Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

In his autumn statement, the Chancellor said:

“We have shown in this Parliament that we can deliver spending reductions without damaging front-line public services if we are prepared to undertake reform.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 309.]

Today, in two short phrases, he said that to achieve his £30 billion-worth of savings he would cut £13 billion from Government Departments and £12 billion in welfare savings: no more details and no discussion of the misery that this means for many of my most vulnerable constituents. His cuts to front-line services have damaged residents in Bolton West and will continue to do so. People used to say that when the tide rose it lifted all the boats, but this Government have proved that now it only lifts the yachts. Constituents in Bolton West will be £1,600 worse off at the end of this Parliament than they were at the start. On top of the £100 million cut in its budget, Bolton council now has to find a further £43 million in the next two years. Social care is harder to get, youth provision is down, roads are full of holes, and the voluntary sector is cut.

The Chancellor talks about £12 billion savings in welfare. A consortium of northern housing providers, including Wigan and Leigh Housing and Bolton At Home, has undertaken a survey of the impact of welfare reform on their tenants since 2012. Its latest report makes frightening reading. Average debt has tripled in two years and now stands at £3,500. One in two households is regularly unable to meet its weekly debt repayments, which are averaging just under £35 a week—88% higher than at the start of the study just two years ago. People in 23.5% of households are unemployed—the highest level of unemployment since the start of the study—and fewer than one in five is in full-time work, while 69% of those in part-time work want more hours. After their bills are paid, they have just £2.53 left per day. After bills, more than six in 10 households have less than £10 for the week’s spending money. One in five households has used a food bank. Although £3.63 per person is the average spend on food, three out of 10 families have less than £2.86 per day to spend on their food. A total of 53.8% of people say that they cannot heat their homes to the level they need, and 44% have said that their health has deteriorated since the start of the study just two short years ago. Tell those people that we are all in it together; tell them that Britain is walking tall again; tell them that the plan is working. Britain needs a better plan. The Tories will never understand that Britain only succeeds when working families succeed.

Young people have borne the brunt of many of this Government’s decisions, with tuition fees trebled, the education maintenance allowance abolished, Connexions got rid of—so they cannot now get the careers advice they need—and youth services about to become the first statutory public service to disappear altogether. The most vulnerable young people are being hit hardest, with 1,000 sanctioned every day. The YMCA has reported on many of the young people that it works with. Those who have been sanctioned say, for example:

“I was unable to eat and it was lucky that the YMCA could help.”

A young woman said:

“It’s how long they left me with no money for food knowing I was pregnant and had to buy my own food.”

Another young person said:

“I went 3 months living on food parcels which is really degrading because you lose all your dignity. It’s not just physically hard, it’s mentally hard.”

Sanctions are supposed to help young people into work, but one young person said:

“My focus turned to survival rather than gaining employment.”

Yesterday evening, Liam Preston from the YMCA told me of its serious concerns about the rise in poor mental health among young people, compounded by the cuts to child and adolescent mental health services and to youth services and other support services. Unless we look after the most vulnerable and make sure that ordinary families succeed, we will never succeed as a country.

A couple of weeks ago, at an event to encourage people to vote, one young woman spoke very eloquently about her life. She said that when someone has to worry every day about putting food on the table, paying their bills and clothing their children, they cannot worry about voting. Another young woman from Foxes of the Fold women’s group in Johnson Fold told me that she now has permanent asthma, because paying the bedroom tax meant that she could not afford to put her heating on all winter. Those are real lives.

This Government have targeted the weak and given tax breaks to the rich, and there have been tragic consequences, such as a rise in suicides. Let me tell hon. Members about one young woman whom I have known for many years; I used to be her youth worker. She has suffered from poor mental health ever since her terrible childhood, and she now lives in supported housing. She is waiting for an appointment at a pain clinic, which has been cancelled four times, and for a procedure to stop her pain, which has been cancelled twice. She was told that, owing to the cuts, her housing project would close. Unsurprisingly, she is now in hospital—she is very poorly—having tried to die. She is a victim of the cuts and of this Government’s policies. It need not be this way.

I presented apprenticeship awards at Forrest construction company in my constituency last week. The chief executive officer told me his story: from apprentice to CEO and from poverty to millionaire in 25 years. He recognises the need to put something back into the community, having benefited from careers advice and from people taking a chance on him. His company puts £1 million a year into the communities where it works. He believes that resources, play spaces, facilities and voluntary organisations make a difference to people. He says that if people’s horizons are raised, their lives will improve.

This Government offer not support but simply more cuts. Zero-hours contracts and food banks are not a legacy to be proud of. They do not understand the lives of working families, and they do not have the answers. Britain truly can do better than this, and under Labour it will.