I must thank you for aspects of the Autumn Statement. You admit that six years of austerity have not reduced the debt or deficit, as promised by your predecessor (the people who have suffered the most from austerity are the ones least able to cope with it); Brexit will cost vast sums of money in the short- and medium-term; inflation and a decline in economic growth will reduce government revenues and hit ordinary people’s living standards; the people with the least wealth, power and privilege in our Disunited Kingdom must have a few crumbs of comfort to offset how the rich, the powerful and the privileged have prospered at their expense for the last ten to 15 years; and money must be directed toward infrastructure renewal. But there are simply too many buts!
After all the pre-Autumn Statement talk about meeting the needs and aspirations of the just about managing, so little has been done for them that their well-being will be affected positively in the most superficial and minimal ways imaginable. For example, a rise of 30p in the national living wage for people presently earning only £7-20 an hour is pathetic! Let’s hope that in the next budget you do the right thing and raise the national living wage to at least £9 an hour with immediate effect.
Easington Colliery, County Durham
We can probably say with confidence that HS2 will now be scrapped and the money saved from this ludicrous endeavour diverted to improve the UK’s existing but ailing rail network, a rail network in a dreadful mess despite passengers paying the highest fares anywhere on the planet (I won’t say anything about our equally bad privatised bus services on which excessively high fares also exist for the people who have to pay to travel)! But what of the infrastructure projects contained in the Autumn Statement? They are not very ambitious when compared with our GDP. Such projects in much greater number are needed NOW, to reduce unemployment, overcome that we are a shabby and dysfunctional nation state, and give people in depressed and poverty-stricken regions (almost all of the UK except parts of London and the Home Counties) confirmation that the present government is really committed to equality and social justice.
It’s the Autumn Statement’s failure to in any substantive way address equality and social justice that worries me the most.
For ages, the Conservative Party and ignorant journalists in the popular press have engaged in the vilification of benefit fraudsters. Official figures suggest that benefit fraud costs the country just over £1 billion a year (but official figures also reveal that many people fail to take full advantage of their benefit entitlement). On the other hand, official figures suggest tax avoidance and tax evasion cost the UK between £50 and £70 billion a year. Who are the people who should be vilified? Yes, the rich, the powerful and the privileged who engage in fraud on a much grander scale than benefit fraudsters (the accountants, solicitors and financial advisers who encourage such fraud should also be vilified).
You failed to say what will be done about tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax havens, and merely relieved a little of the pain that people in receipt of benefits will suffer in the years to come. This is pathetic, given the agenda the government has set for itself (according to the government, we can all look forward to equality, social justice and an economy that works for everyone).
Easington Colliery, County Durham
But other shortcomings in the Autumn Statement include the following. Why did you not:
introduce 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% income tax bands for the rich (people earning £100,000 or more per annum), the very rich (people earning £150,000 or more per annum), the obscenely rich (people earning £200,000 or more per annum) and the unimaginably rich (people earning £250,000 or more per annum) respectively;
significantly increase funding for state education, local government (so that at least some/all of the problems afflicting adult social care can be addressed) and the NHS (everyone with common sense agrees that the NHS is in crisis);
nationalise public transport and the basic utilities of water, gas and electricity;
significantly increase the national living wage (it should be increased to £11 an hour by 2020 at the latest);
announce that employers who fail to pay their employees at least the national living wage will be imprisoned;
outlaw zero hour contracts;
make it a criminal offence for employers not to provide their employees with at least four weeks’ annual leave on full pay;
significantly increase the benefits given to the unemployed and people with disabilities;
take action to ensure that no part of the UK is so expensive to live in that people earning the average income are priced out of the local housing market?
Hartlepool
The promise to build 40,000 affordable homes over the next few years is good, but where will such homes be built and for whom will they be affordable? So far, all schemes to build affordable housing have failed to deliver the number of units promised, and this failure is directly attributable to the Conservative Party which has governed the UK on its own or as the dominant coalition partner for well over six years. Also, 40,000 affordable homes is only a fifth of how many should be built by 2020.
What happened to the sound idea about having at least one employee/worker on the board of every company in the land? This would have indicated a genuine commitment to equality and social justice, just as would a promise tomorrow to retain the Human Rights Act in full.
During the last decade or so, social mobility has almost completely ground to a halt; can there be any greater indictment of governments that have failed to deliver in terms of equality, social justice and an economy that works for everyone? Add to this the vast number of people, children included, who live in poverty, and the immense gap between the richest and poorest in society, and you have to admit that we are a shabby, dysfunctional, fragmented, grossly unequal and increasingly intolerant nation state, a nation state incapable of caring for the most vulnerable in society.
The good thing is this. You and Theresa May are principled people intent on delivering in relation to equality, social justice and an economy that works for everyone. Consequently, I know that, in the few months leading up to the budget, action will be taken in relation to some of the things I list above. You have a wonderful plan above, and a plan that will more quickly reduce the debt and deficit than present government policies. Do the right thing and you might even stop the Disunited Kingdom from falling apart.
Hartlepool
Last, don’t forget what should be the government’s mission (I shared it with the Prime Minister a short time ago): by 2030 at the latest, the government will ensure that people who live in places such as Easington Colliery, Hartlepool and Stoke-on-Trent benefit from the same incomes, life chances and enviable levels of service provision as people who live in places such as Winchester, Mayfair and Kensington and Chelsea. As the meerkat says, “Simples.”
To whom do I send my invoice for an email crammed full of sound advice for a government struggling to live up to its promises about equality, social justice and an economy that works for everyone? Phil.
Hey: you started it! 