Tag: Anneliese Dodds

Below is the text of the speech made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 8 July 2020.

Our country has been through a great deal over these past few months. Hundreds of thousands have wrestled with this terrible disease. For many months, people have had to go without being able to embrace their loved ones or even to say goodbye. Tens of thousands have died. Our NHS, social care and other workers had made extraordinary sacrifices. We owe them so much.

The Government have had to take big decisions, too—we acknowledge that—but today should have been the day when our Government chose to build a bridge between what has been done so far and what needs to be done to get our economy moving again. It should have been the day when the millions of British people worried about their jobs and future prospects had a load taken off their shoulders. It should have been the day when we got the UK economy firing again. Today, Britain should have had a back-to-work Budget; but instead we got this summer statement, with many of the big decisions put off until later, as those on the Government Benches know full well.

Labour is a constructive Opposition during this time of crisis. We will not criticise for criticism’s sake. But when the Government fall short we will speak up, and the blunt truth is that we have one of the highest death rates in the world and among the deepest economic damage in the industrialised world from coronavirus. So the very first thing the Chancellor must do is prevent additional economic damage due to the slow public health response of his Government.​
As we have seen throughout this crisis, the failure to match soaring rhetoric with meaningful action has consequences for people across our country. Despite all their talk, the Government have failed to create a fully functioning test, track and isolate system. That has damaged public confidence and, in turn, harmed consumer demand. Despite all their talk, the Government have failed to produce a clear system for local lockdowns. The lack of timely information sharing has led, as we all know, to the imposition of an additional wide-scale lockdown in Leicester.

The Government’s contracts with outsourcing firms amount to almost £3 billion, but we still have not got test, track and isolate working properly in the UK, as it is in many other countries, and the Government still have not got a grip on the low value and limited scope of sick pay, risking people’s ability to self-isolate. Fear is corrosive. Fear is hurting our economy. The Government have got to get this right.

Of course, we welcome the Government’s announcement today of targeted VAT cuts on hospitality and tourism and of vouchers to be used in restaurants. Local businesses desperately need that support, and so many low and middle-income people in particular really need help right now. That is why we have repeatedly called for social security to better meet their needs and prevent people risking losing their homes. If delivered properly, these measures should help.

But the Chancellor himself said, when interviewed on “The Andrew Marr Show”, that the best the Government can do to boost demand is to give consumers and workers the confidence and psychological security that they can go out to work, to shop and to socialise in safety. So please, Chancellor, work with your colleagues so our public health response catches up with that operating in other countries. The Prime Minister asked, what have I been doing about that? My party has been repeatedly suggesting solutions to the public health problems facing our country, and we need to adopt them in the UK before this crisis becomes even more severe.

Now the Government must act not just to deal with unemployment as a symptom, but also with its cause. Research reported this week in the “Telegraph” indicates that British workers have already been the biggest casualty in the global jobs cuts. It showed that while jobs markets in many other countries have already fully recovered, in Britain it could take comparatively much, much longer for vacancy levels to return to normal. The levels of unemployment that this country saw in the past were not just an economic waste; they ruined lives. We are seeing the same impacts again—the same devastated high streets and communities robbed of their pride and purpose.

Of course the re-employment bonus announced by the Chancellor is necessary, not least because his Government refused to put conditions on the use of those funds related to employment. But, first, how can he ensure that that money will not just go to those employers who were already planning to bring people back into work and, secondly, what will he do for those firms that lack the cash flow to be able to operate even with that bonus? Related to that, the Chancellor still needs to abandon his one-size-fits-all approach to ​withdrawing the job retention and self-employed schemes. No one is saying that those schemes should stay as they are indefinitely; the Opposition have never said that, but we have said that the money spent on the job retention scheme must not serve merely to postpone unemployment. The scheme must live up to its name, supporting employment in industries that are viable in the long term. We also need a strategy for the scheme to become more flexible so that it can support those businesses forced to close again because of additional localised lockdowns. There is still time to avoid additional floods of redundancy notices. It is the Government’s duty to help Britain through this and stop employment reaching mass levels again.

We need action to ensure the support needed for key sectors of our economy—for our small and medium-sized enterprises and our manufacturers. While we of course welcome the long-overdue arts and culture package, we still have not heard the Government’s plans for other sectors. Many of us expected to hear them today, but we have not. The Project Birch process has been slow, tortuous and opaque. Large parts of industrial Britain need help to get through this—to keep their employees in jobs and keep their suppliers in jobs. Meanwhile, it appears that there will be no solutions for SMEs who cannot take on additional debt until the autumn. This risks many SMEs going to the wall.

