Budget Resolutions

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) said earlier, we have heard an awful lot about cider today. Given some of the things that I have heard from the Government and from the Chancellor himself, I almost feel that I need to invest in a whole flagon of cider; after some of the things I have heard, it is really going to need that much booze to take the edge off just how bad things are.

This was a Budget for the Government to deliver on their promise to build back better for our country, to lay the foundations for economic growth, and to provide investment and support for businesses, workers and the most vulnerable across our country. It was a Budget that could have transformed our economy in the face of the impending climate crisis. Instead, we heard nothing beyond the rhetoric that could meet the reality that our country and our burning planet faces. Many people in the diaspora communities in my constituency of Ilford South have family who are already facing the impacts of catastrophic and deadly climate change.

Beyond the spin, the painful reality is that real average weekly earnings will not return to pre-financial crisis levels until 2022. Recent analysis by the TUC has revealed that this will result in the worst pay crisis since Napoleonic times, with real pay far from rising and instead falling by 0.1%—years of real incomes barely growing, coupled with the cost of living crisis, high inflation, rising taxes and poor growth that will keep living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade. The worrying reality is that millions of people will be struggling to makes ends meet.

Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed to Whitehall Departments such as Transport and Justice seeing steep, real-terms cuts relative to 2010. Far from being the much-heralded payday that the Chancellor tried to present this Budget as, in reality it is yet another austerity Budget that will herald the biggest wage squeeze in British economic history, leaving the average worker almost £13,000 a year worse off by the middle of this decade. For those who are already desperate and looking to this Government to use this opportunity to provide urgent help, the Resolution Foundation found that a staggering 75% of almost 4.5 million households claiming universal credit will now be worse off, despite the tweak the Chancellor announced. The Trussell Trust summed it up perfectly when it said that

“there just wasn’t enough for some of those in our society who need it the most”

and food banks will have to “pick up the pieces”—as they are in Ilford South, with another four or five food banks springing up just in the past year.

What shall I tell my constituents in Ilford South who are now faced with such hardship? I certainly will not be reassuring them with news about the Chancellor slashing taxes on sparkling wines and cutting air passenger duty for domestic flights. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) made clear in this place last week,

“bankers on short-haul flights sipping champagne will be cheering”.—[Official Report, 27 October 2021; Vol. 702, c. 288.]

No one in Ilford South is cheering at this Budget, I can tell you that. It is another example of this multimillionaire, out-of-touch Conservative Cabinet looking after its own, not really doing things that will lift people out of poverty and get them back into work. I contrast that with the situation in my Ilford South constituency, where almost 19,000 families are currently in receipt of universal credit or working tax credits, and more than 11,000 of those have children—53% of all the families with children in my constituency. They now face a total of almost £20 million of cuts. This Budget has done absolutely nothing to address the catastrophic impact that will have on those families, the vast majority of whom will be forced into debt and further below the poverty line.

For those with their own businesses, who are the backbone of our local economy in Ilford South, I will do what I can by launching things like my new MP business awards that will support and highlight those businesses, but the reality is that we needed the Government to step in. By refusing to step up and finally deal with the business rates fiasco, the Government have completely failed them, and many will be forced to close or make redundancies. Is this really what the Government believe will enable our country to build back better and emerge from the pandemic stronger?

This Budget was equally bleak for those in the transport sector. Having already faced a sharp drop in revenue for the best part of two years, and with passenger numbers far off pre-pandemic levels, the transport sector needed a lifesaving shot in the arm to enable it to survive. Instead we Londoners heard not a single word, let alone got a pound sterling for Transport for London, when we know that every pound spent in the capital creates jobs outside it. Capital spending announcements for the transport sector across the piece were at their lowest level for half a century. I fear announcements that I think will come this week confirming the scale of job losses across Network Rail and many parts of our rail sector—good jobs that could be lost but should be there to get people out of their cars and travelling on public transport, so that we can really start to tackle the climate crisis. This is a dire state of affairs in a sector that is crucial for keeping our country moving and enabling us to recover as quickly as possible.

The Chancellor can claim that the Tories are the public service party, but as always the devil is in the detail of his Budget. He and his party have overseen more than a decade of austerity that left us woefully underprepared to tackle the current crisis. The fact that in some areas the Budget has only raised spending back to pre-2010 levels shows how economically illiterate the austerity decade was. With so little support offered by this Government, once again, we are now facing one of the worst winter crises in living memory, alongside a catastrophic climate crisis that is growing worse every day.

Now was the chance to make the kind of real radical change that is so desperately needed—that people are crying out for. There is an alternative—one that puts everyday people and our planet at the heart of our economy. Labour would forge a green industrial revolution and a new deal for workers, and would properly back our public services to give them the support they so desperately need. But we saw none of that; instead we were presented with tax cuts for mega-rich global giants such as Amazon and incentives for gas-guzzling flights. It is a champagne Budget for the rich, devoid of any meaningful support for millions across our country. It is another smoke-and-mirrors trick from the Gordon Gekkos of the green Benches. Our country deserves better and I cannot wait for a Labour Government to deliver it.