Last week I led a delegation of public servants to 10 Downing Street calling for a fair deal for Wavertree, and a fair deal for the city of Liverpool.
Sadly the Chancellor’s Autumn statement has done nothing to deliver fairness, and nothing to support jobs and growth in our area. By announcing further cuts to departmental spending, the problems that public services face in Wavertree have not been addressed, indeed they have been made worse. The Chancellor is imposing a real terms cut in support for millions of struggling families on low and middle incomes both in work and out of work – with real terms cuts to tax credits, child benefit and out of work benefits such as jobseekers allowance. Whilst millionaires enjoy a tax cut, ordinary people in Liverpool Wavertree are seeing their own incomes reduced. Measures such as the scrapping of the fuel duty rise are welcome; indeed Labour called for the rise to be scrapped. But despite this, the Chancellor’s announcements are not the fair deal that the people of Wavertree need.
We have now found out the true scale of David Cameron and George Osborne’s economic failure. They’re failing on jobs and growth, with the economy shrinking this year. As a result borrowing and debt figures have been revised up. And the Government has had to admit it is failing on the one test they set themselves – to balance the books and get the debt down by 2015.
While millionaires get a £3 billion tax cut, it is people in Liverpool Wavertree who are already struggling to make ends meet – middle and lower income families and pensioners – who are paying the price for this failure.
Instead of a change of course, all we got today was more of the same failing policies. I will continue to do all I can to campaign for a fairer deal for Liverpool.
