Urging the Chancellor to reconsider the cuts agenda ahead of the budget tomorrow, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union, said:
"The deep and savage cuts already imposed are damaging jobs in the private and public sectors and stunting economic growth.
"The Chancellor makes a fatal economic and political error if he assumes that the cuts he has previously announced are not a problem.
"It is now time for the Chancellor to spell out his plan B as plan A clearly isn't working.
"Key frontline workers are losing jobs, services are disappearing and unnecessary misery is being heaped on ordinary families, particularly the poor and the disadvantaged.
"The Chancellor should immediately reverse the cuts to vital education programmes and cease wasting millions of taxpayers' money on academies and free schools.
"A 'Robin Hood Tax’ would halve the UK's deficit in just one year without a single penny needing to be cut from vital public services. This tiny tax (0.05%) is supported by the European Union.
"If the Coalition Government's economic strategy was really driven by the need to tackle the deficit rather than ideology, the Chancellor would be signing up the UK to the Robin Hood Tax tomorrow.”