Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Austerity is back, not that it ever went away, and despite a chameleon-like effort to convince us otherwise, it did not take long for us to see through the Chancellor’s Budget, which is a continuation of the austerity that is now in its 11th year. We have the insulting 1% pay increase for nurses, which, when we factor in inflation at 1.7%, will actually be a pay cut. There is no increase in the pay of other public sector workers. There is a £30 billion cut to NHS funding, nothing for social care and nothing for local authorities, some of which are on the brink of collapse. This is the true face of the Chancellor’s Budget for 2021.

We clapped for the NHS throughout the pandemic and we felt devastated when we heard of the NHS staff who had lost their lives while caring for others. We still do not know the full extent of the trauma and emotional scars our NHS staff carry from performing their daily work caring for many thousands of covid patients in the most extremely challenging conditions in our hospitals. The nurses, the porters, the cleaners, the healthcare assistants, the theatre staff and the hospital pharmacists—if ever there was a time to reward them for their selfless work during the pandemic, that time is now. I urge the Chancellor to give the NHS workers the proper pay rise they deserve.

The challenges for the NHS are not over yet. There is a huge backlog of delayed operations, appointments and treatments in the pipeline. The very same staff, who are battleworn and weary from the fight against covid, will now be expected to tackle the tsunami of the backlog, with substantially less funding in the NHS. That is scandalous and will cost lives.

In the Conservative 2019 manifesto, the first item in “Boris Johnson’s Guarantee” was:

“Extra funding for the NHS”.

What happened to that manifesto pledge? What about social care? Where is the elusive plan for social care that we were promised? Social care is in crisis, and unless we develop a properly funded social care system, older and vulnerable people will be put at risk.

That leads me to local authorities, which have a statutory duty to fund social care, but council budgets have taken a huge hit while supporting local communities during the pandemic crisis. It is no surprise that some local authorities are on the brink of bankruptcy, having to go cap in hand to be bailed out just weeks before the Budget. That is what happens after 10 years of austerity.

The Chancellor is always bragging about the huge amounts he has borrowed and seems ideologically wedded to austerity and the demise of the public sector. When reflecting on the way NHS staff, social care workers and the public sector stepped up to the mark and went beyond the call of duty during the coronavirus crisis, protecting the most vulnerable, I think most rational people will agree that the Government not only owe them praise and support, but the fair funding they deserve.