Emma has warned that many families’ bottom line will be hit hard as a result of changes announced in George Osborne’s Budget on Wednesday (8th July).
Changes to tax credits and child benefits will affect more than 3 million working families. A family with one earner on average earnings and two children will lose over £2,000 a year when the changes come in next year. Emma warned that far from encouraging people to work, this Budget would make life tougher for millions of working people.
Emma also attacked the Chancellor for misleading the public with his ‘con-trick’ wage announcement, explaining that most families would lose more from tax credit cuts than they would gain in wages.
The Tories’ so-called ‘Living Wage’ has been disowned by the Living Wage Foundation, who said after the Budget it was “not a Living Wage”. Emma said that the announcement was a rebranding of Labour’s Minimum Wage, and not the pay rise families needed.
The Chancellor also claimed several other Labour policies as his own, including requiring businesses to fund apprenticeships and cracking down on non-domiciled tax status.
But there were typical Tory measures as well, including an inheritance tax cut for millionaires and cuts to disability benefits.
And there was nothing to deal with the crisis of productivity in the economy, or to invest in infrastructure to make Britain’s economy ready for the future. The so-called Northern Powerhouse that was such a feature before the election was almost completely absent from the Budget.
Speaking after the Budget, Emma said:
“The Chancellor has played a very cynical game. He knows that rebranding Labour’s Minimum Wage will make headlines, and distract people from the fact that when you add up all the measures in this Budget, working families end up a lot worse off. Tax credits have been one of the most effective ways of preventing in-work poverty, and now the Tories are going to scrap them. It looks as though working people are going to be the big losers under the Tories.
“Also strangely absent was any mention of the North East, or how the Chancellor is going to invest in spreading prosperity across the country. Before the election this was his big pet project; now it seems like he’s forgotten all about it. It’s a cynical stunt, and people in Shields deserve better.”