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Tag: Speeches

  • Carla Lockhart – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Carla Lockhart – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Carla Lockhart, the DUP MP for Upper Bann, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    Across the House, we are all acutely aware of the challenges faced by our constituents. The groceries budget puts less in the supermarket basket than it did a year ago; the electricity or gas top-up card does not last as long as it did a year ago; and £20 of diesel does not take a car as far as it did a year ago. Those additional household cost pressures are being felt at a time when many people have just experienced real-terms cuts to their income and/or benefits. Furthermore, not that long ago, the £20 uplift to universal credit was withdrawn by the Government, despite appeals from Opposition Members, and from charities across the length and breadth of the UK.

    For the squeezed middle, childcare costs continue to increase and mortgage costs face steep rises. The reality for so many is that wages are failing to keep up with the increase in the cost of living. The national insurance hike and the cumulative impact of all those pressures will result in households’ disposable income shrinking. The bite is being felt.

    It ought to be of great concern to the Government that the OBR has warned that UK residents face the biggest living standards drop on record. That is why it is deeply disappointing and distressing for those feeling the squeeze that although we were told that the Government’s priority is to help

    “ease the cost of living for families”,

    in reality, nothing is being done to deliver on that right now. The Government announced 38 Bills last week. Many of them have great merit, yet there was nothing to address the immediate pressures facing households and families across the United Kingdom. A windfall tax on energy companies enjoying soaring profits was absent. The opportunity to cut taxes or reverse the inexplicable national insurance rise was missed. The Government repeatedly tell us that they are a party of low taxes. Surely now is the time to prove it.

    For those in Northern Ireland, the opportunity to give a clear legislative commitment to addressing the issue of the Northern Ireland protocol was also absent. The protocol exacerbates the cost of living crisis in Northern Ireland. The cost of bringing goods into Northern Ireland has increased by around 27%, according to our haulage industry. That cost is being passed on to businesses and consumers. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself has argued that the protocol is restricting his ability to help our post-covid recovery and holding back economic growth. He is right.

    As the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) outlined so eloquently, the new UK-wide VAT cut on renewable energy products cannot be implemented in Northern Ireland because of the terms of the protocol. That is a wholly unacceptable situation that no Prime Minister or Government of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can preside over. The Prime Minister knows what he must do. Today’s statement from the Foreign Secretary is welcome, but we must see action. I regret that thus far the Chancellor has been an absent Chancellor when it comes to visiting Northern Ireland. I again extend an invitation to him to come to Northern Ireland and hear from my constituents and businesses who are feeling the squeeze.

    In conclusion, the long-term objectives identified by the Government—higher wages, more highly skilled jobs and a move towards our own supply of cheaper and cleaner energy—are very welcome, but families cannot wait for those objectives to become reality. For many, the pressure is being felt acutely now. They need action now.

  • Andrew Bowie – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Andrew Bowie – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Andrew Bowie, the Conservative MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    It is a pleasure to rise to speak in this debate, and to be the last Member on the Conservative Benches to do so, because it has given me the opportunity to listen to the entire debate, and what an interesting debate it has been.

    We have heard that the Liberal Democrats position is to leave all oil and gas in the ground, which makes for an interesting debate on how we will develop our hydrogen-based economy if all the gas is to be left in the ground. We heard the SNP endorse Labour’s plans for a smash-and-grab raid on one of Scotland’s most successful industries—they couched it in ambiguous terms, but the people of Aberdeenshire and the north-east of Scotland heard them loud and clear.

    We heard the former Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), making offensive remarks, frankly, about the oil and gas industry in his opening speech, because he stood at the Dispatch Box and described profits being made by the oil and gas companies as unearned. I ask him to come up to my constituency of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine and say to the men and women who go off in the North sea for weeks at a time, in difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances, to provide the energy that keeps the lights on in this place and around the country that the profits of the companies they work for are unearned.

    The right hon. Gentleman also referred to former Governments looking favourably on the introduction of a windfall tax. He is right: former Labour and Conservative Governments, Chancellors and Prime Ministers have introduced windfall taxes—but what happened? Every single time, investment in the North sea went down. It is a funny plan: supporting working people by putting the very jobs that they rely on at risk. That is what Labour’s plan would do.

