Budget Resolutions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

We will see whether the Chancellor’s optimistic forecasts for the economy come true. I believe we have many more difficult times still to come. I particularly note that he skipped over the threat of inflation, which I will mention quickly, and the damage that will do to the economy and household income. He did not even really mention the potential of interest rate rises, which we may face in the future and would have a substantial impact on people’s standard of living. We have already seen and heard that the tax burden is rising to its highest sustained level in history. This Budget will not properly address the real concerns of my constituents over the rising cost of their weekly shop, the huge increase in the price of fuel at the pump and the eye-watering increases expected in energy bills. This Budget shows that the Government are out of touch with ordinary people.

Even the rise in the living wage, alongside the announced universal credit taper change, will not offset the £20 loss in universal credit that has hit families hard. Many people in my constituency have had no pay rise for years. There is also the Government’s culpability in the lack of planning to deal with our increasing need for energy, its supply and the rising costs, or to deal with things such as the shortage of HGV drivers, which was well known before. All those problems are down to the Government’s lack of planning and foresight to come up with solutions to help address them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) raised the issue of the Test and Trace organisation and system and the eye-watering waste of £37 billion of taxpayers’ money, which is about a fifth of the NHS budget. That shows that the Government are guilty of wastage not just here, but in various contracts they have let in the past 12 months or so.

I will spend the brief time that I have on the NHS. As we know, the NHS is in crisis. It is just about coping only because of the dedication and hard work of its staff in a perilous situation. The Government’s focus since March 2020 was on covid, and that was understandable and right, but it was at the cost of treating people with other conditions such as cancer and coronary disease. It may be that more people will lose their lives over time as a result of conditions other than covid because of that problem. Until recently, the Government had no plan in place to deal with that foreseeable problem. Even now, with the additional funding the Government have announced for the NHS, there is no guarantee as to when wating lists will be brought down to pre-pandemic levels.

It is now more difficult to see a GP face-to-face. That is partly because Tory Governments since 2010 have failed to ensure that the NHS and general practice doctors and nurses have the staff they need. The British Medical Association medical staffing report was published in July 2021. It shows that across primary and secondary care, there are currently 2.8 doctors per 1,000 people in England, while the average in comparable OECD EU countries is 3.7. If the rate of medical workforce growth remains the same, it will take until 2046 before the NHS has the number of practising doctors needed to match that average. That puts us 25 years behind where we should be today. The number of patients per GP practice is 22% higher than it was in 2015, but the GP workforce has not expanded with that rise in patient need. As a result, there are now just 0.46 fully qualified GPs per 1,000 patients in England, down from 0.52 in 2015. As we all know, there is also an urgent retention issue with GPs.

I raise that issue because, despite the significant money the Government are putting into the NHS, the significant problem is that we just do not have enough staff. The shortage of doctors, nurses and specialist staff in our hospitals has happened on this Government’s watch, and I repeat that they have been in power since 2010. The latest NHS vacancy statistics for England relate to June 2021. There were 93,806 full-time-equivalent vacancies in hospital services in England, amounting to a 7.2% vacancy rate. For nursing posts, there were 38,952 vacancies, which is a 10.3% vacancy rate. For medical posts, there were 9,691 vacancies. Constituents are finding it increasingly difficult to get an NHS dentist.

When it comes to social care, local authority budget pressures are immense. My local authority has faced a cut of almost 60% in its funding since 2010. It has to make £21 million more of savings in the coming years. It is the 23rd most socially deprived borough in England and Wales. The social care crisis is forcing councils to hike council tax, and the Government are of course trying to deflect blame for that when they are not funding councils properly for social care. We are seeing increasing problems, which will get worse this winter, with discharges from hospitals into a care setting. The Budget does not go anywhere near funding the shortage that councils are facing because of Government cuts. On education, the catch-up funding and the money that the Chancellor announced is something like a third of what Sir Kevan Collins asked for before he resigned earlier this year.

I am clear that as a result of the Budget, low and middle-income families in my constituency will struggle with the cost of living, but those on high incomes and the very rich will not. The Chancellor has failed to bring forward any real sustainable solutions to the cost of living crisis coming this winter. He has proved that he is out of touch.