A worrying time for us

CARLY NEWMAN, 36, SINGLE MUM

As a senior manager for a national charity, Carly works four days a week and rents privately with her son Ezra, four, in New Cross, South East London. Carly says the announcements from Jeremy Hunt (above) were “worrying”. She says: “The rise in tax will really affect me and other working people. I was pleased to see benefits increasing in line with inflation, but my Universal Credit payment is quite small now, so I don’t think that will level off the tax increase I’ll have to pay. “Everything is going up – food, energy – but we don’t get paid more. While we’re paying really high taxes they are not going on improving services. The NHS, education, social services, they’re falling apart. It is people on average or below average wages paying for this. We’re paying for Tory mistakes.”