Last week I welcomed the Chancellor to Caunton Engineering in my constituency to talk to business leaders in Ashfield about the cost-of-living crisis.
It is important to remember that there is no such thing as ‘Government Money’. It is taxpayers’ money as simple as that.
The Treasury collects taxes from you and then decides how to distribute the cash whether that be education, transport, NHS, defence etc…. During the pandemic there also had to be increased borrowing to pay for furlough, business support grants, PPE etc… and a valid point made by businesses last week was that furlough had saved every single one of them from closing, saving thousands of jobs in the Ashfield area. But this came at a cost of over £400 billion and the interest alone on our debt repayments now stand at £83 billion a year which is a few billion short of what we spend on education every year in this country.
Fuel Duty – 5p was cut off and whilst I welcome this step like most people, I would have liked it to have been much more but then the question is where would Treasury get the lost income from to pay off the debt? Yes, Treasury is getting more income through tax revenues from fuel but as the Chancellor pointed out last week the Treasury will in fact get less tax revenue over all because people are not spending as much on consumer goods which is usually 20%.
I would have gone further on the Green Levy on domestic energy. It needs scrapping to reduce home energy bills immediately so people can see a real difference. There are many in my party agree with me on this but no one on the opposition benches that I know of. Throw a bit of fracking into the mix as a short to medium term solution as well as increased gas production in the North Sea then we should start being less dependent on foreign supplies which in turn will bring our prices down. Fingers crossed.
𝐂𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 – a £6 billion TAX CUT for 30 million working people across the UK from July, worth over £330 a year which means that thousands of Ashfield residents will pay less tax even after the new NHS and Social Care levy. Even Martin Lewis welcomes this news.
𝐂𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐱 𝐭𝐨 𝟏𝟗𝐩 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 – the first income TAX CUT for 16 years, a £5 billion tax cut for over 30 million workers, savers and pensioners including most Ashfield residents.
𝐂𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐱𝐞𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐲 𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 £𝟓,𝟎𝟎𝟎 – a TAX CUT for half a million small businesses worth up to £1,000 per Ashfield business.
𝐃𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 £𝟏 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞- with the cost of food, utility bills and clothing.
Hope this explains how I feel. I am on your side and will continue to try and make my voice heard in Parliament and getting the Chancellor to Ashfield to face the music is a good start.
