Both Brighton MPs weighed into the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, after made his autumn statement to the House of Commons today (Thursday 17 November).
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: “The Chancellor said that he would be honest about the challenges we face, so it is frankly extraordinary that he could speak for almost an hour without once acknowledging the economic catastrophe of Brexit.
“According to the OBR (Office of Budget Responsibility), it will slash productivity by 4 per cent. It has delivered a 15 per cent drop in trade. There will be a 14 per cent drop in investment.
“It will increase food prices by 6 per cent and it will deliver lower wages, workforce shortages and the highest inflation in the G7.
“When will he name the elephant in the room? When will he start to address that and reverse some of the damage that it is doing?”
Mr Hunt replied: “I do not deny for one second that Brexit will be a change in our economic model but whether we make a success of it is up to us. This government will make a success of it and make it a tremendous opportunity.”
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, said: “This is a budget of austerity 2.0, is it not? Of course, different decisions could have been made.
“The Chancellor could have decided to abolish the upper limit on national insurance, raising more than £30 billion and solving adult social care in one fell swoop along with the crisis in council funding.
“He chose not to do so but instead to burden poorer people and working people. On housing and energy specifically, he has said that he will freeze local housing allowance … It was last uplifted just at the beginning of the pandemic.
“Will he please review that decision along with how people living in blocks of flats who receive communal energy have received no support for their energy bills? They need that desperately to come through and he has promised it before.”
Mr Hunt replied: “As I have explained, we increased local housing allowance at the start of the pandemic – significantly – and we are keeping it at that higher level.
“He talks about difficult decisions. I would say that there is one difficult decision on the table today: do we do what is necessary to tackle inflation? On the government side of the house, the answer is yes.”
On Twitter, the Labour MP for Hove, Peter Kyle, said on Twitter: “Remember: no one was talking about cuts and austerity before the Tories blew a hole in our economy. This is on them.”
And after the autumn statement Caroline Lucas said in a statement: “Our government has chosen to pursue even more devastating austerity cuts in the name of political ideology, not economic necessity – and refuses to admit that Brexit has made the situation so much harder.
“When people are in such desperate need, many turn to our public services for support. Yet years of Tory austerity have decimated local authorities like Brighton and Hove.
“Meanwhile, rents are rising at record rates, yet more than one in three private renters in Brighton and Hove need housing benefit. Rather than invest in local housing allowance, the gap between rents and housing benefit has been left shamefully wide.
“It doesn’t need to be this way – household finances across the country may be in crisis but our public finances are not. By next year the UK will have less debt, a lower deficit and lower taxes than much of the rest of the G7.
“We mustn’t learn the wrong lessons from the Truss debacle – borrowing to fund tax cuts for the mega-rich is wholly different from borrowing to invest in our communities.
“I’m certainly glad to see new funding for insulation – but where’s the urgency? For people facing fuel poverty this very winter, we need new money to be delivered this parliament, not money recycled from other pots.
“And why stop there? We should be seeing free childcare to ease the cost of living burden for struggling families, a national minimum wage of £15 an hour and decent pay increases for public sector workers, from nurses to rail workers, that take into account rising inflation and don’t leave them even worse off than before.
“Local councils are the lifeblood of our communities – helping to lift people out of poverty, ensure public services are thriving, and tackle the climate emergency. We must ditch ideologically driven Tory austerity now.”
The government issued a press release giving its summary of the autumn statement. To read it, click here.
The bald facts are that the Government has borrowed vast amounts of cash over the last few years to fund Covid support. That cash has to be paid back. That means tax, growth, and more tax.
More hot air from the left.
All they ever do is slag-off the Tories.
Never do they produce any viable plan that would be instigated when they win the next GE.
Be careful what you wish for; things may be bad now; but they’ll be ten times worse under a clueless Labour government.
Seems like the Conservative commentators here want to have a Pity party held for them because the opposition parties call for the Torys to do something other than cut taxes for the rich and expect the taxpayer to pick up their tab.
After 12 years of Conservative NeoLiberal money grabbing and ennobling all their donors including Russian Oligarchs the country is literally falling apart and again we have a Winter of Discontent – The Conservatives can’t even repair the roads let alone run the NHS….
The country is in a Worse place now than it ever was in the 1970’s.
In the 1970’s there was no need for food banks, or for the taxpayer to subsidise the minimum wage, businesses didn’t need “Enterprise Zones” or “Investment Zones”.
Businesses paid tax rates up to 75% if not more and they still thrived – perhaps because their private sector bosses hadn’t grown fat and lazy on Gov’t handouts and subsidies funded by the taxpayer like they are now.
These Conservatives say things will be 10 times worse if Labour is elected – I’m no fan of Starmer & co –
But I don’t see how things can get 10 times worse than they are now, unless we reach third world levels of corruption in Gov’t, (which we were very close to under Boris)…..
Someone please explain to me how the Conservative MPs, and their major donors will be affected by this budget.
What sacrifices will they have to make? What belt tightening will they have to do?
Absolutely Zero is the answer.
Banks had their corporate tax rate cut to 8%, less than rest of us pay in VAT on everything we buy.
But let’s hold a Pity Party for the poor hard done by Conservatives who are suffering unimaginable deprivations because after 40+ years of Thatcherite Neoliberalism they’re having to raise taxes on everyone else but themselves and their donors YET AGAIN.
Playing obvious Momentum socialist anti-Conservative bingo for favourite buzzwords – BINGO!