LIVERPOOL, England (AFP) – The leader of Britain's trade unions warned Sunday that cuts in spending on key public services would cause a second wave of recession, scarring young people for life.

“Public spending cuts will provoke a double-quick, double-dip recession,” Brendan Barber said on the eve of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) annual conference.
“Unemployment could well exceed four million (in Britain) and it would take many years before there was any chance of returning to anything like full employment,” said Barber, the TUC general secretary.
“That would scar for life a whole generation of young people.”
The TUC brings together more than 50 unions representing about six million mostly public-sector workers.
Top of the agenda at the TUC's conference starting Monday in the northwest English port city of Liverpool is convincing its key ally, the Labour Party-run government, to avoid cutting public spending to tackle a ballooning budget deficit caused by recession.
Barber said the government could instead save money by scrapping controversial nuclear defense and identity card projects and by extending its program of imposing higher taxes on the wealthy.
Britain has yet to follow France, Germany and Japan out of official recession in the wake of the financial crisis, as the number of unemployed people in the country heads towards three million.
Britain's Business Secretary Peter Mandelson was on Monday to deliver a tough message on public spending in a speech to the think-tank Progress.
According to Britain's domestic Press Association news agency, Mandelson was to warn of “less spending in some programs” and to admit that some government projects may have to be scrapped.
Britain's unions face a tough future as recession threatens to cut public spending on key services such as schools and hospitals.
Furthermore, the governing centre-left Labour Party is on course to be defeated by the main opposition centre-right Conservatives, opinion polls show, at the upcoming general election.
The nation's unions provide the bulk of funding for the Labour Party and fear for their future should the Conservatives win the election, which must be held by mid-2010.