Following Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring statement, an MP shouted across the floor of the House of Commons “Is that it?” Regrettably, it was!
It has been rather sad and disappointing to have heard the chancellor’s response to the most extreme financial crisis facing citizens in the UK.
There seems to be a complete breakdown between those in power who rule over us, and the people they are supposed to look after.
It never fails to impress me the number of people who give up their spare time to help out at foodbanks, community centres, unpaid caring for others, befrienders. All working to help those in crisis. The list is endless.
And yet the chancellor did absolutely nothing for them.
There is a tendency to refer to ‘hard-working families’ in a rather patronising way. Yet the universal credit which helps those working in low paid jobs was reduced, no help to those who, by necessity, need financial help.
More than 1.03 million people, that’s 19% of the population in Scotland live in poverty. That is set to double with the current financial crisis.
All that is being offered is a one-off £150 rebate from your recently increased council tax and 5p off fuel.
Rising costs for households
Millions of people who are retired, and workers on low pay, will be seriously affected by the gas and electric prices which have been hiked by more than 55% making it unaffordable for the average household. The cost of fuel prices, which are running rampant, is being passed on to all the goods we buy and is causing inflation to run between 5 and 8%.
Having promised us the land of milk and honey when under Brexit, we allegedly “took back control” from the EU, why didn’t we immediately reduce the VAT on fuel, and impose a one-off windfall tax on energy companies and supermarkets who all made millions in profits?
As we have seen from history, taking tax from them doesn’t deter oil companies. They will go where ever they can make money. As we’ve seen in the Ukrainian crisis, where some local oil companies are still trading in Russia, ignoring the imposition of economic sanctions.
Clearly we need to invest in research and development of the green energy agenda to prevent this kind of over-dependency on oil and gas in the future. But realistically this will take time.
Scale of financial crisis being greatly underestimated
In the past week I’ve talked with people who are denying themselves food in order to have heating. Children who struggle to get one good healthy meal each day, no hot food because their parents were scared to use the gas and they couldn’t afford a microwave oven. There are kids sleeping two and three in a bed to keep warm at night because their parents couldn’t afford blankets, conditions that are a throwback to the 1940s. It’s heartbreaking.
Is this where progress in the 21st Century has led us? Our Scottish government has simply aped the chancellor’s decisions, though they did increase the children’s allowance. However that barely acknowledges the scale of the problem we face.
It would be interesting to know where the £715 million which was passed on to Holyrood to mitigate the effects of this financial crisis has been spent in Scotland. Certainly not on the average household.
It’s unjust that more than 50% of people in poverty in Scotland are in working households – that’s about 440k adults and 160k children. So it’s good to see HR professionals at @cipdscotland helping employers learn how to tackle in-work poverty with our friends at @jrf_uk. https://t.co/HoRChW8r07
— Poverty Alliance (@PovertyAlliance) March 31, 2022
The scale of this whole financial disaster is being greatly underestimated by our politicians. They don’t seem to live in the same world as we do, seldom visiting these areas where there are massive poverty problems.
Are governments taking electorate for granted?
I suspect the UK national cabinet full of well-heeled people, who appear to treat the role of an MP as a light-hearted or secondary job, will never have an understanding of the issues millions of people face.
And the Scottish government is embroiled in its own internal problems – the ferry debacle, and the staffing crisis in the NHS.
Our new report 'The Nursing Workforce in Scotland' highlights how the record-high vacancy rate for nursing staff is a serious threat to maintaining high quality patient carehttps://t.co/TKiRFgMAYm pic.twitter.com/V11R7LYrk1
— RCN Scotland (@RCNScot) March 30, 2022
Perhaps both UK and Scottish governments, having been in power since 2010 and 2007 respectively have become detached from the voters who put them there. It may be they are taking the electorate for granted. It’s tantamount to an arrogance of power.
That’s why when we get the opportunity to elect our parliamentarians we must use our vote.
That’s when we get the opportunity to hold them to account for the things they have done and recognise any successes.
They may well find getting elected is the easy part. Serving the public is much more difficult.
Len Ironside is a former champion wrestler who served as an Aberdeen councillor for 35 years, with four years as council leader