Until now, the Chancellor has described a targeted, sectoral approach as the Treasury “picking winners”, but the necessary public health measures have created losers. As the Chancellor himself said just now, the Government required many businesses to shut down to prevent the spread of this disease. Supporting businesses that are viable in the long run but currently starved of cash flow is not a matter of “picking winners”: it is about protecting our country’s economic capacity for the future. Failure to do so—to make the job retention and self-employed schemes more targeted and focused and to support viable businesses—is driving up unemployment in this country. The claimant count is on course to top 3 million people in June—the highest number since the previous record in 1986. This is the Chancellor’s record, and one that cannot and must not be worsened.

Where unemployment arises as a symptom of economic damage, more must be done to help. Labour repeatedly called for the Government to match the ambitions of Labour’s future jobs fund and Welsh Labour’s Jobs Growth Wales programme, and finally the Government have come forward with a scheme apparently modelled on them—the kick-start scheme. The Conservatives cancelled the future jobs fund, of course, and it has taken almost 10 years for them to catch up. As with their belated adoption of our call for “jobs, jobs, jobs”, perhaps this gives a new meaning to the phrase “Project Speed”. We now need to make sure that the kick-start scheme provides genuinely additional opportunities for young unemployed people. The Government must also recognise the specific challenges faced by older jobseekers, many of whom are becoming unemployed for the first time, and those based in especially hard-hit places. Reimposing sanctions now is punitive and counter- productive when jobseekers need support.

We must be ambitious for the future of our country’s economy. Our ambition should not just be to build our way out of this but to do so in a greener and cleaner way. For this, we need more than the reheated announcements ​by the Prime Minister last week. Of course the investment announced was welcome, not least because much of it was already committed to by the Government. However, core elements are missing. For example, £50 million to support retrofitting in social homes is just a seventh of what the Conservatives said they would be spending every year. The muddled confusions over stamp duty over the past 48 hours reflect a broader lack of strategy when it comes to house building, particularly for genuinely affordable and social homes. Overall, the UK’s green investment package barely touches the sides of other countries’ commitments. Even with what was announced today, it only equates to just over the value of Germany’s investment in one green technology alone—hydrogen. The Committee on Climate Change has indicated how far behind the UK is in the race to decarbonise. Failure to heed its recommendations is not only damaging to our planet, but it also cuts us out of leading the development of the key technologies of the future. The Conservatives are still refusing to impose conditions on investment to ensure that it contributes to the goal of net zero and that it supports local jobs, uses local firms, leads to sustainable skilled employment in local areas and prevents the use of tax havens and other forms of asset stripping.

If the Chancellor really wants to “build back better”, he must prevent a rerun of the past. From 2010 onwards, we have seen how families’ resilience has been eroded. We entered this crisis with a quarter of families lacking even £100 in savings. In a typical classroom of 30, nine children are growing up in poverty, and our economy is the most regionally unequal in Europe. Our local authorities continue to be cut to the bone, with many standing on the brink of bankruptcy as we speak, and rather than the promise that our NHS and social care services would get whatever they needed this winter—to weather a potential second wave—those words were conspicuously absent from the Chancellor’s speech just now.

Politicians in this House have gone out on our doorsteps to clap key workers, while the lowest paid have struggled to keep a roof over their heads. We must have a new settlement for the future: an end to poverty pay for our social care workers and those who clean our hospitals and deliver our groceries. We want a recognition of the value of the work of those who have been taken for granted for far too long.

There were some initial press reports that the Government were due to announce generalised tax increases or cuts to services this autumn, which were contradicted by the Prime Minister, who rejected whatever had apparently been briefed out by the Treasury—that has happened quite a few times. I say to the Government that, if they do increase taxes during the recovery and cut back on the public services that we all rely on, it will damage demand and inhibit our recovery. Labour is not calling for tax rises. We are calling for growth.

The Tory manifesto committed to no rises in income tax, national insurance or VAT, and therefore it is for the Conservatives to set out how any additional spending will be paid for. It is the Chancellor’s job to ensure that the economy bounces back from this crisis, so that there is money in the coffers to protect the public finances.

Last week, the Chancellor’s colleague, the Prime Minister, tried to claim the mantle of FDR—as we all know. Perhaps now we know why he went for Roosevelt. It is because this week the Prime Minister blamed carers for the failings in the system that his Government had ​underfunded for the past decades. Now we know why he went for Roosevelt. It is because the last thing that his Government would have wanted was the sign on the desk of Harry Truman, the successor to Roosevelt, which said, “The buck stops here.” If this Government had a sign, it would probably say, “The buck stops anywhere but here”. But they cannot escape their responsibilities: to govern is to choose. It is to choose to finally sort out test, track and isolate, to prevent unnecessary additional unemployment and to build the green jobs of the future. This is a moment when our country needs its Government to help Britain through.

