Emma Lewell MP: More action is needed so that this budget makes a real and positive difference to people’s lives
I am writing this as I sit in my Parliamentary office just hours before the Chancellor’s budget.
The Prime Minister has promised he will take action on the cost of living and, over recent months, the Government has taken some immediate steps to alleviate the pressures people are facing. Already this morning there is good news that the Chancellor has confirmed that standing charges on gas bills will be scrapped – benefitting nearly 23 million households. I am hopeful that the Budget will include bolder steps towards easing these pressures because people are struggling and worried. More action is needed so that this budget makes a real and positive difference to people’s lives.
As a member of the Commons Defence Committee and a Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have long argued for increased defence spending for South Shields and the North East region. This week, I coordinated a letter from regional colleagues, asking the Chancellor for increased defence spending in the North East. We have the highest number of young people not in education, training or employment and we desperately need the jobs and skills that would flow from this. As the niece, granddaughter and daughter of shipyard workers, I know our region can deliver for national defence.
People are sick of being ripped off and the unfairness they see is typified so well in our water industry where chief executives receive huge profits and bonuses for filling our rivers and seas with sewage. For over a decade I have worked for change with local campaigners. Tweaks to the legislation are not working. The time to nationalise is long overdue
Hospitality is what we do best in South Shields, but our industry has been battered with a perfect storm of taxes and cost of living rises. I can’t bear to see another pub, restaurant or café boarded up and I remain hopeful that my calls for a VAT cut, along with other colleagues and the industry, will be acted on.
Labour was created to make life better for the majority. I sincerely hope this budget does just that.