It is a sobering thought that energy prices went up 6-10.8% last financial year and that there’s been an average increase of £300 per year on household bills since 2010.  Fuel poverty has markedly increased from around one fifth of households to one quarter, with 300,000 more people expected to be in fuel poverty this year and 9 million by 2016.

This is why energy efficiency is so important.  Under the previous Labour Government Warm Front increased energy efficiency in 2.16m households.  However I believe that the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligations which replace it are a bad deal for both consumers and suppliers.

The Green Deal involves providing loans to householders to undertake energy efficiency work such as replacement windows, loft and cavity wall insulation.  For consumers there are issues about access, assessments and costs; and furthermore, the Green Deal currently only covers half the number of households covered by Warm Front.

For the first time since the 1970s there is no Government-supported energy efficiency scheme which is likely to have a knock-on impact on fuel poverty.  Some Green Deal assessors are charging £100 or more for an up-front assessment fee, which again in today’s climate will deter vulnerable households from getting access to the scheme. 

Anecdotal evidence suggests it is a very inefficient process which fails to meet the needs of different housing types. One constituent who contacted me told me she has sought an assessment for the Green Deal, but due to Green Deal software being unable to deal with a cavity wall issue, she cannot receive an Energy Performance Certificate and proceed with energy efficiency measures.

In addition, the costs associated with financing the Green Deal are also punitive starting at 7%.  A typical £10,000 loan over 25 years at 7.5% interest will cost over £22,000 – and there are penalties if you try and pay back early. Someone wanting to move house after 7 years will have a fine of over £7,000.

The Green Deal appears to be having an impact on the housing market too. A recent survey by the Great British Refurb Campaign indicates that 41% of people would not purchase a home with a Green Deal loan attached to it.

To date, the Government is not publishing how many people have taken up the Green Deal loan. Speaking to some officers from a Lancashire-based council after the panel, they said there have been lots of assessments but the Government has no plan as to how they can take the Green Deal forward. There has already been a 97% reduction in the installation of cavity wall insulation.

The effect on suppliers is hitting an already devastated construction industry. Some large construction companies are saying their order books are down by over a third, so the impact on small or micro businesses will be even harder.

Some other speakers charged with implementing the Green Deal, said it was ‘the only show in town’ as far as improving energy efficiency is concerned – hardly a ringing endorsement.

Labour wants to see a fair, efficient and affordable Green Deal with no up-front assessment fee, no penalties for early pay-back and effectively administered. We also want to extend Warm Front so that the whole budget is used to protect households at risk of fuel poverty and not just passed back to the Treasury.

Finally we want real commitment to developing green industries. An independent analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows investment in renewable energy has dramatically fallen since 2010. Ernst & Young say the UK is missing out on being the ‘market of choice for investment in renewables’ as political infighting in Government slows the passage of urgently needed reforms to the energy market.

Carers Week is an opportunity to celebrate the 6.5 million carers across the UK and raise awareness of the impact that caring has on people’s lives.

In 2013 Carers Week will be focusing on whether the nation is Prepared to Care? The campaign highlights how the UK’s current carer population is coping, how effectively government is supporting the growing numbers of carers, and whether the wider population is prepared for future caring responsibilities.

As part of Carers Week, a number of events will be held in and around Oldham, to help carers access support and advice. Carers can find out what’s going on at www.carersweek.org.

Every day across Oldham 1 in 8 people will care for a loved one in some form. This hidden group of people give up their time, sometimes their jobs and often make life changing sacrifices to care for someone.

Carers save this country an incredible £119 billion1 every year. That’s why I believe as a society we must be Prepared to Care for our carers.

My experience of caring for my mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease, has taught me the challenges and stresses of caring for a family member.

To demonstrate that we value the work done by unpaid carers, we must make sure we recognise the demands involved and do everything we can to make it as easy as possible for people to continue to care. This includes ensuring the provision of health, psychological or financial support carers require.

It’s also important to recognise the unique challenges faced by young carers who are often given huge responsibilities and can become isolated amongst their peers, often affecting them for the rest of their lives.

However, we should also remember how rewarding it can be to care for a loved one and encourage those who are willing to do so to take up this responsibility. The role of carers is extremely important and their contribution to building a supportive society is immeasurable.

