Vix Lowthion from the Isle of Wight Green Party shares this response to yesterday’s Spring budget statement. Ed
Yesterday’s Spring Statement by the Conservative Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has resulted in despair for families across the Isle of Wight according to the Green Party.
As the cost of living is rising, prices in the shops are increasing and wages are falling in real terms the Island looked to the government to recognise the scale of the crisis that struggling households are facing in meeting massive energy bills, food prices and transport costs.
The outcome was a huge let down, with UK families now facing the heaviest tax burden since the 1940s and the biggest drop in disposable income on record.
Lowthion: Conservatives failed to recognise magnitude of cost of living crisis
Vix Lowthion, IW Green Party Chair, said,
“Islanders who need the government’s support the most – pensioners, young families and renters – received absolutely no support yesterday. Conservatives have failed to recognise the magnitude of the cost of living crisis in the country right now, never mind to put forward anywhere near the scale of measures to address the disaster that rising inequalities in society will create.
“Economists have warned that over 1.3 million people will be pushed into absolute poverty after this government’s rise in taxation and failure to tackle the increased living costs, taking the total to nearly 11 million enduring the worst of hardship in 2022.
“Photographs of the Chancellor posing in a hoodie, filling up his shiny car with petrol and laughing in the House of Commons yesterday is frankly insulting to Islanders who are trying desperately to stop the bailiffs from turning up at the door.”
Ramsay: Chancellor chose to spend it on tax cuts for the better off and encouraging climate-damaging activity
Responding to the Chancellor’s Spring Statement the Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said,
“It’s staggering that while the country faces crisis after crisis, the Chancellor continues to look after the interests of fossil fuel companies and his party’s backbenchers, while ignoring the plight of millions on lower incomes.
“And he didn’t even bother to mention the climate once. The Chancellor clearly does not see that tackling the cost of living crisis requires solving the climate crisis.
“Instead, the Chancellor has turned a deaf ear to the pleas of those on the lowest incomes, ignored the plight of those on benefits and has done next to nothing to tackle the climate crisis.
“He had money to spend, but chose to spend it on tax cuts for the better off and encouraging climate-damaging activity. A cut to fuel duty which will disproportionately benefit wealthier households that are more likely to own cars, more likely to drive larger cars, and more likely to travel long distances, fails to support those reliant on ever more expensive public transport.”
Calls on Government
Ahead the Chancellor’s statement, the Green Party called on the government to:
- Address pay inequality and provide real society security, including restoring the £20 uplift to Universal Credit and doubling it to £40 per week and extending emergency fuel payments to all by providing each household with an additional £320 to help them pay for spiraling energy costs
- Invest in energy efficiency and energy security, including funding local authorities to better insulate all homes and carry out deep retrofit of 1 million homes a year
- Invest in green jobs, including a retraining guarantee for existing oil and gas workers, as well as those who have recently left the sector
- Tax pollution and wealth, including increasing the supplementary tax already charged on North Sea oil and gas to 40%, which would raise £5bn, and transition towards a carbon tax to make polluters pay
- Use the power of money for good, including banning any bank holding a UK banking licence from investing in new fossil fuel development and updating the Bank of England’s mandate so that funding the sustainability transition becomes a central objective, alongside the maintenance of price stability.
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