Cost of Living Increases

Debate between Layla Moran and Tulip Siddiq

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is a doughty champion for the children from deprived families who live in her constituency. We have surgeries where people line up to speak to us who cannot afford to eat because, as my hon. Friend says, they are saving their money to buy one meal for their children. This is Britain in 2023. We should not be in this situation.

It is important to remember how we got here in the first place. The Government have mishandled the cost of living crisis at every turn. Indeed, we will never forget the Conservatives crashing the economy last year, and we will never forgive them for it.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is totally right about the perverse choices that people are having to make. A young mum in Abingdon who has her kids in childcare is having to decide whether she pays the debt that she owes to the childcare provider, pays her prescription charges, or buys food for herself and her children. How is that a country that we can be proud of? It is because the Conservatives mismanaged the economy, is it not?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She has outlined lots of situations that we hear about every day from our constituents, yet the Conservatives say that their economic plan is working—it is clearly not working. The resulting rise in interest rates and the economic instability have added £500 a month to first-time buyers’ bills. For too many, dreams of home ownership and starting a family have been destroyed—another pillar of the good life knocked away.