Lynda Bellingham told me how she and her sister cared for their mother when she had Alzheimer’s and the first-hand experience of the impact that caring can have on someone’s life, which was why she was so keen to show her support for Carers Week.

You can keep up to date with Carers Week and events happening in Oldham at: www.carersweek.org www.facebook.com/carersweek or on Twitter @carersweek

These priorities are the culmination of months of work, including a residents’ household survey and holding several round table discussions with local organisations and community groups, which has enabled me to establish the top ten priorities people think we should be concentrating our limited resources on.

My most recent residents’ newsletter, which is being distributed over the next few weeks, will give details of my One Nation – One Oldham East and Saddleworth priorities and, most crucially, what I intend to do to keep those issues at the top of my agenda.

The subject areas covered by the priorities are; Economy and business; Employment; Health and social care; Education and training; Crime and community safety; Housing and the environment; Transport.

My One Nation – One Oldham East and Saddleworth top ten priorities are:

1. ‘Be Fair – Pay on Time’ 

The economy depends on our small businesses so I will continue my campaign, which was inspired by a Saddleworth constituent who told me about a very large, well known company that wasn’t paying him on time, to get large companies to do the right thing and pay small businesses on time. This is hurting SMEs locally and across the country.

I have already held a parliament inquiry to identify measures to prevent and address the issues of late payments. I’ll be publishing the inquiries recommendations in the summer and I’ll work with businesses, Government, Trades and business organisations to implement them.

 2. Fair Funding for Small Businesses

Access to finance, whether for cash flow purposes or for business expansion, is probably the biggest issue facing small businesses.

I will work with Oldham Council, Oldham Business Leadership Group, Oldham Chamber and other partners to develop alternative, local funding schemes for local small businesses, including ‘funding circles’ or peer to peer lending.

3. Oldham Fairness Commission

Inequalities persist across Oldham. But many of these inequalities are not fixed or inevitable. A fairer, more equal societies benefits us all.

I will convene and chair the Oldham Fairness Commission (OFC) with partners from across the public, private and voluntary sectors which will identify and address the causes of inequalities in education, employment and income, and will define action to address these issues through our partners and beyond.

4. Time & Skills Exchange

Unemployment or underemployment is an issue for many people in the constituency, particularly young people and people without qualifications. Having no job often means money is short, but time is available. A ‘Timebank’ is a way of exchanging time and skills in one area, for example, painting and decorating, or cooking a meal for someone without any financial transaction. Time is the currency. But ‘Timebanking’ also attaches value to skills that the market tends not to, like caring.

I will work to develop and extend ‘Timebanking’ in Oldham with the Hollinwood Timebank which is already doing great work.

5. A Dementia-friendly Oldham

We are an ageing society. In 2010 over 2,300 people in Oldham were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, but it is estimated that this is only half of the actual number. By 2020 this number will have increased by 20%.

I will work with Oldham Council, NHS Oldham, the Alzheimer’s Society, Age UK, carers’ groups and others to build a dementia-friendly Oldham, raising awareness and developing best practice across the borough and will include shops and businesses.

6. NHS Check Oldham

The NHS is more than an organisation that plans and provides healthcare. It represents the values of our society. Although we must always seek to improve the quality of care, the 2012 Health & Social Care Act involving the £3bn top-down reorganisation and the focus on competition, is putting immense strain on NHS patients and staff.

I will publish quarterly reports identifying how the NHS in Oldham is doing on a range of areas including waiting times, and the privatisation of NHS services.

7. Oldham’s Car Club

A good transport system and infrastructure is essential for economic growth and jobs, as well as providing access to shops, family and friends, and for leisure purposes.

Car Clubs provide accessible, affordable, low carbon alternatives to traditional car use for residents, employers and tourists. So I will work with Oldham Council to deliver Oldham’s Car Club providing enhanced connectivity and flexibility for the people who live, work and visit Oldham.

8. Fair Train Fares

Trans-Pennine rail fares vary widely depending on where you purchase them. Standard tickets from Greenfield to Leeds can be nearly three times as expensive as tickets from Marsden to Leeds, which is only one stop further down.

This is just one example. So I will investigate the scale of these differences in pricing and lobby for fairer train fares.

