Sally Keeble comments on this year’s autumn statement as it happens
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14.00 This was a statement that was big on political rhetoric, but thin on practical details. Bold statements on sticking to austerity, with some warm words in the direction of young people, the housing market and married couple. It’s been a winter warmer for the right wing of his party – as shown by the line-up of Tory MPs sounding their praises. But there are some real scorpion stings in its tail. The biggest is the welfare cap, carefully excluding the state pension, and therefore likely to have a disproportionate impact on other benefits. Already welfare agencies in Northampton are reporting big increases in family debt because of the existing cuts. But the changes to employers national insurance contributions for young people need a careful watch. Anyone on £12,000 is having a tough time, and the last thing we need is a race to the bottom of pay scales. We could have had more on the detail of infrastructure spending – there was no statement from the chancellor on HS2, and we had no mention of the privatisation of Eurostar.
What this was about was setting out the strategy for the elections – pick out a few at least reasonably positive figures on the macroeconomy, push a few iconic policies, slay a few mythical dragons, and heap personal abuse if all else fails. We need to match them step for step, focusing on the gap between macroeconomic figures and the real life experience of most families, press the One Nation politics that includes people instead of demonising the weakest, and show a different kind of politics in place of the personal abuse in which Osborne specialises.
Talking of elections – I’m off now to talk to voters in my key seat – and make sure we get a Labour government in 2015!
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Steve Reed, by-election winner from Croydon North, is tackling the chancellor over the shortage of school places in his constituency. Same applies here in Northants. We need public services to match the local needs, and that applies to hospitals as well as schools.
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Willie Bain tackles Osborne on OBR trends in household incomes – this is a debate that will run and run.
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Oh dear, now the Tory MP from Harlow Robert Halfon has hailed white van Conservatism. Is this the replacement for Mondeo man?
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Simon Hughes asks about housing. He knows about this from his constituency in Southwark. Poor Simon, finding himself trapped in the coalition!
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Heidi Alexander picks up on the contrast between the macro figures and the reality on the street. Osborne needs to learn to take women’s questions seriously. He just shrugs them off.
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Another good Labour woman from London picking Osborne up on cuts in flood defence spending since 2010, as well as a deft handling of macroeconomic issues.
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Another good question from Yvonne Fovargue: well informed, well put and directly quoting statistics from her constituency. It is awful the way that the old boys system in parliament still ends up with women being left to the end of these sessions. These women should be putting their questions up front in this session.
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Excellent question from a Labour woman MP setting out that the Tories have cost the average family £1,600 a year, that there has been a 78 per cent increase in inquiries to food banks this year. Given a rebuff from Osborne. Unfortunately this is what happens towards the end of the session when the Chancellor looks like he’s running out of steam.
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Adrian Bailey from the West Midlands asks a detailed question about support for small businesses to develop export markets. Osborne says he will get back to him – which means he doesn’t know the answer. The Tories are weak on small businesses of the kind Adrian is describing, it’s a sector that we should be supporting and developing.
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Teresa Pearce, London MP, asks about house prices and impact of help to buy. Osborne has been expecting this, and says Tories want a stable housing market, and lists measures being implemented by the mayor. This will be one of the battleground issues for the general election, especially in London.
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This can only be a Tory who says his constituents in a coal-mining area are grateful to the Tories. For what? For destroying the mining industry in this country?
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Sammy Wilson, Northern Ireland MP, asks an interesting question about people’s use of savings to maintain consumer spending, and then asks about impact of welfare cap/reduction in benefit payments. Osborne lists some measures for Northern Ireland, and then miraculously has an attack on Labour for not putting welfare spending to the vote.
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Tom Clarke, veteran MP from Scotland, presses Osborne about bedroom tax and energy prices, and about the pressures on his constituency. Osborne gets an instant figure handed to him of fall in unemployment in Tom’s constituency. But blanks on the bedroom tax and energy prices.
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Barry Gardiner, a London MP reminds everyone that outside the hothouse of Westminster there are storms raging on the East Coast, and need for more flood defences. Funny that NONE of the Tories have spoken up for the storm-battered constituencies. We need to check out what Osborne has said he’s doing about flood defence spending. The UK doesn’t have a brilliant record on this.
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George Osborne back to Ed Balls-baiting. Someone’s texted him with a supposed quote from Ed Miliband’s office that is not helpful!