Below is the text of the comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 8 July 2020.

The money sunk into the Job Retention Scheme must not have merely served to postpone unemployment.

The scheme must now live up to its name – supporting employment in industries which are viable in the long term.

And we need a strategy for the scheme to become more flexible, so it can support those businesses forced to close again because of additional localised lockdowns.

There is still time to avoid additional floods of redundancy notices.

As we have seen throughout this crisis, the failure to match soaring rhetoric with meaningful action has consequences for people across the country.

Despite all its talk, the Government has failed to create a fully functioning ‘test, track and isolate’ system. This has damaged public confidence and in turn harmed consumer demand.

And despite all its talk, the Government has failed to produce a clear system for local lockdowns. The lack of timely information sharing has led to the imposition of an additional, wide scale lockdown in Leicester.

I say to the Government, if it does increase taxes during the recovery, and cuts back on the public services we all rely on, this will damage demand and inhibit our recovery.

Labour is not calling for tax rises – we are calling for growth.

The Tory manifesto committed to no rises in income tax, National Insurance or VAT and therefore it is for them to set out how any additional spending will be paid for.

It’s the Chancellor’s job to make sure the economy bounces back from this crisis so there is money in the coffers to protect the public finances.

Below is the text of the comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 7 July 2020.

This report indicates the enormous long-term costs of mass unemployment to the UK economy. If the Conservatives are serious about adopting Labour’s calls for a focus on ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’, they urgently need to change tack.

The Government must abandon their ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to withdrawing the Job Retention and Self-Employment schemes, and develop support for jobseekers using examples like Labour’s Future Jobs Fund.

They must also increase their ambitions for supporting infrastructure beyond the largely reannounced projects promoted by the Prime Minister last week, which amounted to a tenth of Germany’s package.

Below is the text of the speech made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 3 July 2020.

Back in March, as lockdown began, hastily written notes were placed in the windows of shops and businesses on high streets across the country.

They announced an unavoidable shut down with no certainty about how or when they could re-open.

This is every business’ nightmare, but for three long months, it has been their waking reality.

Now, for some parts of our economy, the notes are beginning to come down, and the shutters are beginning to come up.

But for others, the crisis is still not over.

We are still in the middle of the greatest crisis in a generation one where our government, sadly, has been too slow to act. Too slow to lockdown. Too slow to ramp up testing. And too slow to get PPE to our brilliant frontline workers.

As lockdown restrictions begin to ease, attention is turning to the economic impact of coronavirus.

Labour is very clear: the government cannot afford to be too slow.

Britain needs a Back to Work Budget with a focus on jobs, jobs and jobs again.

What we are hearing from the government on the economy is worrying.

Worrying that – yet again – they plan to take a hands-off approach to helping business and people’s livelihoods.

Worrying that the Chancellor is reported to have said he “shouldn’t be picking winners.”
As if supporting a local pub or family-run restaurant, that has been boarded up at the direction of government is somehow cheating the natural order of things.

Worrying that some press reports suggested the Chancellor was considering putting off his Summer Economic Update, in order to wait and see what happens this weekend, when more of the lockdown lifts. Even though many other countries announced weeks ago, their recovery packages, focused on backing the green jobs of the future.

Waiting to see is not a strategy.

The OECD’s Global Outlook report published last month, made for sobering reading.
It suggested that the economic hit on the UK due to the coronavirus would be the worst of all industrialised nations.

And, that unemployment levels in the UK could be the second worst in the industrialised world.

Just as the hit to our population’s health from coronavirus threatens to be one of the worst of all industrialised countries, so our economy stands at a crossroads.

This is not a time to wait and see.

In Leicester this week we have seen the first major re-imposition of lockdown.

The government promised these lockdowns would be local.

But the reality is they are being driven from Whitehall.

We still do not have a functioning track, trace and isolate system.

And local authorities are not getting the data they need in the time they need it.

The experience in recent days and weeks in Leicester is a familiar one in our response to this crisis. Muddled. Confusing. With a refusal to bring in local authorities and too slow – much – much too slow.

We desperately need and want government to get this right.

Lives and livelihoods depend upon it.

Because for as long as there is confusion and delay in the public health response, many people will stay away from our high streets and out of our shops, pubs and restaurants.

At this time of continued national crisis, Labour is determined to act as a constructive opposition.

