Chris Williamson
Main Page: Chris Williamson (Independent - Derby North)
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
What has happened? Only last month, the Prime Minister told us that austerity was over, and at the beginning of the Chancellor’s speech, he told us that it was coming to an end, but the truth is that it is business as usual for austerity. There are 4 million children in poverty, and an additional 1 million children in poverty as a consequence of cuts to social security and of universal credit in particular. I should like to refer the Chancellor to the front page of the Morning Star, which outlines Labour’s 10 emergency Budget demands. They are to cut the five-week wait for universal credit; to remove the insistence on making and managing a claim online; to end counter-productive sanctions; to protect domestic abuse sufferers—[Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members find this funny, but I do not think it is funny at all. The demands include to protect domestic abuse sufferers; to allow families to split their universal credit payments; to protect families from homelessness and give tenants the right to have their housing costs paid directly to their landlord; to reverse the cuts to disabled people; to reverse the cuts to children’s care and services; to support people on fluctuating incomes; to restore work allowances; and to end the freeze on social security.
Over the past eight years, under this Tory Government—initially with their Liberal Democrat poodles—we have seen 500 children’s centres closing and, in the sixth richest nation on earth, 123,000 children living in temporary accommodation. We know that there is a £2 billion funding gap in children’s services and that there has been a 65% cut in youth services. The average tuition fee debt for people coming out of university is more than £50,000, and in the sixth richest nation on earth, rough sleeping has doubled in the past eight years. Social care needs are unmet for millions of older citizens, and 150,000 older citizens in our country are behind with their social care payments.
We have also seen the betrayal of the women involved in the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—the WASPI women—who so eloquently made their feelings known in the Public Gallery today. There is nothing in the Budget for them. We have seen 86% of the social security cuts falling on women, and 500 specialist women’s refuges closing since this Government came to power. A United Nations report has identified grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights—[Interruption.] I can see that some Members on the Conservative Benches are still laughing. They should be ashamed of themselves, not laughing.
Let me move on to the national health service, where 2.5 million people are waiting more than four hours in A&E. That figure was only 350,000 in 2010. More seriously, more and more people are dying while waiting for treatment, with 10,000 more people dying while waiting for treatment in the past five years. We know that the funding that has been announced will not fix that scandal. We also know that there are now 21,000 fewer police officers and 11,000 fewer firefighters.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that came out earlier this month talked about a potential climate catastrophe, but what is the Chancellor’s response? He has announced £10 million for fly-tipping and a plastics tax. It is pathetic. Since this Government came to power, we have seen a 56% cut in renewable energy investment. The Chancellor also had the temerity to talk about a jobs miracle. He is having a laugh! We have had the worst decade in history for pay rises. People are now £800 a year worse off on average than they were in 2010. He also had the gall to say that Labour’s programme would lead to an additional £1 trillion of debt. What a lot of nonsense. This Government have been borrowing for failure, and the sovereign debt is approaching £2 trillion. What we need is to recapture the spirit of 1945, when we invested to save and invested to create the national health service and build 1 million homes. We came out of that decade in a far better place than where we were when we entered it, and certainly than where we were in 1945.
This Government’s obsession with privatisation continues. It has been described by the International Monetary Fund, of all institutions, as a fiscal illusion. The Government are certainly making the wrong choices. They say that we cannot have public services without a dynamic economy, but that fails to acknowledge the fact that public services contribute to a dynamic economy. The Government need to get that message loud and clear. As for housing, this is not like the 300,000 houses that Harold Macmillan promised in 1951. We need a complete sea change in our approach, and a reversal of the millionaires’ tax cuts. We need public ownership to end rip-off capitalism, and the restoration of collective bargaining. In short, we need a Government who are prepared to invest in our economy, and to invest to save, instead of borrowing for failure.