Cost of Living Increases

I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House condemns successive Conservative Governments for their mismanagement of the economy over 13 years; regrets that this has resulted in the UK being the only G7 economy that is still smaller than before the pandemic, with squeezed wages and higher mortgage rates that have increased costs by £500 a month for some households; further regrets that successive Chancellors have made working people pay for the Government’s economic failure with 24 tax rises since 2019, creating the highest tax burden in 70 years, while refusing to abolish the non-domicile tax loophole; is extremely concerned about the impact on household budgets of an inflation rate of more than 10 per cent with food prices rising at their fastest rate in 45 years; therefore calls on the Government to ease the cost of living crisis by freezing council tax this year, paid for by an extended windfall tax on oil and gas company profits; further calls on the Government to cut business rates for small businesses and support energy intensive industries including food manufacturers with their energy bills to help bring down the cost of everyday items; and finally calls on the Government to adopt Labour’s economic mission to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 with good jobs in every part of the country.

It astonishes me that the Conservatives are acting like the cost of living crisis is over and their economic plan is working. The Chancellor is proudly boasting that Britain is back. He has even said:

“The declinists are wrong and the optimists are right. We stick to the plan because the plan is working.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 847.]

What planet does the Chancellor live on? Does he understand the reality on the ground for all of our constituents? Does he understand that on the Prime Minister’s watch, our economy is weaker, with the UK forecast to have the worst growth in the G7 this year? Real wages are lower than they were 15 years ago, with families in the UK going into the cost of living crisis significantly poorer than those in comparable European countries. The price of everyday essentials has risen by an eye-watering £3,000 since 2020, and never before have people in this country paid so much money for so little value from their public services.

The disconnect between this Conservative fantasy and the experiences of ordinary people could not be wider. Decent, hard-working people across the country are being forced to cut back on the things that underpin a good life. Mr Deputy Speaker, I will explain what I mean by a good life: a meal out once in a while with close friends, the special annual family holiday that you look forward to all year round, and a decent home to call your own. Those are increasingly things of the past; instead, people are left worrying about how they are going to pay their household bills at the end of the month and their rocketing mortgage costs.

I thank my hon. Friend for opening her speech in such a powerful way. Does she agree that it is really worrying that we hear tales of parents going without a meal, just to make sure that their children are able to eat?

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is a doughty champion for the children from deprived families who live in her constituency. We have surgeries where people line up to speak to us who cannot afford to eat because, as my hon. Friend says, they are saving their money to buy one meal for their children. This is Britain in 2023. We should not be in this situation.

It is important to remember how we got here in the first place. The Government have mishandled the cost of living crisis at every turn. Indeed, we will never forget the Conservatives crashing the economy last year, and we will never forgive them for it.

The hon. Lady is totally right about the perverse choices that people are having to make. A young mum in Abingdon who has her kids in childcare is having to decide whether she pays the debt that she owes to the childcare provider, pays her prescription charges, or buys food for herself and her children. How is that a country that we can be proud of? It is because the Conservatives mismanaged the economy, is it not?

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She has outlined lots of situations that we hear about every day from our constituents, yet the Conservatives say that their economic plan is working—it is clearly not working. The resulting rise in interest rates and the economic instability have added £500 a month to first-time buyers’ bills. For too many, dreams of home ownership and starting a family have been destroyed—another pillar of the good life knocked away.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to the Chancellor’s suggestion that the Government are the optimists and we are the declinists. In fact, are the optimists not those people who have taken on a mortgage and achieved that dream of home ownership, and who are being so cruelly let down by the incompetence of this Government?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to ask the Conservatives how they can continue to live in this fantasy world, because it does not match the reality on the ground. Let us not forget the impact of rising prices. Food prices are growing 50% faster than anywhere else in the G7, putting Britain’s food inflation rate at 19.2%, compared with an average of 12.8%. The price of sugar is up by an incredible 42%. Milk is up by more than 33%, and pasta is up by 25%. The UK has the highest inflation level in western Europe. That is a national scandal.

The hon. Lady says that the inflation figures here are higher than anywhere else in the G7. Food price inflation in Germany is over 22%, compared with 17% in the UK. Is that also the fault of the Conservative Government?

I assume that the hon. Gentleman is not proud of all the figures I am outlining and the high inflation that is coming up. The Conservatives can manipulate the stats all they want, but they cannot run away from the fact that we are falling behind our peers. That is not something I am proud of, and they should not be either.

Since 2020, the cost of a typical food shop is up by £700 a year. Clothing and footwear are up by £140. Household goods and services are up by £360. Transport is up by £800. [Interruption.] I do not know why Government Members are laughing; these are real figures that our constituents are dealing with. The essentials of housing, fuel and power are up by a shocking £1,480.

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Government have subsidised people’s energy bills by about 50%, and if so, by how much would Labour subsidise them?

I will come to energy shortly. If the hon. Member were able to answer, I would ask him whether he thinks 50% is enough, because it is not enough. If he speaks to people on the ground, he will see how much they are struggling. The rising costs of everyday essentials mean that families across the country are making cutbacks just to stay afloat. That has been devastating for local economies, with communities losing the businesses and institutions that bind us together.

It is a fact that the village of Altnaharra in my constituency is every year the coldest place in the entire United Kingdom. We already have pensioners having to make the invidious decision to wrap themselves up in blankets and put the heating off. No one should face that sort of decision.

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. The situations being described are not what we want to hear about in our country in 2023, and we should not be proud of this record; we should be trying to do better.

Under this Government, more than 6,000 pubs, nearly 4,000 local shops and 9,000 bank branches have closed on our local high streets. That is nothing to be proud of.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I am sure we have all been concerned by stories from our constituents who are missing out on meals, eating out-of-date food or unable to clean their clothes as often as they want. Does she share my concern that that is having a devastating impact on the development of young children in the early years? We need to know that those children are fed and have heating.

My hon. Friend is always fighting for her constituents, and she is absolutely right. As someone who was on the shadow Education team before I came to this role, I know that if our young children are not fed or looked after properly, they will not fulfil their potential in this country. We should be looking at the future generations, and the Government are ignoring them.

The Government’s mishandling of the cost of living crisis is just another chapter in the long story of 13 years of economic failure. More than a decade of Conservative rule has seen our country fall behind as the British economy has experienced low growth, rock-bottom productivity rates and chronic under-investment.

My hon. Friend is making an important speech. I find it deeply offensive that Conservative Members are laughing at some of these statistics. That just shows how out of touch they are with the reality of life for so many people across this country. Does she agree that it is an absolute travesty in 2023 that we have families where children are having to share beds, sleep on the floor or sleep in the bathtub because people cannot afford to move house, to pay their rent and to pay for food for their families? That is not a laughing matter.