So, in that spirit, I call on the Chancellor to acknowledge the impact of the slow health response on our economy and do something about it.

Today we call on government, to lay out plans to extend support schemes for businesses and people in areas like Leicester that are forced into local lockdowns.

These support schemes should serve as economic sandbags, ensuring localised second waves of COVID-19 don’t wash away businesses and jobs in their wake.

Labour has also repeatedly set out constructive solutions when it comes to test, track and isolate, including changes to sick pay, so people are not having to choose between self-isolating and providing for their families.
And we have repeatedly called for clear public health messaging – with unambiguous and strongly-enforced guidance.

These solutions are critical to reducing infection and to building trust and aiding our economic recovery.

We have also set out the fiscal measures Government should take, to first secure, and then turbocharge our recovery.

Instead of the limited ‘Summer Economic Update’ promised next week, we need a real Back to Work Budget.

It must focus on preventing unemployment, supporting the unemployed back into work, and creating the jobs of the future, so that when we emerge from this crisis, Britain is ready to come back even better than before.

We already know many of the policies which can prevent and combat unemployment, and the long-term costs unemployment incurs.

And we know that many other countries announced their economic recovery packages not just days, but weeks ago.

Already we are falling behind others.

This is no time to wait and see: it’s the time to act in our country’s interest.

Labour supported the Job Protection Scheme and self-employed schemes – indeed, we called for them.

We also called for an exit strategy.

But as with the lifting of lockdown, what we have now is an exit without a strategy.

First, government must abandon its one-size-fits-all wind-down of the Job Protection and self-employed schemes.

We need a targeted strategy that acknowledges that workers in struggling sectors cannot and should not be treated the same way, as workers in sectors that are already back to full capacity.

This is not about ‘picking winners’, in the Chancellor’s words.

It is about protecting those who have lost – through no fault of their own. It is about giving people across the country a fair chance.

The reward for months of sacrifice cannot be a redundancy notice.

This week we saw a wave of companies announcing enormous job losses – because the government is refusing to shift from its one-size-fits-all approach.

Smaller companies have a shorter redundancy period. To avoid the same flood of redundancy notices for workers within smaller companies later on this month, government must act now – and abandon its one-size-fits-all approach.

When we talk about our economy, it can feel distant and remote: interest rates and budgets and spreadsheets. It is anything but.

The economy is our jobs and family incomes.

It is our high streets and our communities.

It is the things that add meaning and character to the places we live and love.

It is small business owners, who have put their life and soul into building their businesses.

It has been heartbreaking to hear from many of them in recent weeks. How they feel their businesses slipping through their fingers because of a temporary lack of cash flow, even though with the right, targeted support now, they would be perfectly viable in the long term.

That frustration, that anger, at working hard all your life, playing by the rules, doing the right thing, waiting your place patiently in the queue. Only to find it snatched away from you by a combination of this terrible crisis and government’s refusal to help.

Supporting them now isn’t about picking winners.

It’s about basic fairness.

Government must also act now to provide support for those who have become unemployed.

Instead, the DWP are re-introducing sanctions at a time when there are more than eight people unemployed for every vacancy.

This government seems completely divorced from the scale of the unemployment crisis facing us.

It must speedily put in place the ‘active labour market policy’ that already operates in many other countries, and which our JobCentres do not have the capacity to provide.

Government must also act now to support the jobs of the future.

And here we need guarantees of delivery, not just warm words.

In 2015, the Conservative government promised to huge fanfare 200,000 new homes for first-time buyers. Not a single one of those homes was built.

The Conservatives have talked and talked: they have not built.

If you could construct houses out of Conservative press releases, promises and hot air, the housing crisis in this country would have ended years ago.

Instead, the rate of homeownership has fallen, and almost 800,000 fewer households under-45 own their own home now, compared to in 2010.

The Conservatives have talked and talked: they have not built.

And on the green infrastructure that every region and nation of this country is crying out for, there have been promises and paper commitments, but precious little action.

The Conservatives have talked and talked: they have not built.

Two years ago, the National Infrastructure Commission published an assessment. There has been no official response.

And this week the Prime Minister tried to claim he was creating a ‘New Deal’. Most of it was re-announcements of things we have heard before.

So, it wasn’t really ‘new’.

And, when we cut through the bluster and looked at the detail of what the Prime Minister was actually offering, it works out at less than £100 investment per person.

So, it’s not much of a deal either.

Ten years of Conservative government. Ten years of talk. Ten years of inaction.

Instead of yet more promises and yet more talk, we need a laser focus – on jobs, jobs, jobs.

To deliver on jobs, the Chancellor’s statement must meet four key tests.

