Budget proves time is up for Sunak
As Jeremy Hunt stood up in the UK Parliament this week to deliver the budget, there can’t have been many people who were optimistic about what he was going to say.
After 14 years of Tory governance, people many have learned to prepare for the worst.
The reality for Rishi Sunak and company is that the budget he’s insisting the country should be content with doesn’t even begin to undo any of the damage that he and his predecessors have inflicted on our economy.
Food prices are still rising, mortgages are significantly higher and everything else is that bit more expensive than it was before – the cost-of-living crisis isn’t budging under the Tories.
And now we find the country in recession yet again. Made in Downing Street – this is Rishi’s recession.
The Tories used the budget to adopt Labour policies like the extension of the windfall tax on the profits of the oil and gas giants; finally Sunak saw the light and followed Labour’s calls for this necessary policy to the huge embarrassment of the Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross who had been railing against it.
But the discussions around a windfall tax also highlighted a few interesting things about the other party of government here in Scotland.
The SNP find themselves, bizarrely, to the right of the Tories on the issue of a windfall tax.
Humza Yousaf’s government believes that the oil and gas giants – who rake in eyewatering amounts of profit – shouldn’t be paying more tax but also think that a person who earns over £29,000 per year should.
Yes, in the SNP’s vision for Scotland, someone earning £29,000 is considered one of the people with the “broadest shoulders”.
The glaring issue with this idea, apart from the fact that the cost of living has started to bite and putting food on the table is becoming more challenging for families, is that Scots are already paying so much tax and getting very little in return.
A crumbling NHS. Local Authorities being dealt a real term in every budget and unfunded council tax freeze. The SNP are asking for more but can’t promise anything in return.
The SNP have also talked a lot about having a just transition to clean energy but they can’t explain what it means or how we achieve it.
Scottish Labour has been very clear that the economy has to grow and a just transition to clean energy is paramount but unlike the SNP and the Tories, we have the policies to back up our vision for the economy.
A UK Labour government would deliver Great British Energy, a publicly-owned energy company headquartered in Scotland that would invest in floating offshore wind, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage. Crucially, GB Energy would secure the next generation of jobs for North Sea workers and their communities.
We understand that to grow the economy, work must pay well and work must be a guarantee that you cannot fall into poverty.
Our New Deal for Working People delivers on that premise and would directly tackle the insecure and low paid work.
It will ensure that workers will have stronger rights to protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave and sick pay. It will scrap zerohour contracts and put a stop to ‘fire and rehire’. Making work pay is a major step in growing our economy.
Instead of taking any steps, both of our governments are standing still and happy managing decline.
They are shrugging their shoulders at the state of our economy and our public services and insisting nothing more can be done.
When any government starts to do that, it should be step aside and make way for a government that’s willing to do deliver what it cannot.
It is clear that their time is up – we need change and people across Renfrewshire and Scotland should have the opportunity to choose that change as soon as possible.
It’s time for Sunak to stop stalling and call the General Election for May 2.