Emma Lewell-Buck MP: '˜Sticking plaster' Budget will not solve deep Tory cuts

On Monday, Chancellor Phillip Hammond presented a broken promise budget to the British public.
Chancellor Philip Hammond holding his red ministerial box outside 11 Downing Street, London, before heading to the House of Commons to deliver his Budget. Picture by: David Mirzoeff/PA WireChancellor Philip Hammond holding his red ministerial box outside 11 Downing Street, London, before heading to the House of Commons to deliver his Budget. Picture by: David Mirzoeff/PA Wire
Chancellor Philip Hammond holding his red ministerial box outside 11 Downing Street, London, before heading to the House of Commons to deliver his Budget. Picture by: David Mirzoeff/PA Wire

This Budget is no better than placing a sticking plaster on an amputation wound, it will not solve the deep Tory cuts over the past eight years where their priority has been to hand out £110billion in corporate giveaways to the rich whilst we have seen zero action on low paid insecure work, the roll out of punitive and cruel welfare reform, public service cuts on a grand scale, pay freezes and the complete decimation of local government budgets.

Sadly this Budget was more of the same, the £1.7billion promised for Universal Credit doesn’t even come close to the estimated £7billion of social security cuts still to come.

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Our own local hospital services are under threat, the NHS has experienced the slowest spending growth in history and the Health Foundation have said that the £20billion promise for the NHS is ‘simply not enough’.

Schools in Shields are struggling, the money for what the Chancellor referred to as the ‘little extras’ is an insult, especially when these little extras are actually essential equipment and facilities.

Funding for school budgets have been cut by 8% and with teachers’ pay down by £4,000 in real terms since 2010, to suggest they only need ‘extra’ money, is a ridiculous out of touch insult.

Northumbria Police faces the biggest cuts in the country, with funding cuts of £140million since 2010.

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Overall, as with many other public services our police are getting next to no money with regular policing budgets receiving nothing despite 21,000 police being cut and violent crime on the rise.

Our local authority, South Tyneside, has suffered the third biggest cuts in the country with 44% being cut between 2010 and 2017.

Overall, local authorities still face a funding gap of £7.8billion by 2025.

The veneer behind this week’s Budget is one of a desperate Chancellor and a desperate Government.

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They know they don’t have the answers to the challenges our country and people face, they know Labour do.

Labour would actually end austerity, responsibly and fairly, rebuilding Britain for the many not the few.