Emma Reynolds MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing Minister, responding to today’s statutory homelessness figures which show a rise in the number of families accepted as homeless, said:

“These figures show the scale of this Government’s failure to tackle the housing shortage which is central to the cost-of-living crisis. It is a tragedy that so close to Christmas thousands of families are without a home.

“David Cameron has broken his promises to tackle homelessness.  Rising housing costs and low pay have made it more and more difficult for people to stay in their family home and the Government’s failure to build the affordable homes we need and policies like the Bedroom Tax have made things worse.

“Labour is committed to raising living standards for all by building more homes, raising wages, getting a fairer deal for private renters and abolishing the unfair Bedroom Tax.”

A future for the many, not the few

The Tories can't build a better future for working people because they stand up only for a privileged few.

 

Under the Tories’ failing plan too many people are treading water, working harder and harder just to stay afloat, and worried that the next generation are finding it harder to get on than the last.

• Working people are an average of £1,600 a year worse off under the Tories
• Family energy bills have been allowed to rise by over £300 since the election.
• The average age of first time buyers has now reached 33.

David Cameron claims this economy is fixed, but their plan has seen a recovery which is benefiting a privileged few far more than most families.

• David Cameron has cut tax for people on over £150,000 a year while raising it for everyone else.
• Hedge funds have been given a tax break worth millions.
• Families with children have been hit hard, with childcare costs up 30%.

And despite promising to protect the NHS, under David Cameron it is going backwards with people struggling to see their GP and waiting lists rising. You can’t trust the Tories with the NHS.

• One in four patients are waiting a week or more for a GP appointment.
• Waiting lists for treatment are at their highest level for six years.
• Thousands of frontline NHS staff have been lost while £3 billion has been wasted on a damaging reorganisation they promised wouldn’t happen.

Your Labour Candidate for South Leicestershire

AMANDA HACK

Labour Party members in South Leicestershire have selected a local councillor to take on sitting Tory MP Andrew Robatham at the general election.

Amanda Hack, a married mum of two, represents the Thorpe Astley ward on Braunstone Town Council. 

Professionally, Amanda works as Head of Economic Development for the Asra Housing Group – a leading housing and regeneration provider, managing 13,500 homes in the Midlands and South East England.

Speaking after her selection as Labour’s choice for South Leicestershire, Amanda said: 

I’m delighted that local people have backed me to take on the Tories and LibDems in South Leicestershire.

Independent figures reveal that wages are an average of £1,600 down in real terms since 2010 as prices and inflation continue to raise faster that pay packets.

Combined with an average increase of £300 on household utility bills, hardworking people in South Leicestershire find themselves in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

It needn’t be like this - it’s only because of the decisions David Cameron’s government has made that people who work hard and play by the rules are so out of pocket.

Living standards for the majority have fallen in 44 of the 45 months David Cameron has been in Downing Street – all whilst the out-of-touch Tory-led government hands a £3billion tax break to the top 1% of earners by cutting the 50p income tax rate.

People are playing by the rules but not getting any better off.

Ed Miliband has committed a future Labour government to delivering an energy price freeze and introducing a Jobs Guarantee to get the million unemployed young people back to work – a government who stands up for the many, not the few.

Amanda added: “I’m looking forward to getting out on the doorsteps of South Leicestershire and making the case for Ed Miliband’s One Nation alternative here.”

South Leicestershire Constituency Labour Party member Lord Willy Bach, who serves as a Shadow Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister in the Lords, welcomed Amanda’s selection. He said: 

Amanda has a proven track record in standing up for local people – just the kind of advocate the people who have been left worse off by this government need. I look forward to working with her in the run up to the general election.

Follow Amanda's campaign on Twitter @hack4labour

Labour's Cost of Living Contract

Last week, Labour would have delivered a Queen’s speech to help Britain be better off 

Parliament should be making real progress to address the public’s discontent and chart a new direction for Britain. Labour’s Queen’s Speech would have included: 

 

• A Make Work Pay bill to reward hard work with a higher minimum wage.

 

• A Banking Bill that backs British business with a real British Investment Bank and new regional banks.

 

• A Consumers Bill to freeze energy bills until 2017 and reform the energy market

 

• A Housing Bill with long term reform to increase supply to 200,000 homes by 2020, and measures to end rip-off letting fees and make three year tenancies the norm.

 

• A Communities Bill to give people a say over pay day lenders and betting shops on their high streets.

 

• An Immigration Bill, to stop workers being undercut through enforcement of the minimum wage and banning recruitment agencies that only use overseas labour.

 

• An NHS Bill, to put a stop to its privatisation and improve access to GPs. 

 

To make that happen we need a different government, a Labour Government.

 

Labour will take immediate action to deal with David Cameron’s cost-of-living crisis:

 

• Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017, as we reform the broken energy market to prevent customers being ripped off.

 

• Get the next generation into work, with expanded apprenticeships and a compulsory jobs guarantee for young people unemployed for a year or more – with a real paid job they’ll have to take or lose benefits.

 

• Introduce a lower 10p starting rate of tax to help make work pay and cut taxes for 24 million working people on middle and lower incomes – funded by a mansion tax on homes worth over £2 million.

