Unite ‘Red Box’ protest outside parliament as households tell Sunak ‘we can’t afford to live

WHEN: Wednesday 23 March 2022 at 11:00

WHERE: Old Palace Yard, Westminster, SW1P 3JY 

Members of Unite Community will head to parliament on the day of the chancellor’s spring statement (Wednesday 23 March) to protest at Rishi Sunak’s failure to provide meaningful help for the UK’s poorest households through the deepest cost of living crisis for generations.

Unite Community members, including benefit claimants, pensioners and the low waged, will hold replicas of the chancellor’s famous red budget box emblazoned with the message ‘We can’t afford to live.’

They will also hand in copies of their household budgets to show the impossible choices people are facing between ‘heating or eating’. For example, one minimum wage worker, who has shared his absolute minimum monthly expenditures for essential bills with Unite, has a budget shortfall of £100.34, while a disabled claimant is over budget by £109.95. 

Unite is calling on the chancellor to use his spring budget to push up incomes. This includes restoring the £20-a-week cut to Universal Credit and an inflation-rate pay rise for the UK’s millions of public sector workers as energy costs now run 14 times ahead of wage rises and £3,000 energy bills are predicted for the autumn.

Head of Unite Community Liane Groves said: “No one in this country should have to choose between ‘heating or eating’ but for many on low incomes that is the reality they’re facing.

“The chancellor must use his Spring budget to bring forward a package of measures, including reinstating and extending the £20-a-week uplift to Universal Credit cruelly snatched away last October. He must also increase benefits in line with inflation. If he doesn’t people could die, and that’s no exaggeration.”