Yvette Cooper MP: Still paying the price for crashed economy

Yvette Cooper MP writes: Across our area, the cost-of-living crisis comes up all the time – parents contacting me worried about the cost of school uniforms, older workers who’ve told me they are using up their savings to pay their bills, and pensioners planning to keep the heating off this winter.

But Rishi Sunak, jetting around in his private helicopter, doesn’t get it at all. We need an urgent change of direction before he makes things worse.Last October, the British economy was in total chaos after the disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget. The value of the pound plummeted and borrowing costs soared.

Even now mortgage rates are still through the roof and thousands of people across our area are having to pay nearly £2,000 a year more.

Meanwhile there is still no plan for economic growth, prices have kept going up while local businesses are struggling, and our northern industry has been abandoned by the Tories again. Instead of learning from Liz Truss’ mistakes it looks like Rishi Sunak and the Tories are trying to give us more of the same.

Last year Liz Truss announced a massive, unfair and unfunded tax cut for the richest people in the country.

This year, Rishi Sunak has been talking about another tax cut for the richest people in the country – cutting inheritance tax which would mean the Prime Minister himself would save a whopping £300 million.

That’s more than most people around here could ever earn in many hundreds of lifetimes. Yet taxes on working people under the Tories have hit a record high. The problem is that while Tory Ministers carry the blame, they don’t carry the burden. That is falling on the shoulders of people round here who are just trying to get by. 

Time and again I hear from working people across our towns who feel they are treading water when it comes to keeping up with household running costs.Conservative chaos has caused real damage to our economy and towns like ours across the North are once again being held back.

Major businesses, small traders and trade unions alike are all despairing at the chaotic way this government is running things.

Our country needs a proper modern industrial strategy again to support the jobs and apprenticeships of the future – that’s what Labour is calling for.

We need a fair deal for working people, and a proper windfall tax on oil and gas company record profits to cut the cost of living for everyone else.

We need to make Brexit work, so we increase trade and investment opportunities in the UK.

And we need support for all our town centres that have been hard hit including Labour’s plan to scrap and replace business rates so high streets benefit but online giants pay their fair share.

Rather than gimmicks and sound bites, we need urgent government action to deliver a fair deal for our towns and get our country back on track.