Autumn Statement Resolutions

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Errol Graham starved to death in his own home. When his body was found, he weighed just 4½ stone. Errol was a grandfather. He was disabled and suffered from severe mental ill-health. He lived alone in his flat, where, at the time of his death, he had no hot water, no heating and no income for food and utilities. A few months before he died, Errol’s out-of-work and housing benefits were stopped. Reviews into Errol’s death criticised the Department for Work and Pensions for its handling of his case and found that the authorities repeatedly missed opportunities to help him.

Errol’s death was utterly tragic, but it was not unavoidable or isolated. A BBC investigation found that since 2012, 82 people have died after alleged DWP activity such as the termination of social security support. The lives of disabled people across the country are made more difficult, more insecure and more beset by fear and anxiety because of the cruel and callous policies enacted by Conservative Governments. I highlight that because a central feature of this autumn statement is a renewed assault on the rights of sick and disabled people. That assault ranges from the threat of totally withdrawing disabled people’s out-of-work benefits if they cannot find work after 18 months to new sanctions that could see people losing access to free NHS prescriptions and legal aid. Rather than demonstrating that damning lessons of past DWP failures have been learned, those policies are recipes for more tragedies and more people dying alone in desperate need.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) highlighted earlier in the debate, that scapegoating comes on the back of the Government’s desperate attempts to demonise other marginalised groups—none more so than migrants and refugees. In both instances, the Government are playing divide and rule. They say that the problem with our public services is not school budgets being slashed, NHS funding cuts or privatisation; instead, they tell the British public that their problem is the migrant next door or the disabled person down the road. The intent is the same: to distract and divide, even if it means punishing the poor and vulnerable, and heaping misery upon misery.

It is little wonder that the Government are doing so now: as the Office for Budget Responsibility has made clear, Britain faces the biggest hit to living standards since records began. The outlook is set to get worse, with the OBR highlighting that this autumn statement bakes in a new round of austerity cuts. The real value of Government departmental spending is set to be slashed by nearly £20 billion by 2028.

Behind those cuts, and behind the demonisation of the poor and marginalised, is a myth that pervades our politics: the myth that there is not enough to go round. It is true that there is not enough to go round for ordinary people, as our constituents know too well. Millions of people are struggling to make ends meet. More than 14 million people are living below the poverty line, including more than 4 million children, and last year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 3.8 million people experienced destitution. That is defined as severe poverty, where people cannot afford basic needs—that does not mean just struggling to pay the bills and keep food on the table, but choosing between heating and eating, a choice that becomes more and more painful as winter bites.

While the majority of people are struggling to make ends meet, it is simply a myth that there is not enough to go round, because last year, for example, the wealth of Britain’s billionaires grew by more than £30 billion, up to nearly £700 billion. I will break that down: that is seven followed by 11 zeroes. That obscene wealth is matched by the profits of some of the biggest companies in the country, from the four biggest banks—Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC and NatWest, which saw pre-tax profits rocket by 79% this year—to the likes of Amazon, which saw global profits nearly triple this year to around £8 billion. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the brave workers at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse, who became the first in UK history to go on strike after they were offered a pay rise worth just 35p. I was proud to join them again on the picket line on Friday in that company’s biggest ever global strike.

What is true of Amazon is true of society as a whole: the problem is not that there is not enough wealth, but that the super-rich are hoarding all the wealth, and that can be tackled. An annual wealth tax of just 1.5% on assets over £10 million, for example, would raise £12 billion a year. Equalising capital gains tax with income tax rates would raise another £15 billion a year, and ending the non-dom tax break for the super-rich would raise a further £3 billion a year. That is money we could use to invest in our communities, to reverse 13 years of austerity, and to build a social security system that treats sick and disabled people with the dignity and respect they deserve. It could do everything from funding universal free school meals and ending the cruel two-child limit to properly funding our schools and hospitals, rebuilding collapsing infrastructure and giving hope to everyone in every corner of this country. This failed Tory Government will never do that, so it must be the mission of the next Labour Government.