Quaker groups have criticised the government’s emergency budget, suggesting that the most vulnerable people will be hit the hardest. Ministers are also under fire for continuing with high levels of military spending while cutting public services.

‘It is a budget lacking in compassion and not grounded in an understanding of the realities of life at the bottom of the pile,’ said Judith Moran, director of Quaker Social Action. She said that many of its measures will ‘do nothing practical to support people to find a pathway out of poverty’.
Her concern was echoed by Tim Nicholls of Quaker Homeless Action, who fears that cuts to housing benefit ‘will actually increase the levels of homelessness’. He urged the government to invest instead in the construction of social housing.
Church Action on Poverty (CAP) said that the increase in VAT would be worst for the poorest. They highlighted research by Save the Children showing that while the richest tenth of the population spend just seven per cent of their disposable income on VAT, the poorest tenth spend 13.7 per cent.

CAP lamented the chancellor’s failure to respond to calls from Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Church leaders to re-balance the tax system.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg denied claims that the poorest would be hardest hit, insisting that the burden ‘will be shared fairly across society’. Tim Montgomerie, founder of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, urged the chancellor to go further and scrap the ring-fence on the National Health Service budget.

Other campaigners pointed out areas of spending that will be unaffected by cuts. The Fellowship of Reconciliation said that the war in Afghanistan is costing the British public around £4bn each year. The Campaign Against Arms Trade argued that cutting subsidies to arms companies would ‘free up funds to create green jobs and support security and economic well-being’.

Only hours after the budget was delivered defence minister Nick Harvey confirmed that the government will push ahead with the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system without considering alternatives. The plan was immediately described as ‘ruinously expensive’ by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.