    The former Leader of the Opposition also selectively quoted Mr Bernard Looney of BP; Mr Looney said that no current plans to invest would be affected by a windfall tax, but he has also made it clear that future plans may be affected. The former Leader of the Opposition mocked the idea that, over the last eight years, the UK’s oil and gas sector has been struggling. Does he not remember the oil price crash of 2015, when a barrel of oil went from $107 to $44 in just seven months? Is the Labour party so out of touch with Scotland these days that it does not know the effect that had on north-east Scotland’s economy? Probably, because under his leadership his party lost all but one of its Scottish Labour MPs.

    Those who have listened to the Labour party’s rhetoric on tax today would suspect that the oil and gas sector was paying no tax whatsoever. In fact, oil and gas companies pay three separate profit-based taxes on oil and gas production: they pay corporation tax and a supplementary charge, and for years have paid a further petroleum tax on top of that. The industry is the most taxed in the country. The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that the upstream sector will pay £18.5 billion in production taxes between 2021 and 2025 and a total of £23.4 billion through to 2027, which is £13 billion higher than the previous forecast in October 2021.

    The Opposition are confusing facts with their own spin. BP did not say that taxation has no effect on its investment. It was clear, as others have been, that further investment would be hampered by higher taxation. They talk about the industry as if it is just BP and Shell. That tells of a total ignorance of the industry, and of all the other companies whose fields are in the North sea, and whose fallow years follow those of the majors. The Opposition forget about the supply chain; the small trade across the north-east that ties us to the continent and to our Nordic friends; the students taught; and the discoveries made through research on oil, which will create the green future that we are all calling for. They forget that we are relying on the industry for answers.

    It is good that the Chancellor is keeping all options on the table. Of course, we want investment in green technologies as we move forward, but Labour’s plan is back-of-the-fag-packet stuff. It is high on rhetoric and low on substance. Typical! Same old Labour.

  • Drew Hendry – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Drew Hendry – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Drew Hendry, the SNP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    Since I was first elected in 2015, I have seen things go from bad to worse for struggling people and families under the Tories in this Chamber. I used to say that people should not have to choose between heating and eating; I did not expect the Tories to take away even that option from people. We hear today that people are self-disconnecting from gas and electricity, or storing food outside their refrigerator to save money by switching it off, in dangerous circumstances. This is a dreadful time and people are facing dreadful conditions. They are unable to wash clothes or wash themselves, use cookers, or even switch on the lights. People are struggling. They are seeing energy companies put up their bills, sometimes increasing direct debits by hundreds of pounds per month, even though there is little evidence that that is required.

    All this is happening, yet this Government and a complacent Ofgem are doing next to nothing. They should be doing everything in their power, yet their inaction can only lead to the conclusion that they just do not care. They ought to step in to help off-gas grid customers and businesses, because they face an even heavier burden: unregulated liquified petroleum gas and heating oil prices are rocketing, and they face cost rises three to four times greater than everyone else. Businesses off-grid are hammered, as are small and medium-sized businesses in general, who have no cap to protect them. What is the point in having a regulator that will not regulate and a Government lost in their own rhetoric?

    At this time my constituents are noting a £20 per week increase in their weekly shop, which is another £80 a month that families can ill afford. Was it lunacy that this Government, knowing that people were facing rising inflation and rocketing energy prices, moved to cut the £20 a week from universal credit, or was it ideological cruelty? I will leave that to others to decide.

    In Scotland, the Scottish Government have already been mitigating the imposed costs on families, spending £350 million to nullify the bedroom tax and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), spending four times more per head on insulating houses and properties. When the UK Government took away £20 a week from families, the Scottish Government gave them the Scottish child payment of £20 a week, soon to rise to £25, providing real help through very limited powers.

    What does this Chancellor do? He gives a tiny council tax cut and a payday loan. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) said, the UK Government do have choices. Norway, for example, an independent country similar in size to Scotland in terms of resources, will reimburse households for 80% of all their electricity costs above an affordability level. Why are the UK Government not using their powers, reserved to this place, to take meaningful action? It is because they just do not care.

