BY JOHN MCDONNELL

which mean nurses are relying on food banks, and head teachers are now asking parents for donations to help fund our children’s schools.

Or that the millions more children who will grow up in poverty under this Government due to Tory changes cannot be prevented.

They want you to believe that the housing crisis in our country cannot be fixed the way Labour has consistently called for, and even colleagues in his own Cabinet have argued for, by increasing investment to build more housing.

The Chancellor wants to pretend he cannot invest on the scale needed, yet he has already borrowed more in his first year as Chancellor than any of his predecessors in their first year at the Treasury.

There is a better way than this. But it needs a complete break with past failures.

The Chancellor has the opportunity this week to address the worst consequences of his austerity programme.

For example, even as they have been cutting public services to the bone, they have been offering huge giveaways to the mega-rich and giant corporations.

Tax cuts introduced for both since 2010, including Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax, will cost us more than £70billion over the next five years. That’s why this week I set out Labour’s five demands we want to see in the Budget:

1 Pause and fix Universal Credit.

2 Provide new funding to lift the public sector pay cap.

3 Serious funding for infrastructure across the whole country.

4 Properly fund our public services including health, education, and local government

5 Launch a large-scale public housebuilding programme.

These are reasonable demands, and affordable if the Government ends their tax giveaways to the super-rich and big business.

It will signal that the Government is listening – as we need a Budget that improve the lives of the many, and not one that just rewards a wealthy few.