Cost of Living
Mhairi Black Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House regrets that both the Government and the Official Opposition support a damaging Brexit which the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts will lead to a four per cent drop in GDP; further regrets that the price for this continued economic mismanagement falls on ordinary households, with inflation remaining close to its highest level in 40 years and food prices soaring; therefore calls on the Government to follow the lead of the Scottish Government and introduce measures aimed at protecting the most vulnerable households from the crisis through measures similar to the Scottish Child Payment; also calls on the Government to reinstate the £25 a week uplift to Universal Credit, end the unfair benefit cap and the two child limit, follow the action of other European countries in tackling food inflation and put pressure on major retailers to pass on falling wholesale prices to consumers; calls on the Government to initiate an investigation into soaring supermarket prices and profiteering in the context of soaring inflation; and finally calls on the Competition and Markets Authority to utilise its full powers and impose maximum fines where evidence of price gouging is found.
The charge that is often thrown at us on the SNP Benches is to stop talking about independence and talk about the things that really matter. Well, here we are—we have brought forward a debate on the cost of living and the cost of Brexit—and, as far as I am aware, there is only one Conservative MP and not a single Labour Back Bencher wanting to talk in this debate.
The UK is in a sorry state just now. We have one of the lowest pensions in Europe, one of the lowest rates of sick pay, and increasing levels of poverty and inequality. For the first time, this generation thinks that it will be worse off than the generation that came before it. When I was first elected, I said that
“Food banks are not part of the welfare state—they are a symbol that the welfare state is failing.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 775.]
Eight years on, food bank use is through the roof and does not show any sign of stopping. Vulnerable people being forced to rely on the goodness of others to do something as basic as eat is barbaric: it was barbaric in 2015, and it is still barbaric now. Just yesterday, I saw an article where a woman was saying that if it were not for food banks, she would be a criminal, because she would have to steal food. That is like something out of a Dickens novel.
The folk who normally occupy the Government Benches will say that all of this has nothing to do with 13 years of austerity, 13 years of Tory Governments, or five Tory Prime Ministers wreaking havoc on the country. They say it is because of two reasons: covid, and the war in Ukraine affecting energy prices. Now, there is an element of truth in that, of course.
Mhairi Black
If the hon. Member had shown a bit of patience, he would have heard what I am about to say. [Interruption.] Give me two seconds; bear with me.
First, let us look at covid—this is for the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). The Government awarded £10.5 billion-worth of pandemic-related contracts to companies in a VIP lane as part of no competitive process. That lane was dedicated to prioritising politically connected suppliers at the start of the pandemic. The New York Times has found that billions went to companies that had no prior medical experience. In fact, just down the corridor—I say “down the corridor”, but no one has seen her in a long time—we have Baroness Mone, who I think was last spotted on a yacht somewhere, so I think she is doing fine. She appears to have made a profit of nearly £30 million from personal protective equipment after she helped a company secure a place in that VIP lane—a company that the UK Government are now spending more than £10 million to sue after they discovered that the equipment was unusable.
This Government lost track of £4.5 billion of public money wasted through error and fraud during covid, and have no intention of finding those billions of pounds, but when a constituent finds that he was overpaid tax credits in 1999, they are unstoppable. They will hound people down; they will hunt them for £450 before they go after £4.5 billion, especially when a lot of it appears to have gone to their pals. This is a dangerous Government making bad decisions on top of a global pandemic. Mind you, we should not be surprised, given the fact that they seem to have been pished half the time at parties in No. 10.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I should just say to the hon. Lady that she really must not use language like that. Please do not. I hope she will apologise for doing so.
Mhairi Black
Let me rephrase, Madam Deputy Speaker. They were inebriated; they were intoxicated; they were paralytic at parties in No. 10. Is that all right?
Mhairi Black
I do not see what I said that was not true, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I take it.
As I said, there is an element of truth in that covid has had a big impact, and the war in Ukraine has also had a global impact on energy supplies. However, unexpected events and conflicts will always occur, which is precisely why it is so important that we have Governments that plan in advance and think long-term to make decisions that will build our resilience in the face of the unforeseen.
The events in Ukraine only exacerbate the fact that the UK has not had a sensible energy policy for more than 30 years. Scotland has heard this song many times before; we have endured this kind of mismanagement for years. We are one of the only countries to discover oil and somehow get poorer, whereas comparable countries such as Norway sought to treat oil as a national asset to be used in the national interest, and invested it in a sovereign wealth fund that is worth over £1 trillion today. Similarly, in the 1980s, Denmark and the UK both had similar scale renewable wind programmes. Denmark chose to heavily invest in that sector, whereas the UK focused primarily on the cheapest and quickest option. If we fast-forward to 2016, we find that Denmark’s wind exports were worth over €7 billion, but the UK had wind exports of less than half a billion. It is like “Bullseye”: here is what you could have won.
