Unison unveils its 'no-cuts budget'

The public-sector union put forward 11 reforms, including a 50 per cent tax on incomes over £100,000 a year, action against tax havens and the ditching of the controversial Trident nuclear weapons programme.

If all 11 policies were implemented, savings of over £74.1bn could be made.

Unison said its proposals provided a clear alternative to the Tory rhetoric of slashing public-sector spending that would cause long-term damage and plunge Britain into severe depression.

"We do not have to fall into the trap of Tory rhetoric that deep cuts to public spending are needed to balance the books," Unison leader Dave Prentis declared.

"Cuts are not inevitable. They are a dangerous option that could shock the system into a prolonged depression. Public spending is the jump-start our economy needs and it must be kept up."

While the government was right to take action to prevent financial meltdown, now it needed to remain calm and carry on investing to create jobs.

"Now is not the time to push public-sector workers on the dole - people need them," he said.

And the union proposed that employing extra cleaning staff in the NHS could help save millions a year by stamping out infections acquired while people were being treated in hospital.

The largest savings of all could be made on introducing a tax on major transactions between British financial institutions, which could raise a colossal £30bn a year, according to the union.

And equally huge savings could be made long term from scrapping the government's £76bn Trident programme.

CND chairwoman Kate Hudson said: "Scrapping Trident and its replacement would not only save billions, but would actually improve our security by pushing forward CND moves towards global nuclear disarmament.

"Unison has quite rightfully identified it as a prime target for cutting, while maintaining socially useful spending."

Trident was a wasteful drain on the economy, she stressed.

"We would be better off without it even at the best of times. In the current climate it really is the new common sense for Trident to go."

Unison's recovery budget

• £4.7bn could be raised every year by introducing a 50 per cent tax rate on incomes over £100,000 • £10bn could be raised every year by reforming tax havens and residence rules to reduce tax avoidance by corporations and 'non-domiciled' residents • £14.9bn could be raised every year by using minimum tax rates to stop reliefs being used to disproportionately subsidise incomes over £100,000 • £30bn could be raised every year by introducing a Major Financial Transactions Tax on financial institutions • £76bn could be saved over 40 years by cancelling Trident, amounting to £1.8bn annually • £500m could be saved every year by eradicating healthcare-acquired infections from the NHS - extra cleaners would cost half this • £495m could be saved every year by adopting measures to improve the health and well-being of NHS staff, thereby reducing sickness absence • £1bn could be saved every year by halving the local government agency bill, a sum achieved by high performing councils • £5bn could be raised every year with an Empty Property Tax on vacant dwellings, which only exaggerate housing shortages and harm neighbourhoods • £2.8bn could be saved every year by reducing the central government use of private consultants • £3bn could be saved in user fees and interest charges every year if PFI schemes were replaced with conventional public procurement

Total: £74.195 billion