9. Tackling Rogue Landlords

The quality of private rented accommodation in the constituency is very variable. Nationally more than a third of homes are not up to decent standard and 15% lack minimal heat in winter and this is reflected in Oldham. In addition the fees charged in the private rented sector can leave many tenants considerably disadvantaged.

I will work to support Oldham Council’s proposals for a Borough-wide Private Sector Landlord Licensing Scheme, rooting out and striking off rogue landlords.

10. Tackling Violence and Sexual Exploitation

Domestic violence and sexual exploitation against women and girls happens across the country and in all communities. Each week two women die at the hands of their current or former partners and three more commit suicide. It is unacceptable and must be stopped.

I will work with Oldham Council, GM Police, Women’s Aid and other partners to raise awareness with young people about the issues, providing support for women who have been affected and appropriate response from the Criminal Justice system.

The afternoon focussed on the immediate problems of Accident & Emergency departments, which as many of you will know are struggling to cope. In addition to three times more people waiting over 4 hours compared with Labour’s last year in office, ’A&E diverts’ have increased by nearly a quarter too, as hospitals reach capacity and ambulances are turned away.

We looked at the causes of these problems as well as short and medium term solutions. It was clear from everyone there that we need to tackle these issues by looking at the whole health system – primary, community, seconday and social care. Immediate solutions included addressing workforce issues in A&E; it was said that some A&Es are understaffed by 50%. Other suggestions included addressing the lamentable 111 call system that has been introduced; concerns were raised that the contracts for these services were based on price not quality with targets for not referring calls to a clinician.

One of the key issues also identified was the high levels of A&E attendance and admissions of frail older people and also the delays in their being discharged. It was said that in many cases these admissions could have been prevented with adequate care in the community. So at the summit, Andy announced that if Labour was in Government now, £1.2bn of the £2.2bn NHS underspend would be used to address the current crisis in social care.  

Andy has also written to Jeremy Hunt with proposals to address the issues raised. 

Tomorrow, there’s an Opposition Day Debate, in the House of Commons, called by Labour to hold the Government to account for their inability to prevent or deal with the current crisis in A&E.

The meeting will take place from 6.30pm till 9pm and will give attendees the opportunity to hear about the newly elected Commissioner, Tony Lloyd’s plans for the future of policing across Greater Manchester.

There will also be the chance to hear from Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy and members of his senior command team with regards to performance of the Greater Manchester Police across Greater Manchester and on this occasion, specifically, the Oldham Division.

If you have any specific requirements to enable you to attend the meeting or would like to see a copy of the full agenda please go to www.gmpcc.org.uk/consultations/public-consultation-meetings/

For further details of all other meetings please go to www.gmpcc.org.uk/consultations/public-consultation-meetings/

I have been contacted by a large number of constituents ahead of this year’s G8, where the UK as Chair once again has the opportunity to demonstrate its ability to show global leadership.

Labour took action in 2005, brokering ambitious commitments on climate change, investment, debt relief and trade for development. If we are to tackle hunger we must use next month’s meeting to achieve a commitment by all the G8 countries to meet their aid targets, tackle tax havens and tax avoidance, and fight for greater transparency.

It is estimated that a world free from hunger would cost just over $50 billion dollars a year. By honouring existing commitments to fund agriculture and tackle malnutrition, G8 countries could support economic growth through investing in small-holder farmers, particularly women, and tackle child and maternal malnutrition.

We also need to address the structural causes of poverty and hunger if we are to achieve radical change. The OECD estimates that developing countries lose three times more to tax havens than they receive in aid each year. That is why we need to end tax secrecy so that companies can be held to account and corruption can be rooted out. Developing countries will never be able to lift themselves out of poverty if they cannot collect taxes to fund their own services.

As Chair of the G8, David Cameron should use the influence of this position to replace his rhetoric on aid, tax and transparency with effective global action to move towards a world free from hunger.

Now is the time for action, and we can all play our part. You can sign up to our campaign here

On Tuesday 14 May 2013 MPs had the opportunity to debate the Government’s proposals to tackle the cos of living.

The proposed policies in the Queen’s Speech only highlighted the Government’s lack of action to tackle the problems we have locally with housing, increased reliance on foodbanks, increased poverty and the rate of employment.

You can read my contribution to the debate in its entirity below.  The remainder of the debate can be read online here.