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Andy Love, Edmonton, and a member of the Treasury Select Committee, asks about getting a balanced recovery. Andy had a ringside seat during the crisis, so his analysis is always worth hearing.
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Now a speech from the 19th century. Jacob Rees Mogg provides an opaque question about corporation tax that Osborne says is answered by a dynamic new (21st century? ) model from the Treasury.
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Now my longtime friend and near neighbour Jack Dromey is talking about working people, their lives and families. He’s spent his life championing the cause of working people, and is now a great MP for Erdington in Birmingham.
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Bob (Jack) Russell, speaking up for his garrison town constituency asks about the future for town centres.
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In answer to Mark Hoban, Osborne is now putting down some markers – the budget responsibility measures are a line in the sand that he dares Labour to cross. He just makes plain the extent to which this is a political statement in the run-up to the general election, at which Northampton North will be a key battleground. I don’t think Office of Budget Responsibility will be what people are talking about. It will be about how their families are faring, what’s happening to their children and grandchildren, and what is happening to their pensions and mortgages.
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Watford MP Richard Harrington being praised by George Osborne for finding jobs for his young constituents. Yes, it’s very good, I’m sure, but wouldn’t have been necessary if the Tories had done their job properly and made sure we had an economy that works for everyone, including young people.
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Joan Ruddock, Labour, who always manages to get people to shut up and listen to her, asks about energy prices.
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Edward Leigh, Tory, is championing hard-working families. At a Progress meeting in Cambridge a single man said it wasn’t the focus on families that annoyed him, it was the hard-working bit he felt excluded him.
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Everyone shuts up to hear Dennis Skinner. Purgatory for working people and paradise for bankers. He’s on about people lining their nostrils and their pockets.
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Now it’s Liam Fox. These interventions remind us how far to the right the Conservative MPs are as a group, and how Cameron’s political rhetoric is adrift from his party’s reality.
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12.55 @Alewin7 Brilliant spot @BenChu_ Structural deficit (which George pledged to eliminate by ’15 in his first day in No11) has been revised UP #AS2013
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Michael Meacher rattles out a series of figures on our low productivity figures. Osborne agrees with his analysis, but not the solutions.
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Andrea Leadsom from South Northants asking about young people.
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12.54 @jp_clifton Selling a valuable asset (student loan book) is not a good way to fund current spending commitment #as2013
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And now it’s Margaret Hodge, the first woman to say anything in this debate. Hurray for her. She asks a question about Swiss bank accounts. We need more women to intervene and speak on the economy.
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Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury select committee, and about as dry as can be intervenes and pretty much pulls the Chancellor back to order. He’s not a fan of Osborne, and pulls him back to the economy.
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12.50 @angelasmithmp . what happened to the march of the makers? #AutumnStatement
12.49 @AmyLame #AS2013 in a nutshell: work harder…for longer… for less money. This is what the Tories call a “fair” society.
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George Osborne is heaping personal abuse on Ed. It’s not clever, doesn’t work, and just makes Osborne look like a complacent bullyboy. Silly man he should be concentrating on the economics and the well-being of the general public, not about the personal life of the man sitting across the room from him.
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Now Ed is talking about some of the inequalities, and especially the tax cuts for millionaires with the bedroom tax which is hitting the most vulnerable. He’s also right about the impact on families with children. The research showed that the tax credits system, complex though it was, lifted children out of poverty and was the fastest way to help hard working families with children – by £400 a year and more. Dismantling of the tax credit system has undercut the incomes of many families and weakened their ability to withstand the recession. A survey of Northampton families in 2009 showed that tax credits was the only thing standing between many families and real hardship.
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Ed is talking about people having to work longer. But there’s a big point about the divides in this country. some people want to work at all – especially young people for whom the research shows a delay in entering the jobs market affects their later earning prospects – others want to be in a position to be able to afford to stop working after the official retirement age. That divide will open wider unless we have a Labour government with a One Nation programme that will bridge those inequality divides.
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12.39 @miguel1982 YOYO Tory policy – ‘You’re On Your Own’ #AutumnStatement
12.38 @CllrJimMcMahon Addition £bn in ‘departmental spending’, why have I got a feeling local councils will be offered up by Pickles as fair game… AGAIN!