    Scotland is at the moment stuck with the bad choices that this place makes. The people of Scotland can now see even more clearly that when the powers lie in Scotland their Scottish Government will make the choices to protect and support them, in contrast to what happens in this place. There is a hope, however: they can see that the change our people, our families and our communities need is coming. The powers of a normal independent country are needed more than ever, and they are coming soon.

  • Gagan Mohindra – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Gagan Mohindra – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Gagan Mohindra, the Conservative MP for South West Hertfordshire, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    It is an honour to speak in the debate on Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech. I wish to cover three topics in my limited time: security, the economy and planning.

    Hon. Members will be aware that the Northwood NATO base is in my constituency, which it is a real privilege to host. Through the awful war between Russia and Ukraine, we have seen the importance of global security and I welcome the movements of Sweden and Finland to join that global peace organisation. I strongly associate myself with the commitment, as put forward by this Government, of

    “defending democracy and freedom across the world, including continuing to support the people of Ukraine.”

    However, as well as military might, we also need to think about energy security and food security. I am pleased to see further progress on cheaper, cleaner and more secure energy here in the UK, building on our hugely successful COP26 presidency. As a Member of Parliament who represents a constituency that is approximately 80% green belt, I am really passionate about supporting British farmers and encouraging consumers throughout our great nation to buy British where possible.

    On the economy, our primary focus as the Conservative party should be on growing and strengthening the economy, just as it has always been and just as we always have, but particularly now as a means of easing the cost of living. Our stated aim in the Queen’s Speech, to grow our economy by taking the responsible approach to public finances, supporting people into work, reducing public debt and, most importantly, cutting taxes is the correct way, in my opinion, to manage our economy. I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is looking forward to doing all of that before the next general election.

    The measures set out in this Queen’s Speech demonstrate our continued commitment to driving forward our economy while tackling the cost of living, protecting British businesses and investing in a modern, cleaner and greener society. Britain has always been a global country, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade will continue to secure further deals to boost our economy and benefit our society now that we have the freedom to do so outside the EU.

    Planning is a topic that is very important to my constituents. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill proposed in the Queen’s Speech is a really interesting piece of legislation. I have spoken many times in this place about how beautiful my constituency is. As I have said, approximately 80% of my constituency is green belt, so balancing the preservation of this undoubted natural beauty with the importance of helping families and young people to own their own home is a crucial issue for me. One of the great many pleasures about meeting my constituents is hearing the passion and love they have for their own area and the strong desire they have to protect its character. I know that the proposed Bill will help with that.

    Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)

    One of the points I think my hon. Friend is making is that it is so important to make sure that we utilise brownfield land to the maximum for housing and so on, but does he agree that it is important that local people have their say on the design of their area and what goes where?

    Mr Mohindra

    I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I feel as though she was looking over my shoulder because that is exactly the next point in my speech.

    Introducing a Bill for local growth, giving further powers to local leaders to regenerate their own area and reforming our planning system to give residents greater involvement in local development are all positive steps. However, we must ensure that any local devolution from this House on this issue also comes with accountability, where necessary. Part of my constituency covers the Liberal Democrat-led Three Rivers District Council, and it is disappointing that there have been continual delays in the local plan process. That is unacceptable, especially when the Liberal Democrats continue to blame both the Government and the independent Planning Inspectorate for what I regard as issues that they should primarily be dealing with themselves. Local people absolutely should play a bigger role in deciding how best to improve and expand their local area, and we must be tougher on local councils that seek to play party politics and pass on all the blame for the decisions they are taking.

    In closing—I realise I have taken enough time in the Chamber—I welcome the measures introduced in this Queen’s Speech, particularly those affecting security, both of ourselves and of our friends and allies; the economy, which we must continue to grow sustainably and with as little taxation and spending as possible; and planning, which will allow us to give local people more of a voice in protecting their communities.

  • Rebecca Long-Bailey – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Rebecca Long-Bailey – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Rebecca Long Bailey, the Labour MP for Salford and Eccles, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    It is often said that a nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable, but sadly we saw no such measures of greatness in the Gracious Speech. As the Child Poverty Action Group states, it was

    “a legislative agenda that risks leaving increased levels of child poverty—currently at almost 4 million and expected to rise further—as its only real legacy.”

