Autumn Statement

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

That is a good question. I will happily write back to my hon. Friend with what we are doing and what we can do. I would like her to pass on my thanks to Citizens Advice West Berkshire for the incredibly important work that it is doing to support people through a difficult period.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is a Budget of austerity 2.0, is it not? Of course, different decisions could have been made. The Chancellor could have decided to abolish the upper limit on national insurance, raising more than £30 billion and solving adult social care in one fell swoop along with the crisis in council funding. He chose not to do so but instead to burden poorer people and working people. On housing and energy specifically, he has said that he will freeze local housing allowance, which is a freeze at the 30th percentile from two or three years ago—it was last uplifted just at the beginning of the pandemic. Will he please review that decision along with how people living in blocks of flats who receive communal energy have received no support for their energy bills? They need that desperately to come through, and he has promised it before.

[Jeremy Hunt]

As I have explained, we increased local housing allowance at the start of the pandemic—significantly—and we are keeping it at that higher level. He talks about difficult decisions. I would say that there is one difficult decision on the table today: do we do what is necessary to tackle inflation? On the Government side of the House, the answer is yes.