campaign groups

Andrew Scattergood said: “Rishi Sunak has just plunged millions of working-class people into absolute poverty and despair.” He criticised Labour for “passing up the chance to be the voice for the change”, describing the party’s proposals to respond to the rising cost of living as “half-measures” that “just won’t cut it”.

“This tinkering around the edges fails to set Labour apart from a despised Conservative Party,” the Momentum co-chair said. “The country is crying out for a socialist alternative to this Tory ruin – why won’t Starmer offer it?”

Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson said if Sunak “wants to be remembered as a tax reforming Chancellor, so far he is headed in the wrong direction” and argued that the combination of increased NICs and a reduced income tax rate will make the system “both less equitable and less efficient”.

He added that the Chancellor “has done nothing more for those dependent on benefits, the very poorest, besides a small amount of extra cash for local authorities to dispense at their discretion”.

Institute for Public Policy Research North interim director Dr Arianna Giovannini argued the statement “seriously missed the mark” and “puts at risk the credibility of the government’s flagship levelling up agenda… with real, dramatic consequences for people’s lives”.

“The only way to change this is for the Chancellor to return to Parliament and deliver a concrete investment plan now, alongside a set of targeted policies that improve people’s lives, to show that the levelling up agenda is not just another empty promise,” she added.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation head of economics Dave Innes said: “The Chancellor has acted recklessly in pressing ahead with a second real-terms cut to benefits in six months, while prioritising people on middle and higher incomes.”

He added: “The Chancellor has asked us to judge him on his actions over the past two years, and while some of his previous choices have helped the worst off, he now risks plunging many into destitution… This dire situation will leave millions in despair as a direct consequence of the Chancellor’s irresponsible choices today.”

Andrew Harrop of the Fabian Society described the statement as “a savage attack on pensioners and low-income families” arguing that “those in greatest need have been abandoned by the government”.

“At a time when costs are soaring and so many people already rely on food banks, the Chancellor offered nothing on pensions, benefits and non-motoring costs,” the general secretary explained.