Budget Resolutions

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is always instructive and interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) and the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) as they paint the wonderful, rosy picture that so many in this country do not see or feel. Those people, like me, are wondering who this Budget was for. There was nothing for the 14.4 million people, including 4.2 million children, who are living in poverty in the UK. There was nothing for social care, which is on its knees. There was nothing for education, at a time when one in five teaching assistant posts is unfilled and the Government have missed their overall teacher recruitment target for more than three years.

There was nothing for social security, at a time when poverty and homelessness are rising; destitution has increased by 148% since 2017, and rough sleeping has risen by 27% in the last year alone. There was nothing for councils that have already seen their budgets cut by 40% since austerity began in 2010, with more than 50% reported to be on the brink of collapse. While our collective campaign to save the household support fund has secured a further six months of that vital funding, it is a hollow victory, a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. The Chancellor was also able to announce further cuts in essential services, such as those provided by local councils, and to the criminal justice system. Those cuts amount to £20 billion.

Polling by Ipsos shows that 55% of people would prefer the Government to tax more and increase public spending, while only 10% want them to reduce taxes and spend less on public services, so I ask again: who was this Budget really for? Cutting 2p from national insurance contributions amounts to a saving of £750 a year for a Member of Parliament, but only £300 for a nurse who is just starting out. Spending increases for healthcare and education do not come close to what is needed for our public services after the challenges of covid-19 and 14 years of brutal austerity. The Government would need to pledge £11.4 billion to fix schools that are literally crumbling, but this Budget cut planned investment spending by a massive £20 billion up to 2028. In short, last week the Chancellor scheduled a return to that brutal austerity, with the timer switch set for an impact after the next election.

Last week I visited three schools in my constituency, and saw the magnificent efforts of the teaching teams to not just educate, but keep families afloat in my community, given the Government’s absolute failure to do that. Those visits brought home to me the dire situation that children face. They deserve a Government who will invest in their future, not double down on austerity, owing to a political choice that will surely destroy their future.

Across the UK, food insecurity has doubled since the start of 2022, affecting an estimated 10 million adults and 4 million children. One in three people in my great city of Liverpool is now food insecure. The signs of deepening hardship are there to see in every part of the UK and in all our communities, with longer and longer queues at food banks, and items such as baby formula and cheese under lock and key in supermarkets. Workers in nearly every industry are taking strike action as a last resort, because work does not pay and does not meet rising costs, such as those of food. Nurses, educators, firefighters, postal workers, rail staff and civil servants are using food banks. What have we become, and where is the political vision to fix the crisis of poverty and inequality that is destroying the very fabric of the nation?

At the National Theatre, a stone’s throw from here, the magnificent actor Michael Sheen is playing the lead role in the play “Nye”, about the life of the visionary Labour politician who championed the fight against inequality all his life and founded our NHS. How desperately the country needs a political giant like Aneurin Bevan to create a vision to transform the future of the millions who do not see one under this Government, a Government still wedded to a failed economic model that is destroying our communities.

Inequality has been hardwired into this country through the political choice of austerity. The latest health inequalities research conducted by Sir Michael Marmot found that during the peak years of austerity between 2011 and 2019, more than 1 million people died earlier than they would have if they had lived in the areas where the richest 10% of the population reside, and about 148,000 excess deaths are directly attributable to the impact of austerity. Frankly, the arguments against a return to austerity are unarguable. The people of this country cannot and should not pay the price for the continuation of the Tory and coalition Governments’ failed economic ideology in this failing, appalling and wretched Government’s Budget. Communities such as the one that I represent will not and cannot take any more.