Worse on way @benglaze
» Tesco fears over food bills » Rent, jobs & pensions worry
THE worst is still to come for families battling the cost-of-living crisis, the boss of Tesco has warned.
Chairman John Allan said the supermarket’s food prices were set to soar by 5% by the spring.
The latest cost surge will “squeeze” the poorest households struggling with bills, he admitted yesterday.
He told the BBC: “Food is a bigger proportion for those on the lowest incomes.
“So we’re concerned particularly about what can we do to try to protect those who are hardest up, who are going to suffer most.
“Although food price inflation in Tesco over the last quarter was only 1%, we are impacted by rising energy prices, our suppliers are impacted by rising energy prices.
“Of course, 5% – if you’re spending, as some of the least-well-off families are spending, 15% of household income [on groceries] – is significant.”
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the Government was helping households through increases in the minimum wage and a package to help with energy bills. All households will get £200 off their bill in October. But the money has to be repaid at £40 a year for five years from 2023/24 to 2027/28. Campaigners fear people in their late teens, or who have a “bills included” landlord, will end up paying £40 a year without seeing the £200. And pensioners will have any energy bill savings wiped out by the Tories’ real-terms cut to pensions, Labour warned last night.
Analysis by the party shows that a basic state pension will be worth around £222 less in real terms over a year than it was in 2021/22.
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Ashworth feared pensioners “face a bleak year faced with impossible choices between heating or eating”.
Another 1.3 million workers have begun claiming Universal Credit since the pandemic, taking the total to 2.3 million by the end of last year, the Trades Unions Congress says today.
General secretary Frances O’Grady says: “Millions of low-paid workers face a perfect storm this April.
“At the same time as energy prices and national insurance contributions shoot up, Universal Credit is falling in value.”
And the cost-of-living crisis also risks triggering a rent arrears emergency, a report by think tank Demos says.
The study warns “low and fluctuating income and large and unexpected costs are two main drivers of social housing renters falling into arrears”.
Meanwhile, a million social housing tenants’ jobs could be lost to robots, according to a study by the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Report author Jake Jooshandeh said: “If the levelling-up agenda is to help social housing tenants, we need to see real action on the double whammy of automation and the cost-of-living crisis.”
■ IT is time for PM Boris Johnson to stop putting his hands over his ears and shouting “la, la, la!” every time the cost of living crisis is mentioned. It is almost as though he and his Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, are cost of living deniers.
Massive rises in the cost of fuel, the weekly shop, National Insurance, housing, energy and council tax, going side by side with a real terms cut in most people’s wages, means many families will be, conservatively, at least £2,000 per year worse off (Mirror, Feb 3).
We just can’t afford it. If Boris doesn’t do something about this desperate situation, it will cost lives. Get your finger out, Prime Minister, and sort it out.
Ashley Smith, March, Cambs
■ How will levelling up work when it is reported that the prices crisis will leave us £2,000 a year worse off? When money is taken out of people’s pockets there will be less demand for goods which will impact on firms. As demand goes down they will cut back on production, which means a rise in unemployment.
You boost growth by putting more money into the pockets of average people who, in turn, put this money back into the economy. It’s their spending which increases demand for goods and services, and boosts investment, jobs and overall growth.
Mick Rutland, Stockton-onTees, Co Durham
■ What an absolute shower these Tories are as the cost of living crisis leaves ordinary working people at least £2,000 year worse off.
The shocking impact of hikes in fuel, groceries and housing along with April’s National Insurance rise, will soon be laid bare.
Why won’t they step in and help? They can borrow billions when they want to and throw it all away on dodgy Covid contracts and useless PPE, but won’t do anything to try to stem the crisis hitting the poorest in our society.
I hope all those who elected these clowns now regret it.
Dave Mellor, Warrington
■ I am sick to death of the Government kicking the can down the road when it comes to the cost of living crisis.
Perhaps if these fatcats had to worry about the rises in gas, electricity and food prices they would treat this with more urgency. As things stand, it’s not a burden to them, so they just don’t get it. Ken Pennington, Stalybridge
Gtr Manchester
■ When I started work in 1954 I paid a percentage of my wages into a National
Insurance fund for the NHS. This deduction was eventually absorbed into general spending as it became virtually impossible for the ordinary person to check how much the Government was taking out of the fund for other purposes. This new scheme will end up the same way.
It is also a means of clawing back some of the £8.7billion wasted on useless PPE.
Douglas Higgins, Liverpool
■ We have been told that the proposed increase in National Insurance and VAT must go ahead to fund the NHS.
However, the £350million per week Brexit savings we were promised on the red bus advertisement are no longer referred to. Are they are included in the calculations?
Brian Boughton Bletchingley, Surrey
■ I suspect foodbanks will soon be a thing of the past due to the cost of living rising so much that no one will be able to afford to make any donations.
John Shale, Wigan