Tory cuts 'will affect poor ten times harder than rich'

Research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) found that single parents and pensioners will take the brunt of the mooted public spending cuts and that everyone but the top 10 per cent of earners will lose more from cuts than from tax and benefit changes.

The study is to be unveiled tomorrow as the TUC meets for its annual conference in Manchester.

The union's general secretary, Brendan Barber, said the Tories had backtracked on promises to protect frontline government services and ensure any the impact of any cuts would be spread fairly.

"It's a real threat to social cohesion," Barber said. "Public services are a part of the glue that holds society together. This mantra that the Tories followed, 'we're all in this together' - public services are a part of being a shared community. When you start weakening the seams you threaten the fabric of society."

The TUC's study projects the potential impact of the Chancellor's proposals using publicly available data profiling the services people use, from healthcare to education and transport, and the planned cuts.

They show that, excluding benefit cuts, single people will on average lose the equivalent of 817 a year in services, while a couple with no children will lose 1,012 and a single pensioner 1,017. A lone parent, meanwhile, will lose 1,880.

Barber accused the Liberal Democrats of fundamentally shifting their position on the economy to secure a place in the coalition, adding that the Conservatives had broken a commitment to fair cuts. He said: "One of the key things they said was that their intention was to make the necessary changes to reduce the deficit, but in a way that would be fair, would protect the most vulnerable, and so on. Yet what is already clear … from the cuts that have already been decided on (is that] the impact is overwhelmingly on people at the bottom."