GOVERNMENT cuts could deal the region a blow it would take decades to recover from, union leaders said yesterday.

Trades union chiefs delivered the stark message as Public Services Alliance demonstrations against cutbacks were held in Durham, Middlesbrough and Newcastle, as part of a Europe-wide day of action.

Clare Williams, from Unison, said the “very sustainability of the region” was at stake, while John McGrory, from the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, warned more unemployment could kill the region’s work ethic for a generation.

The day of action came as ministers continued preparations on the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, to be unveiled on Wednesday, October 20.

Unions claim up to 40 per cent of the North’s public sector jobs could be lost, whole departments and agencies abolished and civil servants asked to accept a two-year pay freeze.

Ms Williams, Unison’s regional convenor, said: “With one in three jobs in the region dependent on public services and with the Government’s savage cuts threatening the very sustainability of our region, now is the time for the unions and the public to fight together to deliver quality public services that meet the needs of the region.”

She said public sector workers were being made scapegoats for the excesses of the banking sector and she had never seen such a virulent attack on them.

Kim Lowes, from the PCS, insisted there was an alternative to the Government’s cuts agenda, as £120bn was being lost in avoided, evaded and uncollected tax and £1.8bn a year wasted on Government consultants.

Rallies were held at Newcastle’s Grey Monument and the Bottle of Notes, in Middlesbrough, while union officials distributed anti-austerity leaflets in Durham Market Place.

In Middlesbrough, midwife Ann Brewer said: “If the cuts in October are as deep as we think they are going to be, so many more families will be living in poverty.

“But I don’t think we’ll get people’s support until the cuts start to affect the wider public.

It will happen when mobile libraries stop or bins go from being emptied once a week to once a fornight.”

Steve Watson, brigade secretary of the Cleveland Fire Brigade Union, said: “Fire services across the country are making cuts to front line services by 25 to 40 per cent. All that will do is put firefighters and the public at greater risk.”

Fazia Hussein, North-East regional officer at Britain’s biggest union, Unite, said:“We know cuts are going to happen but they don’t have to be as severe.

People think unions are opposing every single cut, we’re not – but we want it to be done in a manner that’s workable.”