Oldham MP slams Budget of 'decline'

Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams has slammed this week’s Budget for ‘overseeing decline' and putting the Government’s ‘own political interests above people in Oldham and Saddleworth'.

Analysis following the Budget showed that taxes are at the highest level since 1948, with 2.2 million more people on low pay paying income tax because of the freeze to the personal allowance.

Moreover, it was revealed that the 2019-24 Parliament would be the first in modern history where living standards have fallen.

The Resolution Foundation, the TUC and others' analyses indicates that wages will not return to 2008 levels until 2026. 

Likewise, the changes to National Insurance rates do not affect pensioners and mean people on the lowest incomes lose out, failing to address the growing economic inequalities.

The decline in services is set to continue as well as public spending as a percentage of GDP continues to fall.

Nonetheless, Ms Abrahams was successful in her campaign for the Government to retain the Household Support Fund, and she insists that that will provide a temporary respite to Oldham and other local authorities who have used this Fund to supplement energy, food and other costs through Oldham Foodbank and others that so many people now rely on.

Last week, Ms Abrahams published a letter to the Chancellor signed by 90 Parliamentarians which urged him to keep the Fund, which he has agreed to do for another six months.

Between October 2021 and this month, the Fund has allocated over £12 million to Oldham, which has mostly been spent on providing free school meals during school holidays.

Ms Abrahams said: “The Budget shows a Government with no sense of direction clinging on to power for their own political interests rather than in the interest of the country and people in Oldham and Saddleworth.

"They have overseen the decline of our living standards, hiked the taxes paid by families and paid no regard to pensioners or those in the lowest incomes.

"The National Insurance reduction this year, is to be followed by tax increases next year.

“The spending plans that they have announced for the next few years are Austerity 2.0, decimating our public services in the future for the sake of an accountancy trick in an election year.

"Ultimately, this can be avoided by having a strategic and sustainable plan to grow our economy, with the wellbeing of all at the heart of this, which international evidence shows can be done by reducing inequalities in wealth and income.

“I am pleased that with the support of 90 Parliamentarians for my letter to the Chancellor to continue the vital Household Support Fund he's agreed to this for the next six months.

"I will be pressing for this to be longer.

"Despite this, as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report shows deep poverty and destitution are increasing, with the moral scandal of one in two children in our area growing up in poverty.

“The question that people across Oldham and Saddleworth will be asking now is ‘are my family and I better off now than we were when this Government took office in 2010?’

"That answer is an emphatic no.”

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