Budget Resolutions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who made a characteristically thought-provoking speech. This year’s Budget, like last year’s, comes after my annual community consultation, where I use the three weeks of the conference recess to talk to people across the constituency. Last year, the view I shared with the House was:

“Like towns and cities across the country, Sheffield is at a tipping point.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2017; Vol. 632, c. 123.]

It was at a tipping point because of the collapse in the social fabric and in the ability of services to deal with the problems people were facing. So where are we 12 months on? In more than 60 hours of discussion at more than 40 events in this year’s consultation, all I found was greater concern and the feeling that we are closer to that tipping point. There was greater fear of the rise in violent crime and antisocial behaviour. We have some really impressive and committed police officers leading the fight against knife crime in Sheffield, supported by some great community groups, but we need to recognise the perfect storm that has been created by a combination of Government policies. Eight years of deep cuts to local services have decimated youth provision, led to rising school exclusions and seen falling police numbers—we have lost about a third of our police staff across South Yorkshire.

From the National Audit Office to the Police Federation, and to the Home Secretary himself, everyone agrees that police forces are underfunded. So when the Prime Minister promised the end of austerity, we might have anticipated that things would change in the Budget, but they did not change—not a bit. There was not a penny more for core police funding, nor were there any funds to rebuild youth services.

Nor was there an adequate response to the crisis in mental health, which was another significant issue raised right across my constituency. People told me of their difficulties in accessing services and of treatment waiting times that are simply too long. Young people in particular told me that they were waiting more than six months from referral to their first appointment with child and adolescent mental health services. So although I welcome the extra funding for mental health, we must recognise that it is simply mental health crisis provision, as the Chancellor described it. Of course, such provision needs to be properly funded, because we have a crisis in mental health, particularly for our young people. They want to know why they need to get to crisis point in their mental health before the system responds. A mental health crisis hotline is no substitute for proper face-to-face support. And what has happened to parity of esteem between mental and physical health? The £2 billion going to mental health is just 10% of the funding allocated to the NHS overall, so there is no parity of esteem there—in fact, we are moving further in the wrong direction, and that is a missed opportunity.

The Chancellor missed another opportunity to do the right thing by pushing back the start of the £2 maximum stake for fixed odds betting terminals to October 2019. That delay means that people will die—people like my constituent, Jack Ritchie, who took his own life aged just 24, having been, in the words of his mum Liz, “groomed by gambling companies”. Jack began gambling while at secondary school, playing on fixed odds betting machines at the nearby bookies. We all know, and the Government have admitted, that these machines are the “crack cocaine of gambling”, with players winning or losing up to £100 every 20 seconds. So what is the Chancellor’s answer for Jack’s grieving family, whose charity Gambling with Lives is to be launched here in Westminster in a couple of weeks? What is the explanation for the decision to push back the introduction of the lower stake? The Budget has no answer for Jack’s family, who are to be hugely commended for their work to try to prevent other young people from getting to crisis point. It has no answer for the young people who tell me that they have to get to crisis point before their mental health problems will even begin to be addressed, and it has no answer for my constituents who increasingly fear the violent crime and antisocial behaviour that corrodes our communities.

This is a cruel Budget, not only because of the lie that it marks an end to austerity, but because it fails the strivers and grafters of whom the Chancellor spoke, giving priority to higher earners. His tax adjustments reduce tax for basic rate payers by £130, but we MPs, like other high earners, will gain £860 a year. It is part of a pattern, as the Resolution Foundation has pointed out. In total, the tax and benefit changes since 2015 have given the richest fifth of households an extra £390 a year, while the poorest fifth have not simply gained less, but have lost £400 a year. Failing to end austerity and failing on social justice, this Budget fails our country.