Cost of Living and Brexit

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I take any opportunity to raise the cost of living crisis in my constituency and beyond. The cost of living crisis started before the Ukraine war in 2022, before the 2019 pandemic and before Brexit in 2016. It started with austerity, which has been affecting people for more than 10 years, and let us remember that austerity is a political choice. It is a choice made by Ministers, past and present, and they were told at the time that it would not work. Even the United Nations told them that their ideological austerity experiment would not work, but the Government continued, and we are all worse off because of it. Bizarrely, I know the Chancellor agrees with me. He said that some cuts went too far when he was Health Secretary, but he is now Chancellor and can reverse those cuts, so why has he not?

I attended this morning’s debate on hospices, which are at breaking point. There is a massive funding gap between what the Government are offering and what hospices need, and the same is true of dental care, which I have mentioned many times in this place. My constituents cannot get an appointment, and they cannot go private because it is so expensive. I could go on.

Child poverty is now rife in my constituency. The number of people fed by food banks has increased, and inequality is worsening. What is happening to our country? Why are the Government allowing this? The austerity policies of David Cameron and George Osborne hollowed out our welfare state and left us unprepared for when covid hit. They both owe the public an apology.