Cost of Living: Fiscal Approach

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for bringing forward today’s debate.

I will always recall Mo Mowlam telling the story of a pensioner who came to her surgery, put their pension book in front of her and laid out the bills they had to pay—the sums did not add up. When Labour came to power, we restored respect and dignity to people and made a difference to them. We never thought we would return to the days in that story, but we have—and worse. When my constituents make hard choices because their bills and income do not add up, they too struggle to understand how they will get through the next three months, let alone the autumn and winter. They are having to make those hard choices every day, making pristine accounts and budgets just in order to survive. One constituent debated whether she would end going to the day centre, her only social contact. Another said that, when she went to the food bank, she had to select foods that did not require cooking. Those are real choices that my constituents are making right now.

If the bill drops through the door, and you dare to open it before reaching for help, your mind is in the echo room, with your mental resilience evaporated. That was the case for one of my constituents when they fell short by £3.45 on their utilities bill. That spiralled out of control and did not end well. That is the reality that people are living in. As many hon. Members have said, the Government have solutions in their hands, if only they would see this as a priority.

Wages are so low that people cannot survive on them. These are the people who never received those promised pay increases, particularly in the public sector, which did not even get 1%. Meanwhile, people paid themselves profits in the many multibillion-pound companies that benefited from Government handouts during the pandemic. The Government need to put the money where it will make the greatest difference. People will spend that money in the local economy, which is how we can get the economy moving. The pay remits should focus on those at the bottom of the pay scales, ensuring that they get not just percentage increases, which benefit the best paid in the workplace.

I, too, want to concentrate on housing. In York, we have a low-wage economy but an extortionately high cost of living because of the housing crisis. The house price to earnings ratio in York is 8.21 and rising. The rental cost figures published just this week show a rise of 10.2% over the past year, averaging £945 a month—35% of people’s income. We need rent controls to hold down those rents. People are not only using their hard-earned money to pay for a roof over their head, but that money is being extracted from the local economy.

We have seen family homes, which people would have bought and lived in in the past, being bought by investors who turn them into Airbnb lets. We have lost 1,785 homes into the Airbnb market, extracting more money out of our local area. We need those reforms now, to stop the crisis getting worse.