Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Well, what a Budget! People were hoping for a Robin Hood tax, but instead they got a Sheriff of Nottingham Budget—a Budget where the poor pay for tax cuts for the rich, and people at the bottom in terms of income, opportunity and aspiration pay the price for something that was not their fault.

Despite the claims of the Government parties, this is not the mess of the last Labour Government, either. When the banks imploded and affected the whole globe, the last Prime Minister had a choice: did he allow us to lose our homes, jobs and pensions, and the country to go into depression, or did he invest in infrastructure and ensure that our economy did not disintegrate? He rightly did the latter. Of course we must now pay down the deficit, but not at the expense of low and middle earners, not so deep and fast that we choke off growth, and not in a way that is totally unfair. The Budget has benefited people who got us into this mess and made the innocent pay. It is a Budget that has cut taxes for the richest. It has increased stamp duty on houses selling for more than £2 million, even though only 4,000 are sold each year. I wonder how many of those will now be sold for £1,999,999.

On transport, I welcome the further £130 million for the northern hub, but I will be even happier when the Secretary of State confirms that we will get the whole of the hub. Will she tell us today whether we will get the other £330 million that we need to complete the project? Will she also tell us whether there is to be any new rolling stock? Electrification and improvements to lines are more than welcome, but they are not much use without the right trains. We need an end to the nonsense of diesels running under wires.

The announcement of investment in rail was the only good news on transport for my constituents. The Government say that people should travel to get to work, but how? Train fares have gone up by 11%. Bus fares have also gone up and, according to the Campaign for Better Transport, one in five services have been cut. Fuel costs are at an all-time high. There was a moment of optimism during the Chancellor’s weasel words when he said that he did not propose any further changes to fuel duty, but he forgot to say that the duty would go up by 3% in August, and hard-pressed motorists might now have to pay for road tolling as well.

My surgery is already full of people who have nowhere else to turn—people who are losing their homes because they have lost their jobs or been off work because of illness, who are desperate because their long-saved-for pension funds have collapsed, who are losing their tax credits, and who are waiting weeks for their benefit when they lose their jobs and have no money for food.

I was told of a young man who was eating dog biscuits because that was the only food in the house. I was told of a 25-year-old lone parent with a young baby, who had no income whatever and had been relying on handouts from friends who could no longer support her. I heard about another lone parent with three young children being paid £47.50 a week in benefits. She was unable to survive on that and was about to lose her home. I also heard about a recently separated mother of three who was trying to set up a new home. She had claimed benefits but, two months later, her claim had still not been processed. There are so many ordinary people, and so many stories of suffering and desperation. Ordinary people were already suffering before the Budget, but life is now going to get a whole lot worse, especially for the 270 working couples in Bolton West who are about to lose £3,870 a year.

I shall finish by reading an e-mail that I received yesterday from Nicola. She said:

“I’m currently living with my partner and two children. I work 16 hours a week and I’m currently receiving maternity pay. I’m aware that when the tax credit changes in April, we’ll need to be doing 24 hours between us. My partner has completed all the relevant work programmes but still can’t get a job, which leaves me to try and get the extra hours, but because I’m on maternity leave, even if I got the hours, they wouldn’t start till August. Surely I don’t have to give up my job, which would mean losing my maternity benefit, but how else can we survive?”

I hope that the Government are proud of themselves. It will no longer be “Love thy neighbour”; it will be, “Can you feed thy neighbour?” Actually, I do not hope that the Government are proud; I hope that they are ashamed that they have put money in the hands of the rich and taken food out of the mouths of the poor.