“Last week’s Queen’s Speech was delivered at a time when most people’s wages are being frozen or cut and both measures of inflation—the consumer prices index and the retail prices index—are above the Bank of England’s target of 2%. The sad fact is that many people, in work as well as out of work, are struggling. We have heard examples from my colleagues, and I have regularly had people in my surgeries in tears at their plight. Last week, I had somebody who had just had a heart bypass operation and had been made homeless. She had been living on her in-laws’ couch for the past three months. Such is the plight of many people across the country.

With energy prices increasing by 20% since 2010, nearly 8,000 households in my constituency—nearly one in four—live in fuel poverty. Given that there was no change in economic and social policy in the Queen’s Speech, the situation is set to get worse. Nationally, it is estimated that by 2016, 9 million households will be living in fuel poverty. The knock-on effects will be felt particularly by our health service and social carers.

My local Oldham council is doing all that it can to address the problem, through the fair energy campaign. It is getting households to sign up to a collective energy deal, using people power to negotiate with energy companies for the cheapest energy tariff for consumers. That contrasts starkly with what the Government are doing. We know that the Warm Front initiative, which we introduced many years ago, closed in January, and the new scheme that the Government have introduced provides less than half the support that Labour provided. On top of that, the Government have cut the winter fuel payment for older people by £50 for the over-60s and £100 for the over-80s, in the full knowledge that every winter tens of thousands of older people become seriously ill or die as a result of the cold. In 2010-11, there were 25,000 excess winter deaths just as a result of cold, and there are fears that the number will be larger as energy prices rise.

The warm home discount scheme, which is meant to help households at risk of fuel poverty, has been shown to help only a fraction of those intended—25,000 families, instead of the 800,000 it was supposed to help. As  some of my constituents have already discovered, the Government’s green deal is another white elephant because the interest payments alone are set to exceed the cost of the energy efficiency measures they are meant to support.

I wish to raise a couple of other points in the few minutes remaining, the first of which is food banks. A number of colleagues have already mentioned increased demand for food banks, and the Trussell Trust recently reported that demand has exceeded its estimations by 170% since last year. My constituency of Oldham has had a food bank for the first time in its history. In the past three months, demand exceeded that of all the previous year, and it is set to get worse. Figures I have just received indicate that the number of people accessing food banks has increased by nearly 100 times in the past two years. When I visited my food bank recently, I was told that it is desperately in need of people to contribute, and that is the sort of thing we have to contend with in different ways.

A week or so ago I took up Oxfam’s Live Below the Line challenge, living on £1 of food a day. From my experience, that makes it incredibly tough not only to get the necessary nutrition, but to get food that will sustain someone for the day—I certainly will not be eating baked beans for a while.

With the benefit changes introduced last month the situation is expected to get much worse. In addition to the bedroom tax, the abolition of crisis loans for living expenses and other so-called reforms of social security are driven by the Government’s ideologically led cuts. Ministers are fond of making unsubstantiated and misleading claims about the effects of their so-called welfare reforms or the level of health spending, but they are far more reticent about data that reveal the cumulative effect of their changes to tax, tax credits and benefits, and which mean—as I mentioned earlier—that the 40% lowest-income households are worse off. The average household is estimated to lose £891 per year, with millionaires gaining an average of £100,000. There is nothing fair about that.

The Queen’s Speech mentions the need to ensure that every child has the best start in life, but how can increasing absolute child poverty by 55% between 2010 and 2020, and relative child poverty by 34%, be said in any way to give children the best start in life? More than 1.1 million children are set to be living in poverty by 2020, which is completely unfair—”

Last week I convened a cross party inquiry to investigate the issue of late payments from the point of view of business organisations, academics, FTSE companies and, perhaps most importantly, SMEs themselves.

The standard of the testimony from our witnesses at the inquiry was excellent and really gave our cross-party panel of MPs a clear, and sometimes emotional, picture of the scale of the late payments problem.

Unfortunately the evidence only seemed to confirm for me that rather than viewing fair payment terms as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) many large companies are deliberately paying late or extending their pre-agreed payment terms simply because they have the power to do so.

Having said that both HSBC and Barclays did present the inquiry with robust verbal testimony that they take the welfare of SMEs very seriously and said they would look again at the how they monitor payments right the way down their supply chain.