    What were the Government’s priorities, if not to help those in need? We saw ideological flights of fancy, such as forcing through the privatisation of Channel 4, which does not cost the taxpayer a penny and does not need to be privatised, and the British Bill of Rights, which is understood to be a back-door vehicle to undermine the Human Rights Act.

    On workers’ rights, there was no employment rights Bill, despite years of promises from the Government. In its place was the Brexit freedoms Bill, which many fear will cut safety regulations, environmental protections and workers’ rights. People are right to be worried, because despite the Government’s warm fluffy protestations to the contrary, some of the Secretaries of State responsible for drafting the Bill wrote a book arguing that Britain needs to adopt a far-reaching form of free market economics with fewer employment rights.

    In the meantime, our communities are suffering through the cost of living crisis and the Government seem blinkered to their despair. They hiked national insurance contributions for working people; cut universal credit and pensions by offering only a 3.1% increase when inflation is predicted to reach 10%; and sat back as oil and gas companies sit on record profits while people struggle to pay their bills.

    It is clear to everyone—even the CBI and Sir John Major —that the Government must issue an emergency Budget. That means increasing universal credit, legacy benefits and state pensions in line with actual inflation; scrapping the punitive aspects of the universal credit system, such as the five-week wait, the two-child limit, the benefits cap, and no recourse to public funds; increasing the minimum wage to a real living wage, with a pathway, including business support, towards £15 an hour; and a real-terms public sector pay increase.

    We also need an extension of the warm home discount, a street-by-street national home insulation programme and a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies. As Greenpeace suggested, the Government could increase the tax level on oil and gas producer profits to 70% as an absolute minimum, which would simply be in line with the global average and would generate an additional £13.4 billion for the Exchequer that could be used to bring down bills and invest in energy efficiency.

    Fundamentally, however, for the longer term, we must recognise that although horrific global events are a significant factor in the cost of living crisis, it is the structural issues in our economy and energy system that have left us most vulnerable to global price fluctuations. Closing our main energy storage facility in 2017 without replacing it was a monumental error, but worse still are the long-term structural failures that the privatisation of our energy market has caused. It is undeniable that public ownership is central to addressing the costs and energy security crisis that we face.

    So at the very least our communities deserve an emergency Budget before millions suffer possibly the worst economic crisis that they will ever see in their lifetime. At best, we need to reform our economy and energy system so that they protect people from the crisis that we are seeing today.

  • Aaron Bell – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Aaron Bell – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Aaron Bell, the Conservative MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne).

    There is much to welcome in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, but since I have only four minutes, I will be brief about the Bills in it. The Schools Bill will raise standards and help every child fulfil their potential in this country, and the energy security Bill will tackle the long-term cost of living increases. We have seen the disruption that oil prices can cause, but we can expand on our leadership in offshore wind, build new nuclear and kick-start Britain’s hydrogen economy. The Brexit freedoms Bill will make it easier to amend and repeal outdated EU laws.

    The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will give communities new powers to drive local growth and regeneration. That will build on the success we have already had in Newcastle-under-Lyme from the future high streets fund and the town deal, with more than £50 million of investment brought into our borough by a very well-run council. As I said earlier, it has already paid out to 34,000 residents their £150, whereas so many Labour councils—I mentioned some of them earlier, and I forgot Kirklees, with apologies to my hon. Friends from there—have not paid out their £150. All the words from those on the Opposition Benches about the cost of living squeeze ring very hollow when their councils are not getting that money into people’s bank accounts. No doubt that is why Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council was returned earlier this month with the first Conservative majority in our history. We won seats from Labour in historic Labour places, such as Crackley and Silverdale. I am very proud of the achievements of that council and the leader Simon Tagg.

    Turning to support with the cost of living, many colleagues have said that we are right to target growth and investment in the long term. That is the solution to raising standards in the long term, but we need support right now because of the high inflation that has been stoked principally by the oil price and by Putin’s war in Ukraine. I welcome the threshold rise in national insurance, which means that 30 million people will be better off and 70% will be paying less even after the new levy. I noticed that in the Opposition’s literature, they said they would scrap the levy, but now they are rowing back on that. Can we have a spending commitment for the next election that they want to scrap it? That levy is going to support the NHS and social care, so if Labour wants to remove it, it should say so.

