Cllr Claire Holland is the Leader of Lambeth Council and a councillor in Oval ward.
Yesterday, the fourth Chancellor this year gave the fourth financial statement of the year. After the catastrophic mini-budget, the Conservatives should have apologised for crashing the economy but instead they made excuses and promised more of the same.
It is true to say that Britain, like countries across the world, is still recovering from the impact of the pandemic. But for Britain, this is on top of 12 years of Conservative economic failure. The Conservatives’ approach of slashing funding for public services and hiking up taxes on ordinary working people is a choice made through political ideology, not necessity. The UK is the only major G7 economy with lower economic growth than prior to the pandemic, and no other advanced economy is cutting spending and increasing taxes as we head into a recession.
The Office of Budget Responsibility is forecasting that household disposable income will be hit by the largest amount since records began. Britain’s economy is in recession and is set to shrink by 1.4% next year, largely because of the soaring cost of living. Rather than helping people to get through these difficult times, the Conservatives are determined to pick-pocket people who are already having to stretch each pound further than they’ve ever had to before.
The story is equally bleak for funding for local services. Whilst we welcome the announcement of any additional funding, including for Adult Social Care, it is a drop in the ocean compared to the gaps councils like ours are having to bridge because of the chaos the Conservatives have thrown us into. And once the small print of yesterday’s announcement becomes clear, it is more than likely that this ‘increase in funding’ will actually equate to a real terms cut. In Lambeth we already face the need to make savings of over £40 million over the next four years due to government spending cuts – that’s more than we spend on waste collection, libraries, leisure centres and parks each year.
Britain can no longer afford a Conservative government. We need an election now and the opportunity to win the support of voters for Labour’s long-term plan to get our economy growing again – a plan which is powered by the talent and effort of millions of working people and thousands of businesses.
We will work every day to earn the trust of voters so that we can form the next government. And in the meantime, in Lambeth, we will continue doing what we have done throughout the past twelve years of Conservative austerity and economic mismanagement: being on the side of people of Lambeth, protecting the services we all rely on, and innovating to create a fairer, more equal borough for all.
Cllr Claire Holland