Working People’s Finances: Government Policy — House of Commons, 2021-09-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): What an excellent debate it has been. It was good to hear the maiden speech from the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer), a number of contributions from the north-east, and different experiences from colleagues across the House Many colleagues thanked the volunteers who run food banks. I was reflecting that when I first began contributing to civic life as a councillor, it was all about opening Sure Start centres, and going to see new science labs at secondary schools, new running tracks and new additions to leisure centres—all those hopeful things that we were doing nearly 20 years ago. What a difficult winter we have ahead of us, when we are all talking about visiting food banks on our constituency days. Last Friday I visited Naomi from Highgate, who has a distribution point in her garage. There are soup kitchens run by Mary in Bounds Green and by Ann in Middle Lane in Hornsey. This is the reality of constituency life now and it is hard to compare the two situations: the first, a sense of hope and opportunity for future generations; and now, a dim and difficult winter ahead The 8.3% increase in food prices will bring a great deal of difficulty to households that will already be clobbered by the universal credit cut, if it goes ahead—it is not too late to do a U-turn. That £20 less a week will have a huge impact, not only on the families in our constituencies, but on the high street. How many of us are seeing closed shop fronts because people do not have the money in their pockets to keep things going? Next April, the increased national insurance contribution will come to the fore and people will be clobbered again—more taxation than the 1950s. According to Zoopla, rents are up by 5% in the last 12 months. Rail fares are also up, in some cases by thousands of pounds, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) mentioned Let me turn to local authorities. As a vice chair of the Local Government Association, I am extremely concerned about the difficult decisions that local councillors will have to make. In my experience, local councillors—regardless of party—do not actually like putting up council tax, but unfortunately once again council tax will be going up, because they will have to pay for the new national insurance contributions, which will be payable by local authorities for all the new staff needed to tackle the NHS backlog. Taking on more health and social care staff is great, but it will have a double impact because the public sector will be paying twice This is the third most expensive country globally for putting children into childcare if we need to rush out to work. It is wonderful to have more women and more parents in work, but the cost for people with two children under the age of five or six is enormous We have had the debate on energy prices at length today. We are going to be paying at least £7 a week more, and that is a very modest assessment by the Financial Times today. The £20 cut, plus the £7 increase, plus the 8.3% increase in food prices means that we are looking at a really difficult winter There is also the impact on children in schools where the pupil premium has been cut. In Hornsey and Wood Green, in my local government area of Haringey, there has been a £600,000 cut to the pupil premium. The fact that schools will be reducing their staff and their input will just add to the terrible cuts to household budgets. We face a really difficult time. This has been an excellent debate. There is still time for the Government to change their mind on this added pain for working people. I hope that they will reconsider this foolish decision and its timing, as the recovery is not yet home and secure. I ask them please to think again.