Cost of Living Increases

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Having campaigned in her constituency, I know there are huge levels of poverty in certain places. Someone from the back said that we are lucky here because we are MPs and get paid a decent salary. We certainly should not be laughing at people who are struggling to make ends meet.

I remind the House that, when Labour was in government, real GDP growth averaged 2%. If growth had continued at the same rate under this Tory Government, we would have £40 billion more to spend on our public services, without having to raise a single tax. Instead, a lack of strategic policy making, economic uncertainty and the absence of an industrial strategy mean that the UK is going through the slowest economic recovery in the G7.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is asserting that the UK economy has fallen behind since 2010. Does she recognise the figures that show that this country has actually grown faster than Italy, Japan and France since 2010 to date and that, since 2016—since the Brexit vote—it has grown at about the same pace as Germany?

[Tulip Siddiq]

The Conservatives can manipulate the stats as much as they want, but they cannot run away from the fact that we are falling behind our peers. [Laughter.] I do not care how much Conservative Members want to laugh; I know that is the truth. It is families who are bearing the brunt of the low growth. A decade of stagnant wages has left the British people highly exposed to rising prices. If the hon. Member who just intervened can dispute this figure, he is welcome to intervene again: the average French and German family are now 10% and 19% richer than their respective British counterparts. If we continue down this path of managed decline and our growth rate stays where it has been over the past decade, families in the UK will be poorer than those in Poland by 2030 and poorer than those in Hungary and Romania by 2040. I see the hon. Member—

[Jerome Mayhew]

rose—

[Tulip Siddiq]

Yes, please.

[Jerome Mayhew]

It is a great pleasure to be given the role of the Opposition spokesman from the Back Benches here, but there is a difference between economic data that is factual, has happened and can be verified, and straight-line projections of the future between now and 2030 that have not happened and will not happen.

[Tulip Siddiq]

As I figured, the hon. Member did not have a response to the question I asked. If we do not break with the Tories’ failed economic model, the necessary underpinnings of a good life—as I have mentioned, fair wages, secure work, a decent home—will be further eroded.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) is right to feel empathy and sympathy and to feel angry for the people challenged by the cost of living, as everyone in this House does, whatever side they are on. Families are struggling right across the country and that is because of inflation, which steals money from everyone’s pockets. The best cure for all the issues we have all been discussing on either side of the House is to deal with inflation, yet in its 12-line motion on the cost of living, Labour has not made any mention at all of the Government’s intervention to reduce the level of household inflation. It is as though the Opposition are not aware of the £94 billion package that the Government have instituted over the last period. That is an average of £3,300 of Government support per household, which is having a direct impact on reducing the headline level of inflation. It includes halving people’s energy bills over this winter at an average of £1,500 of support per household. That has been extended to the summer, when prices are forecast to come down.

There is an enormous irony that we are having this Opposition day debate on the cost of living, on a motion with no mention of Government support, on the very day when £301 has landed in the bank accounts of the 8 million most-vulnerable families in the country through the household support fund. However, the motion does have some positive suggestions to make. It suggests we should freeze council tax. The best way for people to ensure that their council tax is frozen is to vote Conservative on 4 May. People should come and look at my council in Norfolk, Broadland District Council, which has frozen council tax not for one year, but for the past two years. If Labour councils were serious about helping people with the cost of living, they would run their councils just as efficiently as we do, and they would keep their council tax down and freeze it.

The other thing that the Opposition have done today is to have the first Opposition day debate on water infrastructure, yet in that debate, the effect of what they were arguing for with their so-called plan would have had the effect of increasing water bills by a full £1,000 a household. Is that joined-up opposition? I do not think so. What we have is the Conservatives giving £3,300 of support per household and freezing council taxes more often than not in Conservative-run districts such as my own, against Labour which, through its policy requirements, is saying we should increase bills by £1,000 and have higher council taxes in areas they represent. The best solution to the cost of living crisis is to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt while supporting the most vulnerable in our society. Those are the priorities of my constituents and constituents right around the country, and they are the priorities of this Government.