First, it must focus, not on re-announced, re-hashed prestige projects, but on supporting high-quality jobs.

The test of a project can’t be if it piques the interest of the Prime Minister’s closest advisor.

Instead, projects must involve local firms. They must give the local workforce new skills and training. They must lead to material improvement in the quality and availability of local employment.

And, programmes to support employment must be measured against the success of schemes like the Future Jobs Fund, and reflect the different challenges faced by young workers, older workers, and particularly impacted areas of the UK.

Second, the Chancellor’s statement must buck the trend of the last ten years and rebuild economic resilience right across our country.

As a recent report noted:

“[t]here is little chance of a so-called ‘bounce-back’ in areas such as Pendle, Burnley, or Barnsley where local authority service spending has fallen by 53 per cent, 51 per cent, and 35 per cent over the decade in real terms”.

And public support for ailing companies must come with good-value strings attached, to support local employment, to keep value in the UK by avoiding dividend payments, share buybacks and the use of tax havens, and to adhere to strong environmental requirements.

Third, every single project must be consistent with the drive to net-zero – so we can build the green jobs of the future.

Last week’s Committee on Climate Change report showed how far behind the UK is falling – now is the time for action.

Just as the German, Danish and South Korean stimulus packages have focused on green technologies, so must the UK’s, if we are to avoid falling behind other countries.

And fourth, any benefits of investment now must not be cancelled out by poor decisions later.

Because, while the Prime Minister says now that those who have borne the brunt of the crisis will not be called on to pay for it, we’ve seen the opposite over the last ten years.

Since this dreadful virus struck, we have seen who our key workers really are.

Those who staff our NHS; those working in our emergency services; those keeping supermarkets open; and the elderly and vulnerable cared for.

Our keyworkers are the people keeping bins collected, children educated, and the country safe.

Those on the frontline of this crisis have heroically risen to the challenge over the last few months – but, for many, that follows a decade of reductions in pay, security and living standards.

Over the last ten years, the gap in income and wealth has increased, and living standards for low and middle-income people have stagnated – at the same time as taxes for the very best-off have been reduced.

So finally, government must commit, at the very least, to not increase taxes or cut support for low and middle-income people, during the period while we recover from this crisis.

Because just like the small business that fears for its future, what people want – what they deserve – is fairness.

We cannot go back to business as normal.

We cannot “wait and see”.

We cannot have more empty promises.

We cannot have more inaction.

We need a response which recognises the scale of the challenge we face.

And the first step in this, the first move to get Britain back on its feet, needs to happen now.

Britain needs a Back to Work Budget – one that focuses on jobs, jobs, jobs.

Below is the text of the comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 29 June 2020.

Unemployment has climbed to its highest level in a generation, and our country is suffering the worst economic hit of all industrialised nations. But instead of the Back-to-Work Budget our country needs focusing on one thing – jobs, jobs, jobs – the Chancellor will only be providing an ‘update’ on the economy.

We urgently need the Conservatives to abandon their ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to the economic support schemes, which will inevitably lead to additional unemployment. And we need concrete action and a laser-like focus preventing further job losses and supporting future employment.

Below is the text of the comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 18 June 2020.

Clearly this is an unprecedented intervention by the Bank of England. However, the impact of monetary measures are necessarily limited in the current macroeconomic environment.

We now need the Government to step up to the plate and take the fiscal measures required. This is especially important given that the UK is lagging behind other nations in announcing its stimulus package. We need a Back to Work Budget with just one focus – jobs, jobs, jobs.

Below is the text of the comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 12 June 2020.

These figures are deeply worrying. They come a day after the OECD suggested that the UK’s fall in GDP for this year will be worse than that of every other industrialised country.

As a constructive opposition, Labour has been pushing the Government to take the action that is needed now to prevent an even deeper recession. That means above all getting a grip on test, track and isolate, so that people can safely return to work and consumers can have confidence in entering businesses. It also means changing its one-size-fits-all approach to support packages, which risk additional waves of unemployment.

Below is the text of the statement made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 29 May 2020.

It is welcome that the government has heeded Labour’s calls for a more gradual introduction of the employer contribution to furlough, the introduction of flexibility within furlough to allow part-time working, and the extension of the self-employed scheme.

However, it is concerning that there is no commitment within these plans for support to only be scaled back in step with the removal of lockdown. Nor is there any analysis of the impact on unemployment of a ‘one size fits all’ approach being adopted across all sectors.

The Chancellor must publish the evidence behind these decisions to provide reassurance that his proposals won’t cause an additional spike in unemployment, and an even more difficult economic recovery from this crisis.