Conservative councillors and campaigners have joined with some of their Barrow-in-Furness Labour counterparts to roundly condemn the Government’s disastrous emergency Spring Statement and savage cuts to welfare payments for the sick and disabled.
Independent bodies including the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Joseph Rowntree Trust, Resolution Foundation and even the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility have all claimed that the latest moves will stifle economic growth, keep interest rates higher for longer, drag around a quarter of a million people into poverty, including more than 50,000 children, and won’t rule out the need for further tax increases – with more likely to be announced as soon as this autumn’s Budget.
Ben Shirley, one of two Conservative Councillors for Dalton North Ward on Westmorland and Furness Council, has issued a statement to residents that he will work with those worst affected by the tax hikes in the Budget and the Spring Statement. Anyone worried their benefits will be slashed, he will help to gain access to whatever support is available, including the DWP Household Support Fund, administered by Westmorland and Furness Council, which reopens to applications in April.
“The recent budget announcement is causing understandable concern and anxiety for many residents who are in receipt of welfare benefits. I join colleagues from all political parties locally in calling out this decision which will place around 250,000 people into poverty. Of this number it is estimated that 50,000 will be children.
“For residents who’d like support and guidance, I will always listen and do whatever I can to help you. The council has a Household Support Fund, which will open for applications in April. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you require my help with anything.”
Conservative voices are not alone in criticising the choices being made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions – even prominent Labour councillors in Barrow and Dalton have slammed the Government’s political choices.
High Furness Councillor Matt Brereton, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group on Westmorland and Furness Council, commented: “For most of the past eight years since being elected a councillor, our opponents have taken great delight in telling us our party in Westminster was making ‘political choices’ to punish those most in need, and that ‘Tory austerity’ was purely ideological, despite having to deal with shocks such as the financial crash, the pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine.
“Now Labour is once again in charge, these oft-repeated lies haven’t survived contact with reality; I’m pleased Labour members locally are starting to find the courage to call out their Government, rather than just grimly toeing the party line. It seems there’s only one, rapidly dwindling group willing to defend these disastrous choices to the death – Rachel Reeves and her Cabinet chums.
“Even many of Labour’s backbench MPs are showing the gumption to question her priorities. Reeves, meanwhile, having abandoned all talk of her fictional ‘£22-billion black hole’ after she blazed through that in her first few weeks in office, seeks to blame everyone else from Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, to Liz Truss, Nigel Farage, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.
“The thing she and Sir Keir Starmer should accept, and quickly, is that being in a position of power and responsibility means that, sooner or later, you have to own your mistakes and accept the consequences, however disastrous they may turn out to be.”
