People's Union for Economy

The People's Union for Economy (PUE) was a pressure group in the United Kingdom in the early 1920s which campaigned for retrenchment in public expenditure.

The PUE began as a parliamentary committee (founded in February 1921) with around sixty members of both Houses of Parliament. These included Lord Salisbury, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Selborne, Lord Midleton, Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, Lord Chalmers, Lord Inchape, Walter Leaf, Lord Cowdray. It persuaded approximately 150 MPs to sign a demand for control of government spending.^[1] Lord Salisbury believed the PUE "had a good share in impelling the government towards economy".^[2] With the Middle Class Union it "helped create the atmosphere in which Christopher Addison was driven first from the Ministry of Health and then from office".^[3]

Notes

1. Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920–1924 (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 74.
2. Cowling, p. 75.
3. Cowling, p. 74.