I would also like to pay tribute to the SME owners who were brave enough to talk publically about the problems they have encountered. Although all business sectors are affected by this issue they really did paint a very stark picture of the practices that seem common place in the construction industry.

We owe it to our SMEs and entrepreneurs to treat them fairly. We can’t, on the one hand, say it’s them who’ll get us out of this recession but then, on the other hand, stand by and do nothing to protect them from larger, more powerful companies who misuse their power.

Click here to see some of the media coverage of the inquiry and if you want to support the campaign please click the ‘like’ button too: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Be-Fair-Pay-on-Time/184627438258581#!/pages/Be-Fair-Pay-on-Time/184627438258581

During the inquiry the panel was shocked to hear from one construction industry expert that many sub-contractors are so starved of cash that they are cutting corners in their work creating a legacy of ‘sick buildings’ that will result in ‘deaths’.

Another SME contributor told us how main contractors had withheld payments totalling £1.2m sending his company, which he had built up over 25 years, into administration. In an emotional presentation he compared the practice of late payment as ‘organised crime’ saying he was ‘hung out to dry’.

The Inquiry aims to consider the issues associated with late payments to small businesses, including the macroeconomic effects, the current tools being used to address late payments and additional measures that could be introduced. Recommendations to address the issues identified will be published in the summer.

The contributors were:

Business and economic informants:

Ann Pettifor (Director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics)

Barry Ashmore (Founder of StreetwiseSubbie.com)

Philippa Foster Back (Director, The Institute of Business Ethics)

Business Organisations:

Michael Cherry ( National Policy Chairman, FSB)

Alex Jackman (Head of Policy, FPB)

Suppliers (SMEs):

Steve Sutherland (Chairman, Dortech)

Steve Paul (Managing Director, SDP Floor Screeds Ltd)

FTSE Companies:

John Hackett (Chief Operating Officer, HSBC UK)

Paul Delaney (Group Treasurer, WPP)

Kevin Craven (Managing Director, Services Division, Balfour Beatty)

Sue Heyes (Managing Director, Business Banking, Barclays)

Debbie Abrahams: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood.

I came to this House just over two years ago, and the main reason I got into politics was my belief in making Britain a fairer society—a more equal society in which the gap between the haves and the have-nots is narrow and in which we protect and look after our most vulnerable people. I believe that to be intuitively right and just, and there is also significant evidence to show that a fairer society benefits everybody in respect not only of life expectancy improvements and mental health benefits, but of educational attainments, improvements in social mobility and in rates of offending. All of us benefit from having a fairer society. Unfortunately, the measures in this Bill contribute not one jot to such a society.

As I said in my speech on the Budget a week or so ago, this Government absolutely fail the anti-poverty test. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) mentioned the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but there are also those of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Resolution Foundation, the New Economics Foundation—and the list goes on. They all reached the same conclusion: the poorer people are, the worse off they are.

Raising the personal allowance does little for the lowest-paid workers, many of whom do not pay tax anyway. Over 682,000 working families receiving child tax credit earn less than £6,420, so I am afraid that they will not benefit at all from the increase in the tax threshold. Taken in conjunction with the welfare cuts they are now facing, the lowest earning taxpayers will receive an income boost of 32p a week or £16.80 a year as compared with those not claiming housing benefit or council tax benefit of up to £112 a year. That does not take into account the impact of the 20% VAT hike back in 2011, the additional 26% rise in food prices since 2009 or the 20% increase in energy costs that households face on their household bills. Nearly 8,000 households in my Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency—nearly one in four—already live in fuel poverty. How are they meant to cope? As other Members have said, our constituency surgeries are crammed with families that are desperate about how they are going to cope in the coming weeks and months. My constituency now has a food bank—the first ever in modern Oldham—and the number of recipients of food bank support has trebled over the last quarter. I am deeply concerned about that.

Geraint Davies: I visited the food bank in my own constituency only last Monday, and the key issue put to me was that food banks were designed as places of crisis able to give two or three parcels to people in the moment of crisis—for instance, when benefits had been delayed or something had gone wrong. They were not designed to sustain life over time. I mentioned earlier a constituent whose money available for food had gone down from £21 to £11; he just cannot cope on an ongoing basis. If the food banks do not save him, he is on the way out.

