Energy (oil and gas) profits levy

Debate between Jonathan Gullis and Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

Anyone who looks at the autumn statement and sees it for what it is understands that poverty will increase as a direct result. The decision to increase benefits by 10.1% next year does not match the rate of inflation, which is 11.1% in the most recent monthly data. Millions of the poorest in our country will still face a fall in spending power as inflation soars. This follows years of cuts to the real value of benefits that affect the lives of 9 million households; and, particularly for some Government Members and members of the press who like to demonise people on benefits, I point out that 7 million of those households include someone who is in work. The situation is even worse than the headline inflation data suggest. The Office for National Statistics estimates that consumer price inflation is actually higher for lower income groups—11.9% for those in the second income decile, and a truly shocking 12.5% for those in the very lowest. So as a result of the decisions on benefits, the very poorest will get even poorer.

The picture is similar for the minimum wage, which Conservatives continue to falsely claim is the national living wage. This was not, as the Chancellor claimed, a generous offer. A rise of 9.7% is also below inflation and way below the inflation rate for the poorest. The Real Living Wage Foundation says that a living wage worthy of the name would be £10.90 across the country, and in London it would need to be £11.95 per hour to take account of the higher costs of living in the capital. So the announcement in the autumn statement was in fact a real-terms cut that leaves the lowest paid workers worse off and still struggling for a wage they can actually live on.

Much of the excess—not all—relates to the cost of housing, either rent or mortgage. We all know very well the damage this Government have already caused in terms of mortgage costs, but we have yet to hear Ministers apologise for their actions during this debacle, which is their responsibility and theirs alone. The Government seem to treat people like my constituents in Streatham as though they are all junior investment bankers or recently hired City lawyers, who are taking their first steps on the housing ladder that leads to a lovely town house worth millions somewhere in central London—but they are not. They are young people living together in cramped accommodation because they cannot afford to pay rents, or families who have just seen their mortgage interest payments shoot up because of the actions of this Government; or they are simply forced to live at home, unable to pay for a place of their own.

In fact, this Government’s whole propaganda campaign on levelling up never included the poorest in London. How can there be levelling up when the poorest are made even poorer by this statement and when the cost of living is being made unbearable by the direct actions of this Government? We should not be surprised by this con, because we know what the Prime Minister thinks about the reality of levelling up. He was caught on camera boasting that he had redirected funding from deprived urban areas to well-to-do areas.

Most notably, the statement did not once mention the disastrous impact of Brexit. The SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), said that no one wanted to talk about Brexit, but I do. I remain proud of my decision to vote against the implementation agreement—not a deal. Contrary to what was said repeatedly in this House, no deal was put before us in December 2020. We, the representatives of the people of this country, were not given a say in the details of the deal, and we were given no meaningful vote on it. Instead, we were presented with a shoddy implementation agreement at the eleventh hour, strong-armed again into being for or against, and threatened with crashing out of the EU without a deal.

What do we have to show for Brexit? Spiralling inflation, travel chaos, labour shortages, crops rotting in the fields, a significant reduction to British exports, a loss of work and opportunities due to visa restrictions, food prices hiked up in our supermarkets, and the sharpest fall in living standards on record—and that is not even all of it. Whether people voted to leave or whether, like most of the people in my constituency, they voted to remain, nobody voted for this. We can no longer hide behind the economic effects of the pandemic when all the other G7 countries have bounced back and ours is the only country with a smaller economy now and is set to have the lowest growth in the G20 bar Russia. Yet the Chancellor was arrogant enough to come to the House and pretend that Brexit had nothing to do with the situation we find ourselves in.

If the people of this country are the most important thing in this country, then there is no patriotism and certainly no freedom in the inept economic policies the Government have inflicted on all of us. Brexit has been a complete and utter disaster, and if the Government do not address it there will be a reckoning. In the meantime, the average person in this country is left to pay the price.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Lady is giving a very passionate defence of why she believes Brexit to be a disaster. Obviously, I think differently. If Labour was in Government, would she be giving the same speech to her Front Bench?

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

I believe the hon. Member does not know me very well. I would be giving exactly the same speech.

I could say much more about the reinforcement of entrenched discrimination that the Government have carried out and which the statement exacerbates, but in conclusion, the vulnerable have not been protected by the Government and the statement has made them even worse off.