Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and her analysis of “nothing for Bristol South”. I feel that it is the same for York and York Central. The Government have had 13 years and the OBR is hardly complimentary, with productivity dragging, growth the lowest in the G7 and the pace of change far too slow. Of the last 13 wasted years, the past six months have been the hardest for families, businesses and communities; we now have 13.4 million people living in poverty. With sanctioning regimes now to become more brutal and ill people forced into work, we know who is paying the price for this Budget.

For those who got us through the last few years—the health workers, teachers, care staff and so many more—there is the longest pay squeeze for 200 years. Where is their pay rise? Household budgets are set to fall by 5.7%, and 5.1 million people will be hit by stealth taxes. It is the people who have worked their guts out over the last few years, while the top 1% have gained, who are paying for the chaos in Downing Street that has besieged our economy. Take Brexit, which is now costing the economy £100 billion in lost output every year as Britain is becoming increasingly isolated and irrelevant; take the 44-day Prime Minister, wiping £30 billion off the economy overnight. With our global reputation now in tatters, our influence to attract investment, jobs and the very best from across the globe has been stymied.

Thirteen years, and Britain is not booming; it is burning—burning with the injustices that we see each day in our constituencies. Our NHS is grinding to a halt without the staff to heal the sick. There are second homes and Airbnbs for the rich, while ordinary families are locked out of home ownership or even a place to rent. Yet there is nothing in today’s Budget to ignite a new generation of house building. If we on the Opposition Benches had not been fighting each and every day to highlight the prepayment scandal, where the very poorest were forced to pay the most for their energy, the injustice would have just continued. I am glad the Chancellor has at last taken heed, and I trust that compensation is also on its way. Swimming baths were closing their doors as the float never came in time, while the Prime Minister spent tens of thousands on his own; again we had to fight, and at last the lifeline has been thrown.

Let me turn to childcare. It is right to invest in our children, but ratios matter because quality matters. The cost of childcare in my community is stripping parents and children of any opportunity. The average monthly cost of childcare in York is £1,083.33, while the average wage is just £1,980: 54.71% of wages spent on a service that enables parents to access work. Today’s announcement takes us forward but we need a workforce plan to ensure that those working in the sector—mainly women—receive a wage that reflects the value of their job. It is always the same with the Tories: too little, too late. It matters, and it matters to my community in York.

On hearing about Great British Nuclear, I think of the Great British Railways competition, which would accelerate investment in Britain’s rail supercluster and place York back on the global map for rail. The competition was launched over a year ago and the announcement is over nine months late and still to come. Of course, that has an impact on the 5,500 jobs in advanced and digital rail in our city, with nervousness that it may not come at all in favour of political expediency elsewhere. Had it landed in time, we would already be accelerating the economic, research and innovation opportunities, as well as getting our trains running.

BioYorkshire—Britain’s largest green new deal—is about transitioning to a sustainable future while creating 4,000 green collar jobs, upskilling 25,000 people, generating income through start-ups and spin-outs, cutting carbon and landfill, returning value back to the Treasury, and creating new insect and hemp technologies. Quite frankly, it is one of the most globally transformative projects around. It was first raised in this House two and a half years ago, but we are still waiting. We have been waiting years for this Government to make up their mind how to fund it. All the time, opportunity is wasted, and our planet is melting and burning.

Born out of XR Stories, our creative sector has made York a UNESCO creative city of media arts and is leading the sphere in generating digital creative jobs in digital film, games and creativity, but where is the funding opportunity? Brilliant artists, technicians and so many more are waiting for the chance to help Britain back to its feet, but there is not a penny in the Budget for York’s science and technology superpower. Of course, we also have York Central—a site that is begging for attention and a major opportunity for investment—but yet again the Government pass it by: too little, too late.

Those are three brilliant clusters that the Government should be fighting to invest in—three brilliant projects that will not just level up my city by creating the jobs that are desperately needed in post-industrial York, but will benefit the region and the country and advance tech, science and climate mitigation around the world.

In York we think big, we plan hard, we build strong relations and partnerships, we attract the very best brains and we determine the greatest opportunities, but we have a Government who do not back those opportunities for our young people. As we have shown in the past, when people put confidence in York, we go far in what we achieve. Instead, we have seen nothing today. The next generation is losing hope and losing the chance to do something special. The Treasury is losing income and ultimately my community is losing the chance to create the next generation of jobs in our city, which is desperately needed to close the ever-growing inequality.

While some will be breathing a sigh of relief as they scoop funding for investment zones, York has been left with nothing in this Budget to enable our well-planned investment opportunities to flourish. This decision fails the people of my city, who are fighting for a decent job, a decent home and a decent future. Today, it feels as if the Government have missed a chance once again, aimed below the bar, looked down instead of up and reverted to type, dishing pots of money out here and there in desperation to win the next general election, not the next generation. But the next general election is coming, and the next generation is rising. It is their jobs, their hopes, their planet, their dreams and their future. They are clear that they have had enough. Let us have that general election and let us have a Labour Budget.