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Married couples’ tax allowance – will only apply to one third of married couples. The chancellor has apparently said this tax allowance is a ‘turkey of an idea’. Or a goose that will be well and truly cooked before too long.
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12.29 @LucyRigby Tory benches appear not to realise braying continuously at Ed B whilst he’s talking about them being out of touch enforces latter’s case…
12.28 @AngelaEagle Chancellor indulging in public school japes while millions suffer a living standards crisis #totallyoutoftouch
12.26 @JReynoldsMP More of an arrogant statement than an Autumn statement from Osborne #as2013
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‘The only freeze this winter is for pensioners who can’t pay their heating bills’ – shadow chancellor.
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12.24 @SteveReedMP Ed Balls tells Commons that Tory led Govt has borrowed more in 3 yrs than last Labour govt did in 13 years
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Ed’s hitting all the Tory weak spots on the failure of the growth figures, the bank lending figures, the borrowing figures. Small wonder the Tories are shouting. But the real point that Ed highlights is the impact on family finances. The economy is marginally picking up, but the public aren’t feeling it, and household budgets are still under pressure. We hear it all the time on the doorstep.
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12.22 @SallyGimson I love it, half listening to @edballsmp rousing speech: IDS In Deep Shambles.
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Now it’s Ed Balls‘ turn. He’s facing a barrage from the Tory hecklers who have always delighted in shouting at Ed. However, I used to have to do DFID questions just before PQs, and the wall of sound actually makes things easier. The hardest thing is to talk into silence. Ed is a brilliant economist, and combative, so he’ll do well.
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Fuel duty freeze will be very welcome for a lot of people, especially those with small businesses, as will the freeze ‘in real terms’ on rail fares, which means an inflation level rise. But it will build up pressures for the future.
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Need to see much more about the abolition of employers NI for young people. He’s talking about very low wages – £12,000 and £16,000.
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The ‘greenest ever government’ promise is replaced with the ‘rolling back the state’ promise and provides people with £50 a year relief instead of having a freeze NOW. Well done Ed Miliband for getting even this concession by making energy bills such a high level political issue.
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Note his name check of all the key seats – this time Harlow.
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12.20 @LucyMPowell As I said yesterday in PMQs it’s actually a Married Mans Allowance. 85% of recipients will be men. #AS2013
12.15 @MaryCreagh_MP Married couples tax allowance. Just one third of couples will benefit and one sixth of families with children #as2013.
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Here’s the tax allowance for married couples. It sounds like £1,000 but of course it’s not. It’s only £200, less than they’ve lost in other changes, and not enough to cover the cost of the increase in their energy bills.
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His announcements on local retailers – one of the big problems is the lack of purchasing power in many local communities. If families’ earnings are down, it shows in their spending. We need more radical programmes than this, like some real investment in town and centre development, and incentives for development of cultural and other attractions to bring people to town centres. Look how well cities like Newcastle and Sunderland have done against the odds, with support from Labour.
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Welcome announcement for tax relief for regional theatres, the bedrock of culture for me – see the wonderful Royal and Derngate here spectacularly rebuilt while Labour was in office.
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The cap on aspiration is £9,000 tuition fees, and the difficulty of getting jobs commensurate with their skills. Here in Northampton the university has done very well, and is planning to move and expand. so I hope George Osborne will put his money where his mouth is and deliver the financing that Northampton Uni needs.
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12.04 @ChukaUmunna This Autumn Statement shows @UKLabour setting the agenda on business rates – we lead, the govt follows
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Learning and skills key to success, he says. Too true. So why treble tuition fees? Michael Gove was a great journalist, but the free schools aren’t hitting the target, especially opening the door to unqualified teachers. The 18-to-21-year-olds to be sent to a kind of benefits university to learn basic skills.
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A Thatcherite view of the inner cities, especially on selling council properties, is it going to be an instruction to councils to sell expensive housing? If so it will finish council housing in London. What we need is commitments for funding to boost house building, and especially to provide support for lower income buyers. Like the key workers’ scheme that Labour did. To enable home ownership instead of inflating the housing market.
Oh, and the same survey found that private sector investment in infrastructure had not materialised. How about HS2? That’s the infrastructure that will help us in Northampton and all points further north.
