Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Eight years in this place have rather inured me to the callousness of the Conservatives. I have watched them celebrate policies that I knew would destroy lives, laughing and jeering at objections that we raised, but I think that the Prime Minister’s announcement that austerity was over went beyond callousness, adding insult to the most cruel of injuries, austerity.
Recently I spent a day with Northumbria police. Austerity has cut its budget by a third—the largest cut in the country—and now the Government are trying to fiddle a further £11 million out of it in pensions payments. That is a third fewer bobbies on the beat, and with rising crime. For the first time, I have to hold constituency surgeries just on crime. The thin blue line of brave and committed officers is desperately trying to stem the consequences of slashed youth services, rising homelessness, poverty and mental health issues, as well as cyber-crime, historical sex abuse and current day sexual exploitation and trafficking. Under the Tories, the police are protecting us not only from the wrong-doers on the streets but from the wrong-doers in government.
Or shall we look at schools? Austerity will have cut per-pupil spending in Newcastle by £416 by 2020, with parents and teachers forced to buy essential supplies, not little extras. In addition, further education has lost £3.3 billion, so a refugee trying to learn English or a mum needing training to get back to work will now too often be out of luck.
What about transport? Investment delayed by the Tory-Liberal Democrat Government means that my constituents now face daily misery on the Tyne and Wear metro and buses are too expensive for many. Under austerity, transport funding in the north-east is just one fifth of what it is in London.
Then let us consider the services that frame the daily lives of my constituents, from bin collection to adult social care, provided by Newcastle City Council in the face of extraordinary cuts. Fully one half of central Government funding has been slashed from its funding, while demand has risen. The impact has been devastating. Austerity has cut funding for Newcastle parks—so important for health and wellbeing—from £2.6 million to just £87,000. Libraries have had to cut opening times, close altogether or been saved only by community organisations and volunteers. Right now, there is real anger in Fenham in my constituency that the future of its library depends on its sharing premises with a health centre and café.
I wanted to lay out the impact of austerity on my constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, but even if you gave me a week—which I recognise you are not going to do—that would not be enough time to describe what has happened on homelessness, social care, the NHS, food banks, poverty, mental health, jobs and the economy. Austerity is an ideology—an ideology that chose to put the responsibility for the financial crisis caused by casino capitalism and reckless bankers on the shoulders of the poor, the disabled, the young, women, the unemployed and the working people of this country, and to make them poorer for it. British wages have stagnated. Our productivity languishes behind that of other major economies, our infrastructure is creaking and our public servants are demoralised—all because austerity drained the lifeblood from our economy and created a vicious circle. Less investment means lower productivity, lower economic growth, lower wages, less tax revenue and, again, less investment. Austerity helped to create the sense of isolation and abandonment in our towns. Brexiteers blamed immigrants for the impact of austerity on our public services, so austerity helped to bring about the Brexit vote. Is the Prime Minister claiming she will bring an end to that, too?
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister say that austerity is over, but it will live on in the daily experience of my constituents who have been betrayed by it—like Jane, who has had physical health problems since childhood and now suffers from mental health conditions as well. Delays to universal credit left her in debt. At her Atos assessment, she was asked if she had ever tried to kill herself and if she had been successful. The resulting panic attack left her hospitalised. Only a Labour Government will end austerity for Jane and for the country.