Budget Resolutions

Martin Whitfield Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman has just spoken; he can go off and advise his clients on investing their money abroad.

The Conservative party saw an opportunity to pursue a minimal state agenda in the aftermath of the global financial crash, and it has done so at great cost to many. It made a deliberate choice that cuts to public spending would bear 80% of the cost of eliminating the deficit and that only 20% would be accounted for by tax changes, and we now know that the cuts have fallen disproportionately on the most vulnerable and those least able to look after themselves. The Chancellor’s predecessor liked to claim that we are all in this together, but he cut the top rate of tax for his super-rich friends at the same time as ensuring that public sector workers had a decade of pay freezes and falling real living standards.

Meanwhile, the Government have systematically reduced the social safety net to tatters for some of the most vulnerable people in our society. By 2021, Wirral Council, which is my local authority, will have had its funding cut by 40% since 2010. Efficiency savings cannot cover cuts on that scale, and it is no surprise that that level of cuts has decimated council services such as adult social care, which for a second time was not mentioned in the Budget and saw a 26% cut between 2011 and 2016, meaning that essential social care for the elderly is not available and people in dire need are being left with little or no help. In education, real-terms funding cuts have led to a loss of £149 per pupil and 29 teachers in Wallasey alone. Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is being told to cut £1 billion in the next five years. Merseyside fire and rescue service used to have 40 fire engines to save lives; it now has 28.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I welcome today’s announcement on VAT for Scottish police and fire services, but does my hon. Friend agree that the reinstatement of the VAT exemption comes far too late, because there have been added deductions for years and years?

[Ms Eagle]

That is absolutely right. Merseyside police will have suffered cuts of £183 million by 2021 and is 1,000 officers and 700 support staff down. It is little wonder that crime levels are now the highest in a decade. Madam Deputy Speaker, I could go on, but I think you get the point. Austerity has exacted a brutal cost from the most vulnerable.

This Budget takes place against a backdrop of unparalleled uncertainty and danger for our country because this Government are paralysed by their own disagreements over Brexit. They are unable to resolve their own internal contradictions around the Cabinet table, let alone chart the path to a successful conclusion of the article 50 negotiations in Brussels. We have a Prime Minister who puts the interests of her party above those of her country, and half of the Tory party would rather that we crashed out of the EU without any deal than stay in a moment longer.