Working People’s Finances: Government Policy — House of Commons, 2021-09-21
Topic: Energy
Bridget Maeve Phillipson (Labour, Centre-left): I will shortly come to a section of my speech that deals with the extensive problems that we face as a result of the Government’s Brexit deal; I will say a little bit more at that point Resolution Foundation analysis published yesterday shows that four in 10 households on universal credit face a 13% rise in their energy bills in the same month that their universal credit is cut by £20 a week. Earlier this month, we heard a lot of Government Members selectively quoting the analysis of the Resolution Foundation. I hope that they have been paying a little more attention this week, and will be reading that report with the same degree of careful attention This crisis may be sudden, but the causes are long standing: dependence on imports; a lack of energy security; inadequate emphasis on storage; a decade of decisions deferred and dodged. This is a crisis made in Downing Street that was caused by a decade of complacency. Gas stockpiles are at their lowest level for 10 years. In 2019, the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves)—who then chaired the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee—wrote to the Government about the impact of closing the Rough storage facility, which provided about 75% of Britain’s natural gas storage capacity. She wrote about gas security and the need for supply resilience. "All is well" was the tenor of the response she received, even though the key report on which Ministers relied did not include any explicit analysis of consumer price impacts. And yet here we are today This month, connectivity to the continent for electricity imports is down. It is often high praise to be able to say that something is really on fire, but rather less so when it is the main electricity cable to France, which went up in flames earlier this month and will not be back online until March. As the pandemic showed so powerfully, when crises arise we discover that our country is not prepared, and that only one thing has to go wrong and everything is at risk. The resilience that should be there has long since been stripped out for illusory short-term savings Incomes are heading down and prices are up, but, more than that, taxes are already up and planned to go up further. Last November, the Chancellor all but forced councils to put up council tax further to pay for the rapidly rising cost of social care—a challenge the Conservatives did nothing to tackle in 11 years in power. In March, he set out his plans to freeze income tax thresholds, taking a higher chunk of working people’s incomes each year. This month he set out his new tax on working people and their employers, providing £19 in every extra £20 by taxing the earnings of working people and the success of small businesses. As we head towards another Budget, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have repeatedly refused to rule out yet another unfair tax rise on working people. Time and again this Chancellor reaches to take money from the pockets of working people and their employers rather than looking across the system and ensuring that those with the broadest shoulders, who can afford to contribute more, do contribute more Incomes are heading down, prices are up, taxes are rising, and what is more, rents are up too. According to the property website Zoopla, private rental prices across the UK increased by 5% in the 12 months to the end of July, adding almost £500 a year to the average tenant’s bill—the biggest jump since its index began in 2008. That might be welcome news for those who have a portfolio of properties and make their living from renting to others, but for working people these numbers are an index not of success but of a decade of Government failure to get a grip on the housing issues of this country Incomes are going down, prices are going up, taxes are rising, rents are rising, and, what is more, the cost of childcare is going up too. Labour Members have long warned that a decade of Conservative neglect and the impact of the pandemic could force thousands of early years providers to shut their doors for ever, and it is now clear that those fears are being realised.