Spending Review 2020 and OBR Forecast

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

That sounds like an excellent idea. I hope that the £400 million brownfield fund, which is part of our housing fund, could be of help. I know that Mayor Andy Street has spoken to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about how best he can access the brownfield fund, and this sounds like exactly the kind of project that it is designed to help.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

The Chancellor has repeatedly said that he does not recognise them, but today 3 million taxpayers—including many of my constituents—who have been excluded from any support at all will have been in anguish waiting for his statement. Far from protecting lives and livelihoods, he has let them down yet again. Their income is down to zero, they are losing their homes and unable to feed their families and—again—some have even taken their own lives. Is it that the Chancellor does not understand the heartache and hopelessness of poverty? Or is it simply that he just does not care?

[Rishi Sunak]

Anyone in the circumstances described by the hon. Lady would surely be eligible for support through universal credit, which can provide, depending on the circumstances, somewhere between £1,500 and £1,800 per family per month to help to support them if that is what they need. She talks about the self-employed as if perhaps they are not also people who benefit from better hospitals, better schools, better local infrastructure and safer streets. That is what this spending review delivers, and it will benefit everybody in the United Kingdom in that way.