The Economy and Living Standards

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I will speak very quickly, Madam Deputy Speaker.

For ordinary people in Easington, east Durham and the north-east of England, things are getting harder, not easier, under this Government. Hard-working people are on average £1,600 a year worse off. Families are paying £300 more on their energy bills. At a time when people are working longer and harder for less, raising a family in Easington, as elsewhere in the country, has become more difficult as child care costs have risen by almost a third.

My good friend and near neighbour my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) raised a very interesting point at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday. He asked the Prime Minister about the number of children who were living in poverty in households where someone was working. The figure was one in three. Indeed, two thirds of young people in poverty live in a working household. The Prime Minister did not address that question.

Members on the Government Benches tell us that employment is the route out of poverty, but for many parents hard work is not even enough to provide an acceptable standard of living for their children. In the north-east, full-time workers are now £36 a week less well-off than they were a year ago. The link between economic growth and living standards has been broken. The assumption that as the economy grows wages would grow too no longer holds water under the policies being pursued by this Government. I am very pleased the Labour party has pledged to raise the value of the minimum wage over the next Parliament and to move towards a living wage for businesses that can afford to pay it, and to introduce a lower 10p starting rate of tax. We can only have a successful economic recovery if it is felt throughout society, and the problem with the Government Front Bench—including, with all due respect, the Chancellor—is that the economy is only working for small clusters of privilege. It is not working for the vast majority of people, certainly not in my constituency.

I wanted to raise some issues in relation to the young unemployed and those who are not in employment or training, but I am afraid there is not time. What the public require is an economy that works for them, not just the few, and a Government prepared to deal with the real issues affecting their lives.