Debbie Abrahams: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We are not talking only about people on out-of-work benefits either, as many of the families affected are working families that are struggling to survive.

As I have mentioned, the Chancellor’s own distributional analysis shows that the cumulative impact of tax, tax credit and benefit measures means net reductions in income for the poorest 40% of households in the country. Although there is strong evidence to show, as other countries have shown, that increasing the spending power of the poorest families helps to boost economies, the Chancellor has done nothing to help them or the economy.

In the short term, the Child Poverty Action Group has estimated that between 2010 and 2015 absolute child poverty will have increased by 600,000 as a result of the Government’s spending plans. Two wards in my constituency have child poverty levels affecting nearly one in two households. That is absolutely unacceptable in a society such as ours. It leads one to question what the Government mean when they say they are committed to child poverty, let alone how they are fulfilling their obligations under the Child Poverty Act 2010.

I also have deep concerns about the impact, particularly of the new benefit changes, on people with disabilities. One in four disabled people already live in poverty, and with the recent welfare changes that is set to increase. I fear that this could be enough to drive people over the edge.

Many of us have already said that these measures are ideologically driven. In tandem with the downgrading of equality and human rights in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which we debated on Tuesday, it is clear that this coalition Government have no commitment to a fairer society. As we have heard before, this is all about choices, and it is quite clear where this Government’s priorities lie. Their response to their failing economic policies is to give tax breaks to the wealthiest in society—£3 billion to more than 300,000 people earning over £150,000 a year, with an average gain of £10,000. What is there for people on low pay? Absolutely nothing. When we take the tax and tax credit benefits into account, we realise that it is not just the poor who are being hit. We know that the average loss to households for this coming financial year is £891.

The Chancellor said in last year’s autumn statement that we needed a welfare system that we could afford. Tax credits and benefits form part of the “automatic stabilisers” that help dampen economies in booms and boost it in recession. That is what we have seen. In spite of the disappointing employment figures yesterday, the effect on unemployment has been less during this recession and in the past because of these stabilisers.

The choices the Government make are underpinned by their ideology—to create an “us and them” culture with power and wealth retained by the wealthy and powerful. By attacking universal benefits such as child benefit, they hope people will start to see our welfare system as irrelevant—and then quietly dismantle it. I am proud of our model of social welfare, born out of the second world war when we literally were “all in it together”. I want to retain this model with its principles of inclusion, support and security for all, protecting any one of us, should we fall on hard times, assuring our dignity and the basics of life, and helping us all back on our feet. It is often said that the mark of a civilised society is how we care for our most vulnerable. It is a mark of this Government, their ideological priorities and their economic incompetence that they are singularly failing to do that. Fortunately, as recent opinion polls have shown, the British public are seeing through this Government. They are exposing and seeing through the myths peddled by this Government. I shall leave it there to allow more hon. Members to participate in the debate.

Unfortunately I’m not surprised by the Trust’s latest figures as more and more people, many of whom are in jobs, are coming to my surgeries saying they are in dire straits. I visited Oldham’s Foodbank a few weeks ago and they said that in the last 3 months they had seen demand for help soar.

This situation is down to increases in the cost of living and the government’s relentless economic policies which ultimately effects jobs. Unemployment went up 70,000 last week and 1 in 10 are underemployed. The Government’s refusal to change course even though we have a flat lining economy, that was growing at the end of 2010, is what is fuelling the need for help from the foodbanks.

The Government were warned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) just last week that this drive for so-called austerity was hampering growth. And last month the Chairman of the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR), in response to David Cameron claiming that the cuts were needed to help growth, wrote to him saying the cuts had wiped out 1.4% of growth from the economy; and we are borrowing more – £245bn – as a result of this.

For a long time Labour has been warning this Government that they are cutting too far and too fast and, unfortunately, today’s Trussell Trust figures are just one indication that show the damaging effects this Government’s policies are having on the lowest income families. It is ordinary people who are suffering from this Government’s incompetence and ideologically-driven cuts.

The Chancellor’s own analysis of his Budget reveals that the 40% lowest income households will be worse off as a result of the different measures he has introduced.

And all this is happening at the same time as the government is giving a tax cut of £40,000 to millionaires and a 10% tax cut to those who earn over £150,000!