Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Feryal Clark Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab) [V]]

Last week’s Budget was the Government’s golden opportunity to step up and fix the endemic inequality that they have created throughout the country and in my own constituency of Enfield North. They failed in that task on every conceivable level. They failed nurses, who deserve better than the pitiful 1% pay increase they have been offered. They failed teachers, who have been given little support to plan a safe return to school for their students. They failed businesses and the self-employed, including White Photographic Ltd in my constituency, which is one of the 3 million businesses that have been excluded from the Government’s support over the past 12 months.

There are currently more than 19,000 people registered unemployed in Enfield and 28,000 on furlough who still do not know what the future holds for them. There are nearly 14,000 people who were punished by the Chancellor with a £500 cut to universal credit, which will see nearly £7 million taken out of our local economy this year. The Budget was bad for families, for small business, for frontline workers and for our communities.

Who was the Budget for? It turns out that it was a Budget to support the Government’s local campaigns for re-election, with more than £1 billon funnelled into their constituencies. This Government believe that they can help to level up the UK—[Inaudible.] London has some of the most deprived communities in the country—even more so after this pandemic. Analysis by the London Mayor shows that 14 boroughs should have been given the highest priority for funding, yet only two have. The politics are so obvious that I nearly took a drive to Barnard Castle to check whether my eyes were deceiving me.

Last week, the Mayor of London announced his vision for a 1945-style recovery for London, with “Jobs, jobs, jobs” as his mantra. The Chancellor must work with the Mayor to deliver this ambitious plan, instead of standing in his way, and to deliver a post-furlough jobs guarantee. Instead of a Budget to get our country working after covid, we saw the spectre of austerity return to the Dispatch Box. The Chancellor is more interested in his social media than in social justice. He found money for well-lit videos but nothing for NHS nurses. Tin-eared and cold-hearted, this Budget was a litany of opportunities missed and chances squandered. The Chancellor failed to meet the moment and his Budget failed to meet the needs of the most vulnerable.