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11.54 @camdentheo Westminster decides Whitehall is best placed to get 16-18 year olds jobs via Jobcentre Plus, not councils – bound to #fail #AS2013
11.48 @labourpress The rate of house building is at its lowest peacetime level since the 1920s #AS2013 #costofcameron
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Now for infrastructure. Here’s the pledge on capital spending – announced but not so far delivered. None of the 18 major road schemes announced since 2010 have been started, according to the Guardian’s survey this morning.
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11.45 @HackneyAbbott Osborne “Government seeking a job rich recovery for all” #believethatyoullbelieveanything #AutumnStatement
11.43 @MichaelWhite #autumnstatement Tories not so noisy as pension age goes up and GO unveils latest attempt to curb tax evasion and abuse. Hmmm
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Pensions commitments always form a big part of the statement. It will be interesting to see how the cap on benefits interacts with the increases. It will probably leave the most vulnerable pensioners worse off through cuts in ancillary benefits. Basing retirement age on life expectancy doesn’t allow for the health inequalities and different life expectancies of rich and poor that are such a problem in the UK. Lots of people in Northampton already work until well after retirement age.
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Underspending government departments – I have always thought underspending is sign of inefficiency – an inability to get things done. Reducing contingencies means producing funny money for pet projects, which will come up soon perhaps in the shape of tax cuts for married couples.
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The cap on welfare spending is real political rhetoric. He’s excluding pensions, which is the biggest element of welfare spending. So that means a real bearing down on everyone else, including working families who rely on working tax credit which is the only way many families here in Northampton have managed through the recession.
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11.37 @LilianGreenwood: Osborne announces Office for Budget Responsibility expects there to be no deficit by 2018-2019 #AS2013 missing his target by 4 years! #fail
11.35 @Alison_McGovern 2010: Osborne: I’ll close the deficit by end of parliament- 2015 (telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget…) 2013: Not actually till 2018 #CostofCameron
11.32 @AlanDonnelly57 Osborne slipping a reference to “cyclical recovery” there. #as13 #AutumnStatement
11.31 @VictoriaGroulef Coalition promised to balance the books by 2015 – now know that won’t happen #AS2013
11.29 @MichaelDugherMP Osborne’s central message: everything is going great. Remember that when your next bills come through the letterbox… #AS2013 #outoftouch
11.28 @Joe_Dromey Osborne boasts that deficit will be 4.4% in 2015. He had promised to eliminate it by then #AS2013
11.27 @J_Bloodworth And the lesson of the deficit being revised down? You need growth to pay off the debt. Now who was saying that in 2010? #AutumnStatement
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The low mortgage rates have got nothing to do with the Tories, which is what GO is claiming – and the new governor of the Bank of England has made clear that interest rates will increase only when unemployment comes down. That will be a litmus test for the squeezed middle, and especially for younger homeowners.
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The debt to GDP ratios are not a great improvement – they come on poor figures in March, and reflect the real contraction in the economy.
Borrowing rose to £500m in July according to this morning’s figures, because of overspends especially in welfare, against a forecast of a £2.9bn surplus. The surplus according to the OBR comes only well after the general election.
Under these figures are the particular pressure on young people entering the jobs market – still facing high unemployment and underemployment rates – and families here going for lower paid jobs, and working longer hours to make up the difference.
This is about the Tories’ plan for the general election, not how he’s going to ease the pressures on the squeezed middle families who have kept things going through the recession.
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11.20 @MikeKatz So we’re better off are we? In just one month out of last 41 perhaps… #as2013 pic.twitter.com/xvCR8gIWRU
11.00 @wdjstraw: QE is ‘writing checks to ourselves’ so not sure what Osborne is getting at #AS2013
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Jam tomorrow is Osborne’s message. But he doesn’t seem to understand that here in Northampton families are feeling the pressure NOW. This is a statement about their political strategy for the general election, not a plan to support the squeezed middle working so hard to keep things going.
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So George Osborne is expected to announce capital spending plans to boost the economy.
Question: What’s the difference between a Gordon Brown and a George Osborne re-announced spending plan.
Answer: Gordon did his.
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10.45 Larry Summers’ verdict on the government’s austerity programme was spot on – the price was too high. And the people who’ve paid the biggest price are here in Northampton North, from where I’m blogging on the autumn statement.
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Sally Keeble is PPC for and former member of parliament for Northampton North, and a former member of the Treasury select committee. She tweets @Sally_Keeble