The increase in spending basically covers the increase to funding for health. For other public services, already savage cuts will continue - by up to 4 per cent per head by 2023/24. The damage to services and to a workforce struggling to cope with rising demand at a time of staff shortages is obvious.

The impact on local government particularly severe, and almost one in 10 councils are now expecting legal challenges based on reductions in service provision.

In a statement issued with the report, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady says it as it is:

“Austerity didn’t mend the holes in the roof, it tore it down. And it’s left Britain in a far worse state to survive the challenges ahead.

“With the global economy slowing down and Brexit causing so much uncertainty, we cannot afford to delay the rebuilding that Britain needs.

“Positive action is needed from the government. We must direct more funding to public services to strengthen the economy at its core. And every community must get investment in the modern infrastructure needed for growth.”

The Chancellor has planned a small boost to spending in 2018/19 as part of the Prime Minister’s alleged commitment to ‘end austerity’. But the scale of the weakness demands much more. We call for an immediate boost to spending of £25 billion:

an additional £15bn increased funding to provide rapid and material support to the economy and begin to restore the health of vital public services. This will double the planned increase already set out in the Autumn Budget;

an extra £10bn for capital spending to help bring the UK towards the OECD average for infrastructure investment (3.5% GDP)

These increases are necessary to rescue our public services, and to help start build the infrastructure we need for the twenty-first century.

But they’re needed to boost our feeble growth too. From the point of view of the economy, according to the range of IMF multipliers (0.9 – 1.7), the spending should strengthen nominal GDP in 2019-20 by between one and two percentage points of GDP. Working people need a change of approach. The Chancellor should take this opportunity to deliver it.