Cost of Living Increases — House of Commons, 2022-03-16
Topic: Mixed Topics
Owen George Thompson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). While we cannot completely swerve the growing crisis around the globe, a sensible emergency package of financial measures could soften the blow, and it is incumbent on the Government to take decisive action now. I speak on behalf of the people of Midlothian who, like the rest of the UK, are about to face the worst income squeeze for a generation. As a former coalmining community, my constituency unfortunately has first-hand experience of Tory Government policies leaving people high and dry and struggling with hardship. We are a resilient bunch though. It should not be too much to expect a little support from the Government rather than their hindering our efforts to tackle poverty and build back opportunities after the pandemic, but there is little evidence of that from this Administration It does not help the economy to take more money out of people’s pockets and risk more people entering a spiral of debt and despair. Let us not soft soap this. As anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe warned the Work and Pensions Committee, this crisis will have fatal consequences for some families. It is not an exaggeration to say that more people will be forced to skip meals and face ill health, hunger and cold. This is 21st-century Britain; inequality is on the rise. Yes, there are global issues—I have not heard anyone try to deny that today—but they have simply compounded the crisis that we were already facing after years of Tory austerity. The ideology imposed by the Government, which we have had to endure, has left public services running on empty. We have seen drastic cuts to benefits, which hurt the most vulnerable, along with the refusal to protect pay and conditions to make sure workers earn enough to get by, the betrayal of pensioners, the absolute wrecking ball of Brexit and the half-hearted commitment to green energy investment As things stand, poor decisions and self-inflicted damage over a decade have left the UK without the resilience to cope when external factors such as covid or the war in Ukraine take their toll. We have had a poverty problem in the UK for years, yet more and more families on modest earnings are finding that they are being pushed into poverty. The New Economics Foundation warned that by April, half of children will be in families who cannot afford the cost of living. It should be a matter of shame for this Government that food banks have become an accepted thing in our towns. I pay huge tribute to the Trussell Trust and Midlothian Foodbank, Food Facts Friends in Penicuik and all the volunteers involved with them, but they should not be necessary. We need Government action, and we need to reduce the size of the storm that households are about to face The £200 loan announcement from the Chancellor is put into perspective by what is actually needed. We do not need loans that people have to pay back. The SNP has suggested a range of measures, but the Government simply will not listen. My constituency of Midlothian is not only poorly served by this Tory Government but has a cloth-eared Labour administration in the council that simply does not listen to the communities that it is there to represent. It is sluggish and poor to listen and drags its heels on bringing forward proposals from the Scottish Government that are designed to help ease the financial burden on households. Only a few weeks ago, the Labour administration proposed a whopping 4.7% increase in council tax, backed by some of their Tory chums. Thankfully, the SNP’s alternative proposal to the budget was accepted, yet the council administration continues to implement what is now an SNP budget. Hon. Members can make of that what they will. It is time for action to be taken and we need it now.