I absolutely agree. On Saturday, I met a couple; the husband was the carer, looking after his wife. They, of course, are about to be hit by the bedroom tax as well. He said to me on the street, “I’d love to be working. I gave up my job to look after my wife.” If he had not done that, the cost to the economy of residential care would have been far higher than the benefits that that couple are getting. We have to do much more for carers rather than keeping on punishing them as the Government seem to.
I go back to Age UK’s response to the Budget. It had much more to say, but on the question of whether the Chancellor had delivered for older people, its answer seemed to be a resounding no.
The Government did reduce tax on beer by 1p, which, of course, is welcome for the pub industry, although it probably would have preferred action on the tie, which the Government appear to have shelved. The Government’s increase in VAT actually put 5p on a pint, and I hope it will take a long time for beer drinkers to sup the 300-odd pints before they get their free one.
It is also good that the Government cancelled the planned rise in fuel duty, but again the VAT increase wiped out any benefit that that may bring. I get annoyed when Government Members talk about how much they have “saved” the motorist, given that fuel has gone up by at least 10% on their watch. They also ignore the truth that the previous Labour Government cancelled or postponed planned fuel duty rises on 13 occasions, depending on the cost of fuel at the time. They also cancelled any rises at the height of the global financial crash—note that it was a “global” financial crash, not one made in Downing street where recessions now appear to be made.
However, tinkering at the edges will not give my constituents a job or increase their incomes. The Government made great claims about their proposals to help people buy a home and the Prime Minister claimed last year that their NewBuy scheme would assist 100,000 people to buy their own homes. What happened? Instead of 100,000 people, just 1,500 people benefited.
What about this year’s proposals? Instead of welcoming them, experts believe that they will simply lead to house price inflation. The Government cannot answer whether people will be able to use the scheme to buy a second home. Someone in social housing with a so-called spare room will pay the bedroom tax, but the state will help someone who wants a spare house to buy one—not a cheap one either, but one costing up to £600,000. I do not see too many people on the minimum wage being able to service that sort of loan, even with the paltry increase announced today.
Why do the Government not get on and build homes? House building would do more for the economy than any of the gimmicks that they announced in their so-called Budget. Even their grandly announced increase in infrastructure spending of £2.5 billion does nothing to restore the cut of £7.7 billion to infrastructure spending that they have made over the past three years. Let us hope that they make progress this time by building something rather than making announcements that never seem to come to fruition.
The people of Bolton West are struggling. Many are more than struggling; they are finding it hard to survive day to day. The Government blame them and are hellbent on making the situation worse. They say that they have to cut the welfare budget but neglect to say that the majority of that budget is made up of pensions and in-work benefits. That does not fit the picture that they try to portray of the skivers who are ruining the economy. They forget to say that jobseeker’s allowance accounts for less than 5% of the budget and to tell us that cutting benefit not only forces people to food banks but harms the economy. They forget to tell us that the private rented sector is far more costly than social housing. They will do nothing to introduce fair rents and nothing to curb the cost of private rented accommodation—they simply cap benefits in the hope that that might just bring down those rents.
I am no economist, but even I know that if we cut jobs and benefits, we get into a downward spiral of more business failure, more people out of work and less money in the economy—on and on downwards. The only way to reverse that spiral is to invest in jobs and pay a living wage, to build houses for people to live in, and to take action to rebuild our economy. Instead, what do we get? A double-dip—thank heavens for the Olympics, because otherwise it would have been a triple-dip—recession, a doubling of debt, and a deficit that is not reducing. Instead of blaming the poor and giving a tax cut to millionaires, this Government—instead of sitting on their hands—should take action and not give us the non-Budget that they have given us this time.
8.50 pm