Herald Express: My reaction to the Spring Statement

Balancing the books on the backs of the poor.  

Where do you think this headline came from following last week’s Spring Statement?  

It was a national newspaper - but probably not the one you’d expect… 

The Daily Mail? The Telegraph? Maybe The Times?  

No.  

It was the Daily Mirror. The same paper that almost always leans very heavily toward Labour, last week joined the chorus of condemnation about the Chancellor’s actions. And looking at what was announced, you can’t blame them.  

Benefits cut. Disabled people targeted. Taxes up on small businesses. Public service budgets stagnant.  

This fiscal statement was a betrayal of Labour’s traditional values. In fact, listening in the Chamber, if you closed your eyes, you could almost imagine a Conservative Chancellor was delivering it.  

And that’s a serious problem.  

Labour was elected under a mantra of change. Even during the election, such a message jarred with the image of a cautious Prime Minister. But since July, it’s totally fallen apart. Time and time again, Labour has opted for a continuation of Conservative policies that were historically unpopular among the public.  

What’s scary is how blind the Government are to this. At the dispatch box, Rachel Reeves talked about Labour’s commitment to “protecting working people” and delivering a “decade of national renewal”, all underpinned by her fiscal rules.  

These rules came up a lot. Given the chaos of Truss’s not-so-mini-budget, it’s understandable why the Government is so keen to stress it has rules guiding its economic activity.  

But consider this: by continually talking up these fiscal rules and the OBR’s constraints, the Chancellor is making it sound like the livelihoods of disabled people, those on benefits, and those out of work are being sacrificed to tick a box and appease a public body that is not answerable to the electorate.  

As the speech went on, the Chancellor increasingly sounded like someone who cared more about pursuing marginal 0.1% growth than the terrible impact this pursuit would have on the people she claims to protect.  

While the political conversation has quickly moved on from last week’s statement to speculation about whether the Chancellor will raise taxes in the autumn, millions of the most disadvantaged people in the UK are terrified about how these welfare cuts will affect them.  

The Government is right that we must bring the welfare bill down. But cutting support for someone who needs help getting washed and dressed in the morning is just wrong.  

There are people we can support into work, and others who quite simply need to be supported. A moral government does both.  

I’ve been inundated with messages from constituents worried about what these cuts mean for social security, welfare, and disabled people in the UK. I’ve written to the Minister for Social Security and Disability expressing my concerns about the Department for Work & Pensions consultation on welfare reforms.  

I also spoke a few days before the Spring Statement about the national insurance increase on GPs, hospices, and care providers, where I again called on the Government to scrap this indefensible policy.  

At the Spring Statement, the Chancellor had the opportunity to do this, and she didn’t.  

These changes will be a hammer blow to local businesses, GPs, pharmacies, and care homes across South Devon.  

And once again, this Government has shown they do not understand rural areas like ours. They’ve refused to cancel the cruel family farm tax, there's no mention of more funding for tackling rural crime, and public transport continues to suffer. 

This Government is not delivering the change we are crying out for. After years of Conservative chaos and mismanagement, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I expected more from this government, but ministers have been making one mistake after the next.