Working People’s Finances: Government Policy

Steve Reed Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank Members who have contributed to today’s debate. We have heard excellent and very thoughtful speeches from Members in all parts of the House, but particularly from those on the Labour Benches.

This debate is not about whether taxes should go up to fund services; it is about the fairness of clobbering working people with tax rises after a global economic crisis and at a time when living standards are being squeezed because prices are going up. We have heard moving stories from my hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for Islwyn (Chris Evans), for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for Newport East (Jessica Morden), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), for Slough (Mr Dhesi), for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) about how hard life is becoming for working people in their constituencies.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) said in her opening comments, this is a debate about the choices the Government have made over the decade they have been in power: the choices they made during the pandemic and the choices they are making now as life slowly returns to normal. It was the Conservatives’ choice last year to force a 5% council tax rise after their costly mistakes and their delay in locking down led our country into the worst recession of any major economy. It was the Conservatives’ choice to cut universal credit, an absolute lifeline for so many working people while prices are on the rise, tipping many working families over the edge into debt and leaving them fearful about the future, as we heard so eloquently from many hon. and right hon. Members.

It is the Conservatives’ choice to clobber working families with a national insurance tax hike rather than ask those with the broadest shoulders to pay their fair share. How can it be right that a landlord who rents out a portfolio of properties does not pay a single penny more while their working tenants get clobbered with tax rises? How can it be fair that the care workers we all clapped last year are this year rewarded with a cut in their take-home pay—no rise in pay, just a Tory rise in their taxes? That is not what the country expected. It is certainly not what those heroes on the frontline deserve. The national insurance tax rise breaks the manifesto pledge that every single Conservative Member was elected on less than two years ago: a pledge so important that the Prime Minister highlighted it in his personal foreword to the manifesto that every single Conservative MP was elected on. Every one of them has broken their promises and has broken trust with the voters who sent them here.

So what will working families get in return for these manifesto-busting Tory tax hikes? What is the gain for all the pain? The Prime Minister told us that this tax increase would pay for his plan for social care—except, of course, the Conservatives’ social care plan does not fix the social care crisis. The Prime Minister told us on his very first day in Downing Street that he had a plan to fix social care. Strangely, he kept that plan hidden for three years. We waited all that time without seeing a dot or a comma of the plan that he supposedly already had ready. When he finally unveiled it, he rushed through a vote on it within 24 hours in a desperate bid to avoid scrutiny. As we read in The Times, he bludgeoned those brave few Conservative MPs who still think keeping their tax promises matters with threats to cut off investment and punish their constituents—the people that voted to send them here in the first place.

The Prime Minister railroaded such an important policy through with such desperate haste because he wanted to push it through before anyone noticed that there is nothing extra for social care for at least three years. In fact, there will not be any extra money ever unless the Government plan to cut the NHS again at some point in the future. Astonishingly, this back-of-an-envelope plan could actually lead to cuts in social care. If councils have to pay increased employers’ national insurance contributions, they will have to cut services or put up council tax even more to pay for it, and care homes are reporting that if the Government do not fund the lost cross-subsidies from private purchasers, they will go bust. The Prime Minister cannot even guarantee that older people will not have to sell their home to pay for social care. That is another election promise smashed to smithereens. The cap on costs does not include accommodation, so people in care will still face charges totalling hundreds of pounds a week even after they have reached the cap.

Where will people living in a town in the north of England in a house worth £180,000 find the £85,000 plus the tens of thousands in accommodation costs that the Government expect them to pay without selling their home? Are the Conservatives so out of touch that they think most people have that kind of money stashed away in savings accounts? They do not. What kind of plan for social care ends up costing working families more while cutting the services they are paying for and closing down the care homes they need to use while still forcing older people to sell their homes? Only a totally botched plan from these tax-hiking, pledge-busting Conservatives.

The Government’s failure on social care means that councils have been left with a £2.7 billion black hole in their social care budgets. Since the national insurance tax hike will not plug that gap because not a penny is going on social care, what do the Government expect councils to do next April, faced with that dilemma? We need not wonder, because it is all right there in black and white in the social care plan—it could not be clearer. It says:

“We expect demographic and unit cost pressures will be met through council tax”.

That is why the Health and Social Care Secretary could not rule out tax rises last week and why I strongly suspect that the Minister will not rule them out in her contribution.

The Prime Minister has primed a council tax bombshell ready to go off next April. The Conservatives will clobber working families with a triple tax whammy, with yet another Conservative council tax hike next year on top of the Conservative council tax hike this year. That is on top of the Conservative national insurance tax hike, and that is on top of the Conservative cut to universal credit. They just cannot help themselves—they are Tory taxaholics.

Earlier this year, the Government’s inflation-busting council tax rise hit working families in the pocket, with the economy struggling to recover after the worst crisis of any major economy. Their council tax hike next year will land on people’s doormats after a winter of rising inflation and rising energy prices. The average band D council tax rate looks set to top £2,000 a year by 2024. Let me tell them here and now that working families simply cannot afford it.

The pain does not end there. As my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South said in her opening remarks, when social care costs outstrip the funding that councils have available, they are forced to cut other services—even after the Conservatives’ council tax hikes. Just count the cost to communities of these Conservative choices: libraries cut; youth services cut; children’s centres cut; and even public toilets cut. Thanks to the Conservatives, councils are cutting everything except the grass. The message to the public is loud and clear: pay more but get less under the Conservatives.

The headwinds facing working people this year are reaching gale force. Prices are up. Energy costs are up. Taxes are up. Rents are up. Childcare costs are up. Rail fares are up. The only thing going down is wages, which are still lower than under the last Labour Government.

The supermarkets are running out of fresh fruit and vegetables thanks to the Government’s incompetence, but, because household incomes are under so much pressure, many people could not afford to buy them anyway. What a state they have left our country in. Put simply, the country faces a Tory winter of discontent. Working families are facing a squeeze in their living standards that they simply cannot afford, all because of the bad choices, broken promises and sheer crass incompetence of this failing Conservative Government.