Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Today, I want to ask a simple question: exactly who does our economy work for? If the past 13 years are anything to go by, it is certainly not ordinary working people. We are seeing: wages flatlining; inflation soaring; mortgages rising; a generation forced to pay extortionate rents because buying a property is a forgotten dream; public services rolled back; and schools, hospitals and local authorities with slashed resources, but with demand through the roof. This is the Tory’s record after 13 years in power. What do they have to say? “Can’t pay your rising bills, then get a better paid job, take on more hours, cut your consumption.” In so many cases, this is not just out of touch, but insulting. It is insulting to the teacher in my constituency who has been living in temporary accommodation. She cannot afford private rent let alone get on the property ladder, so, for the past four years, where has she and her two children been living? She has been living in one room in a dilapidated hostel. Should she get a better job? It is insulting to the care worker who is already working 14-hour shifts and barely able to afford food and other essentials after paying her bills. Should she take on more hours? It is insulting to the family of the elderly lady who passed away this winter because she could not afford to heat her home. She could not even follow the advice to cut her consumption because she could not afford heating in the first place.

My constituents are paying the price of this Government’s failure to get the economy working for them. Instead, what have they received from this Government? They have received: a mini-budget that crashed our economy, pushing pension funds to the brink; dither and delay in taking on the oil and gas giants as they made their eye-watering windfall profits; and the highest tax burden in 70 years because the Government failed to unleash the sustained growth of which our country is capable. Indeed, we are the only G7 country with a smaller economy now than before the pandemic. But what would you expect when the Tories have spent more time trying to hold their party together than making any effort to hold our country together?

There is another way, a different approach that can fix our economy. Labour would give our country certainty, attracting foreign investment and getting our economy moving again. We would invest in the industries of the future, creating high-paid, skilled jobs, ensuring that we are a world leader in clean energy. We would make our tax system fairer, working in the interests of ordinary working people.

Instead, what did we get from this Government in yesterday’s Budget? A £1 billion handout for the richest 1% and their pension pots. Labour would scrap the non-dom status, end tax breaks for private schools and private equity bosses and reverse the changes to the tax-free pension allowance, using the money to give our schools and hospitals the resources they need for more doctors, teachers and nurses.

I started by asking who our economy worked for. The sad truth is that it works for far too few of us: not the elderly couple using food banks who are now having to consider giving up their pets to keep up with rising prices and higher bills; not the mother and her three children with respiratory issues living in a small, damp and mould-infested home who are now facing homelessness because their landlord is putting up the rent; and not the mother with terminal cancer, a priority patient, who collapsed on the floor unable to move, waiting more than four hours for an ambulance while her partner and young daughter watched and waited. Our country can no longer afford the Tories. It is time for a Government who understand what ordinary working people are going through, who make the tax system fairer, who ensure access to decent housing, and who deliver strong public services. All of that is possible, but only when there is a Labour Government.