    We are increasing the warm home discount to £100, and extending eligibility to 3 million people. We are doubling the household support fund to £1 billion and investing £200 million per annum in continuing the holiday activities and food programme. I am also very glad that the Chancellor of the Exchequer listened to me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on fuel duty. That 5p cut is very helpful in a constituency such as Newcastle-under-Lyme, where so many are reliant on cars.

    We may yet need to do more on energy, but that depends on where the oil price goes. If the oil price stays high, I am sure the Chancellor will do more when we come to the next round of the energy price cap. I welcome what he said on the windfall tax. The Opposition amendment is unnecessary. I am clear that windfall taxes are unwelcome, although in certain circumstances they may be the right answer, and I am glad to see the Chancellor not ruling anything out. We need to see proper action from the oil and gas companies in investing. If they do not do that, I will be happy to support him, if that is the direction we take. I realise it is a cyclical industry, but there is a case to be made.

    Finally, I press the Chancellor to do more about levelling up through the tax system. I urge him to look again at council tax. That £150 for bands A to D was very well targeted at people. It was not just levelling up for constituencies such as mine, where 92% of people are in those bands, but levelling up for anyone in a house in bands A to D across the country. Council tax rates are based on valuations that are now very out of date. No Government have ever had the appetite for a valuation, but there must be some scope to lower the burden on people in lower bands and to increase or add extra bands I and J on top. I put that to the Chancellor.

    Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)

    That is brave.

    Aaron Bell

    It is brave—I thank the right hon. Gentleman—but we need to do it to level up the tax system.

    More than anything, I am glad to have the Chancellor of the Exchequer leading us through these difficult times. Hon. Members should remember that if Opposition Members had had their way, we would be led by the right hon. Members for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and we would not be standing up to Putin; we would be excusing him.

  • Kate Osborne – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Kate Osborne – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Kate Osborne, the Labour MP for Jarrow, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    The cost of living crisis presents the biggest threat in a generation to the living standards of the working class in this country. The removal of the energy price cap has meant that bills have risen by up to 54% for millions of households in the UK. This has meant the highest real-terms energy price increase in living memory, with the worst fall in living standards since the 1950s.

    Shockingly, the cost of living crisis is having a disproportionate effect on women. According to work done by the shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), more than 7.5 million women are currently living in relative poverty. That translates to almost a quarter of all women across the UK. The TUC has said that the Chancellor’s response to the cost of living crisis has been “woefully inadequate”. It says that he needs to call

    “an emergency budget to get pay rising, help families with soaring bills, and keep the economy moving”—

    and it is absolutely right.

    This cost of living crisis is underpinned by financial injustice and unfairness. It is a crisis where Tory smoke and mirrors cannot hide the truth, and where people have had to choose between eating and heating their homes while paying crippling bills. Against the backdrop of these cruel choices, oil and gas companies have managed to turn over record profits in the first quarter of 2022, with Shell recording a record quarterly profit of $9.1 billion, up from $6.3 billion in the final three months of 2021, while BP has seen its profits for the first quarter more than double on the previous year to $6.2 billion. This cannot be right.

    I was proud to be elected on a manifesto that committed to bringing energy companies into public ownership, which would have regulated prices and ultimately put accountability to the people over profit. This Government should have looked towards countries such as France, Spain and Germany and used the Queen’s Speech as an opportunity to implement a low-percentage price cap on energy prices, and they should have committed to implementing a windfall tax. Calls for a windfall tax are supported not only by those on the Opposition side of the House, but elsewhere, including by the Tesco chairman, John Allan.

    If the best this Chancellor can provide is a tacit threat to impose a windfall tax on energy companies, rather than a legislative commitment, that is simply not good enough. The increase in energy prices and the responsibility for the terrifying cost of living crisis stop at the Government’s door, and they have failed to use this Queen’s Speech as an opportunity to rebalance the financial burden in this country. More people will suffer through their lack of action.

    As we emerge from this pandemic, people in this country are enduring one of the worst cost of living crises seen in post-war Britain. The simple fact is that it does not have to be like this, and the Government have a duty to alleviate this crisis by making corporations, and those who can, contribute more. This Queen’s Speech was an opportunity to redress the balance, but it was also incumbent on the Government to take action, and they have not. This Queen’s Speech, put forward by this Government, has no substance and shows no willingness to redress the balance of power in this country. Unless they do more, I fear for the people I represent in the Jarrow constituency and for those in the rest of the UK.

  • Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Miriam Cates – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Miriam Cates, the Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    Prices have indeed soared in recent months, driven by a number of global factors such as covid and the war in Ukraine. Millions of people are finding it harder to make ends meet. So far, the Government have provided £22 billion of support, including the council tax rebate, a cut to fuel duty and the household support fund, but the heartbreaking stories we have heard in this debate, for example those shared by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), show that we need to do more. In particular, I think we should urgently review universal credit rates. However, we must also be mindful of the inflationary pressures of pumping more borrowed money into the economy and the long-term debt implications for our children and grandchildren.

    I welcome the Bills announced in the Queen’s Speech to tackle the cost of living in the long term by addressing some of the structural issues that have caused prices to rise and wages to stagnate. I welcome the energy security Bill, which will secure our energy supply; I welcome the Schools Bill and the higher education Bill, which will drive up standards and offer a lifetime loan entitlement so that people can upskill at any point in their lives. We should also reconsider whether some of the £11 billion a year cost of higher education should be redirected to vocational and technical education to meet skills demands.

    I welcome the procurement Bill and the Brexit freedoms Bill. We must make sure that this legislation provides opportunities for British industry, especially the UK steel industry, to win public sector contracts.

    I support many of the planning reforms laid out in the levelling up Bill, but we must build far more homes so as to have an impact on prices. We should focus on developing whole new towns, and build hundreds of thousands of social houses, restoring the hope of having a decent home to young people.

    The Bills laid out in the Queen’s Speech will do much to tackle the cost of living in the long term, growing the economy and tackling rising prices, but the elephant in the room is taxation. The biggest cost in many people’s lives now is the state, with taxation levels at a 70-year high. Many Conservative Members, and our constituents, are deeply uncomfortable with this level of taxation. However, not so long ago, when the welfare state was born, life expectancy was 65, people started work at 15, and few lived long into retirement, while the state was not required to pay for childcare or adult social care because women and the wider community provided it unpaid. Now, longer life expectancy, many years spent in education and retirement, and ever better healthcare have increased, probably permanently, the cost of the state.

    So what can be done? We might not be able to reduce the overall tax burden significantly, although economic growth, improving our health and strengthening our social fabric will help, but we can reform our taxation system to share the burden more fairly. Our system of individual income taxation takes no account of how many people each income supports, so a single person earning the average salary of £30,000 a year is obviously better off than a single-earner family of four where the earning parent’s wage is also £30,000. The single person has only themselves to support, yet the family have to feed, clothe and heat four people, but both pay more or less the same amount of tax. This individualistic approach to taxation means that to have the same standard of living as a single person on a wage of £30,000, a family of four must earn £74,500—an unachievable figure for many. That makes us an outlier. Many other countries, such as France, Germany and the US, take into account the number of people an income supports. Our system makes it very hard for families to work their way out of poverty, discourages family stability, and fails to recognise the important contribution that parents make to society.

    I welcome the Bills introduced in the Queen’s Speech, which will tackle the cost of living in the long term, but we must be realistic about taxation—yes, reducing it where possible, but prioritising reforms that tackle generational inequalities and put children first.

  • Peter Dowd – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Peter Dowd – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Peter Dowd, the Labour MP for Bootle, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    I congratulate Liverpool football club, although, as an Everton supporter, I hope people will respect my wishes and not tell them.

    The Chancellor seems increasingly tetchy and indignant at the very idea that he should be expected to loosen the purse strings and support those people who are most economically challenged, but today we find ourselves in a scenario where the International Monetary Fund predicts that the UK will have the weakest growth and highest inflation in the G7 in 2023. Even before the pandemic, and before the war in Ukraine, we had weaker growth than the rest of the G7. We were less productive than our German, French and Americans counterparts by a country mile, and the UK is ranked 24th out of 25 countries in the OECD for public sector investment. In fact, British employees work 38 days a year more than the Germans and are being expected to work even harder. We face even more pain. Research by the debt collection agency Lowell has found that, after factoring in emergency savings, defaulted debt, the claiming of work-related benefits, and the use of payday loans and high-cost loans and emergency credit, my Bootle constituency is in the top 10 constituencies hardest hit by the cost of living crisis.