Douglas Ross
The hon. Lady is speaking about energy policy. Does she agree with the SNP-Green Government’s policy on a presumption against new oil and gas fields in Scotland? [Interruption.]
Mhairi Black
As someone has said behind me, for a start, I would say that I am totally against nuclear. [Interruption.] I am about to answer the hon. Member’s question, but that is exactly what he wants. On what the Scottish Government are doing, I am very proud of the coalition Government and the fact that they are investing their money in places that make sense—they are investing towards a just transition. The hon. Member will like this point: the only sector in the UK that has made profits comparable with Denmark’s wind sector is the arms industry, at €7.2 billion. There is a political decision for you: our Government would rather fund weapons that bring death and destruction than fund industries that might just help secure life on this planet in the future.
Political choices matter, not just in facing the problems of the day, but to plan for a future worth living for. Again, this dangerous Government are making bad decisions.
Mhairi Black
No, I am on my last point, thanks. I want to address the Brexit-shaped elephant in the room—a Brexit that is shrinking our economy, limiting opportunity for our citizens and young people, and emboldening the worst in us. Just across the sea, a small, independent country such as Ireland, with a similar population to that of Scotland, has seen the highest economic growth of any country in Europe as part of an EU with access to the single market. In contrast, Brexit Britain is one of the poorest- performing economies, and we are closing ourselves off from the rest of the world. We cannot forget that this is a Brexit that is supported by the Tory party and the Labour party, that has been thriving off racist and bigoted dog-whistles, and that has cost us economically and, arguably, more so morally. It is a Trojan horse decked out in Union Jacks in the hope that we do not notice our food standards, our health and safety, our workers’ rights, and even our human rights eroding underneath it.
This is a Government that cannot afford to give £25 to the poorest in our society, but can afford to misplace £4.5 billion. This is a Government that force women to prove they have been raped before they can claim the benefits that they are entitled to. This is a Government that try to shame people—the sick and the disabled—into work, completely ignoring the fact that most people in poverty are in work. Most of the children who are growing up in poverty live in households where their parents work. The Government know that the minimum wage is not enough to live on, but instead of substantially raising it, they have decided, “Let’s rebrand it and hope that nobody notices. Let’s just call it a living wage, because surely nobody is paying that much attention.”
This is a Government that will applaud our key workers and our NHS, but draw the line at paying them fairly for all the work that they did. In fact, the Government go further than that: they now want to restrict the rights to strike and to protest for that fairer pay. They will hand millions of pounds over to their pals and their political chums. They will hand it via their WhatsApp groups and backroom deals, rather than raising standards in a country where living standards are sorely declining.
When I am asked, “Why do you support independence?”, the answer is, “All of the above”. I am tired of people in Scotland paying the price for disastrous decisions imposed by Governments who have no mandate in Scotland. The Scottish Government spend millions each year mitigating Tory policies. We defend people as best we can, and it works to an extent—no one in Scotland has endured the bedroom tax for instance, and child poverty rates in the UK are at their lowest in Scotland.
Dr Luke Evans
On child poverty, Bruce Adamson, who was Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, was asked, “Is Ms Sturgeon raising the bar or closing the attainment gap or opening opportunity for every child?” He turned around and said, “No, she is failing absolutely.” How does the hon. Lady respond to that?
Mhairi Black
I would respond to that by saying: give us the powers to be able to function. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman just listens, he will hear that child poverty rates in the UK, as I said, are at their lowest in Scotland, where the Scottish Government are making a concerted effort to build a wellbeing economy. [Interruption.] I tell you what, if the hon. Gentleman wants to continue this back and forth, he should maybe have put in to speak in the debate, but I will leave him to google things on his phone for now.
The Scottish Government will always do what they can, but the truth is that one child growing up in poverty left to deal with the scars of poverty, which do not heal for a long time for a lot of people, is one too many. The Scottish Government have done and will continue to do all they can, but so long as 70% of financial powers—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman would benefit from listening to this bit. So long as 70% of financial powers and 85% of welfare powers are in the hands of him and his Government, it is not within the Scottish Parliament’s gift to solve these problems. In fact, I can think of one solution that would give Scotland the powers to act, and it begins with an i.
Whether it be the blatant profiteering during a global pandemic going unpunished, supermarkets keeping their prices high despite there no longer being a need for it or the eye-watering profits our private energy companies are enjoying, all while ordinary people cannot afford to cook hot meals, it could not be clearer: this is not a cost of living crisis; it is a cost of greed crisis. There is plenty to go about, it is just that few are hoarding it and this Government are helping them. This is a crisis made by the choices of this place. This place is the one that has the power—nowhere else. This is a crisis made by a dangerous Government making bad decisions.