Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments

Paulette Hamilton Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

The Conservatives crashed our economy, and mortgage rates have skyrocketed as a result of their mismanagement throughout this crisis. Under the Tories, working families’ pay is falling by £1,300 on average, and everyone is feeling the hit from the rising cost of energy, food and fuel. On top of that, people across the west midlands, such as my Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale constituents, are facing an average mortgage increase of £379 a month.

One of my constituents—a nurse and single mother—contacted me as she is worried about the effect that the cost of living crisis is having on her family. She is in debt, struggles to pay for her children’s school dinners, and often misses meals so that they can eat, despite being pregnant with her third child. Such stories are not unique to Erdington. Many people are struggling to make ends meet through tough economic times that have been made worse by Tory incompetence.

How do the Government expect people to fork out £400 more every month to pay for the rising cost of their mortgages? Where do the Tories think that people such as my constituents should make savings—by turning their heating off or skipping meals? The Prime Minister promised that his Government would be compassionate and that supporting the most vulnerable would be his top priority. I wonder who is feeling the effects of that compassion. Working people in my constituency certainly are not.

Young people in Birmingham, who have scrimped and saved to get on the property ladder, have been thrown under a bus in the blink of an eye, leaving them trapped in the broken rental market. The crisis was avoidable. More than a decade of Tory chaos has meant that 800,000 fewer households under the age of 45 own their own homes now than when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. Just over 32,000 households in Birmingham are due to come off two or five-year fixed-term mortgages to refinance their deals in April 2023. They face an eye-watering jump in repayments as a result of the Tory premium they will now have to pay. That does not include the one in five homeowners on variable deals, who are seeing their bills rise almost immediately.

We must be absolutely clear: this is a Tory crisis, made in Downing Street, but working people are footing the bill and they demand answers about who will clean up the mess.