    This crisis can be solved, and the Chancellor can help to solve it, but he will not. He never tires of telling everybody—at least, the diminishing number who are listening to him—that £410 billion has been spent on the pandemic in one way or another. We spent £1.3 trillion in one way or another in bailing out the banks, so we can bail out 66 million people and the millions of people who are in dire straits.

    The Chancellor has lectured us for not being supportive of his Budget. Well, it was hardly a Budget; there was nothing in it to be supportive of. There was nothing whatsoever of any significance there. For too many of our constituents who stand on the precipice of falling into deeper poverty, the Government’s failure to tackle this issue is deplorable. We need urgent action from the Government now, in the next few days—not in six months, not in a year, not next year, but now.

    If the Government will not listen to the Opposition, they should listen to the public. Government Members cannot seriously expect us to believe that their constituents are happy with what the Government have been doing or with their handling of the crisis. At most, we are little further than two years from a general election. We like general elections in Bootle, because we can send a message to the Tories. In my old council seat of St Oswalds, they did not put up any candidate in the local elections. Nobody but Labour put up a candidate in the local elections, because people know Labour are the only ones who are there to support them.

    My campaign between now and the next election will remind my constituents—not that they need reminding—and for that matter anyone who will listen, that the Tories are the party of high inflation, high taxation, low growth, low productivity, low skills, low wages, low investment and low aspiration—and that is just for starters.

  • Derek Thomas – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    Derek Thomas – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

    The speech made by Derek Thomas, the Conservative MP for St. Ives, in the House of Commons on 17 May 2022.

    I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. We have heard much this afternoon about the hike in energy prices. It is well-documented and concerning. However, I welcome the supercharging of the effort to boost homegrown clean energy, which will drive down costs, take the volatility out of the energy markets and cut our carbon footprint. That is all welcome, but more must be done now to help. Those changes will help in the future, but we need help in our homes now, as we have heard. We also need to look closely at the use of the standing charge—a daily charge on every household—which has risen to 50p plus, putting £150 more on the bill. I am concerned that these standing charges will never come down, so it is important that we raise the matter here and that we keep our eye closely on the use of them by energy companies.

    We also know that food prices are on the rise, but we are not seeing the same kind of supercharging in the Government’s response when it comes to increasing homegrown food production. Now that we have left the EU, the Government have the power to prioritise food production, using money already available through the environmental land management scheme to supercharge food production to make sure that farmers have the confidence, security and funding to produce the food that we need. Surely if there was ever a time to boost food production in the UK it is now.

    I know from speaking to many people in food, farming and fishing that the sector is willing to step up and increase production, but, at the moment, they are planning to sow less, rear less and fish less because of their concerns about the cost of fertilisers, fuel, energy and so on. The Government must look very closely at how we can supercharge homegrown food production.

    The real squeeze is on household budgets, especially for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. One area that we have heard little about this afternoon is the cost of housing. Rents in recent years have rocketed. In my constituency, people can barely find a house to rent. If they can find one, a three-bedroom house costs £1,400-plus, which is a massive increase on perhaps a year ago. House prices have also rocketed in the south-west, and action is needed, and needed now, to address the matter.

    I welcome the fact that the Queen’s Speech includes a levelling up and regeneration Bill, but it must be a response to the housing challenges in coastal areas in particular. Existing homes must be made more efficient; that would help with energy costs, as we heard from the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). New homes must be protected for permanent residence. It is far easier to get homes built in rural areas such as mine if local people know that they will meet a recognisable need, such as the acute need of housing.

    More must be done to safeguard the homes in which people already live. Every week, I meet families who have been turfed out of their homes, and those homes are then flipped for other uses. Landlords are not entirely at fault, as changes in the tax system and the energy performance rating system have discouraged them from providing homes for local families. I welcome the Government’s recent commitment to changing the methodology of energy performance certificates, but more must be done to make sure that being a landlord, or providing homes for people to live in, is both attractive and secure. It is vital that the Government take more decisive action to support home ownership, secure a quality home for everyone who needs one and drive down the cost of those homes through good energy efficiency measures.