 

• End the abuse of zero hour contracts and strengthen the minimum wage.

 

Labour will make big long-term changes so that hardworking people are better off

 

• Get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020, creating up to 230,000 construction jobs.

 

• Make work pay with 25 hours free childcare for three and four year olds with working parents paid for by an increase in the bank levy.

 

• Improve school standards, by guaranteeing that all teachers must be qualified, and transforming vocational education for the 50 per cent of young people who don’t go to university with gold-standard technical qualifications at age 18.

 

• Repeal David Cameron's NHS changes that put private profit before patient care – and we will give patients and the public a say when changes to local services are proposed.

 

Only Labour can make Britain better off, putting hardworking families first with a plan to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and earn our way to higher living standards for all.

Labour guarantees

 

Labour will act to deal with the Coalition's cost-of-living crisis.

 

With your support we will:

• Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017 and reform the energy market to prevent customers being ripped off again in the future
• Expand free childcare to 25 hours for three- and four-year-olds of working parents
• Get 200,000 homes a year built by 2020
• Get the next generation into work with our compulsory jobs guarantee for young people who have been unemployed for a year or more

Read Glenis Willmott on Europe's role in beating the cost-of-living crisis by clicking here.

Helping Generation Rent - a new pledge from Labour

The up-coming elections see Labour setting out plans to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. The message is simple: Hardworking Britain will always be better off with Labour.

David Cameron can’t solve the crisis because he stands up for a privileged few not working people.  The Liberal Democrats are part of the problem not part of the solution.

 

Take for example the spiralling costs of private rented accommodation which are draining welfare budgets, increasing homelessness and preventing an entire generation from saving enough money to get themselves on the housing ladder.

 

Generation rent is a generation that has been ignored for too long. Ed Miliband has today set about putting that right, with Labour’s fair deal for rented housing in Britain.  Labour will bring back long-term tenancies and stable rents so that people can settle down, know where their kids will go to school, know their home will still be there for them tomorrow.

 

That's the pledge.  Here are the facts:

• The costs of renting are part of the cost-of-living crisis: Renters are now paying on average £1020 a year more in rent than in 2010 and letting agents charge average fees of £350 every time someone moves house.
• The private rented sector has changed: 9 million people now rent privately including over 1.3 million families with children and almost 50% of private rented households are over the age of 35.
• The sector doesn’t work for these families: Under the current legislation renters are locked into short term tenancies with only 6 months of security and half of all families renting say that they are worried about unaffordable rent increases.
• Labour will act: We will introduce legislation to make 3 year tenancies with stable rents the norm in the market and to ban letting agents’ fees for tenants, saving families £350. 

Labour pledge to reform zero-hour contracts

One of the ways the Coalition massage unemployment figures is by encouraging zero-hour contracts, which by definition offer no guarantee of work or income. 

There may be some advantages to these contracts - for example seasonal work or where it suits the worker - but the lack of regulation leaves the door wide open to abuse.

The next Labour Government will give new rights to people with zero-hour contracts:

• to demand a fixed hours contract when they have worked regular hours over six months with the same employer
• to receive a fixed hours contract automatically when they have worked regular hours over a year (unless they choose to opt out)
• to be protected from employers forcing them to be available at all hours, insisting they cannot work for anyone else, or cancelling shifts at short notice without compensation

This announcement underlines Labour's commitment to improve living standards and help businesses build a more productive, successful economy across the UK.

Ed Miliband on the cost of living crisis

When ministers claim the cost-of-living crisis is over, it serves only to demonstrate they understand neither the reality faced by millions of hard-working people nor the scale of the generational challenge.

Ed Miliband writing in The Independent today.  He continues:

Millions of families are caught in the crosshairs of a cost-of-living crisis: a few people at the top scoop more and more of the rewards; markets  such as energy have become uncompetitive, allowing huge prices to be imposed on consumers; and many of the new jobs being created require fewer skills, pay lower wages and offer less security. 

This Government cannot deal with these problems because lying beneath its claims of being converted to full employment is an economic ideology built on low pay, low skills, low prospects and  low productivity.

A Labour government will make the big changes needed in our economy to  tackle this cost-of-living crisis. 

Read the entire article here.

Why do Labour MEPs believe the UK is better off in the EU?

Labour MEPs believe Britain must grow its economy and earn its way to higher living standards.  To achieve this, British businesses need to export more.  The EU is vital.

As part of the EU, British businesses have access to the world's largest single market and can also benefit from EU trade deals with some of the world's largest economies.  With free access to the EU market, the UK is much more attractive to foreign investors too.

Already, 3.5 million UK jobs depend on our relationship with the EU.

With Britain deep in a cost of living crisis, we must not put at risk our access to the world's largest single market.
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The European Elections are on Thursday May 22 2014.  It is not too late to claim your right to a postal vote.  Harborough District Council doesn't make it easy - they haven't even put the election date up yet - but we can cut through that sort of thing.  If you want to claim your postal (or proxy) click here and scroll down the page.  Don't be put off by the bit about "are you unable to attend your polling station?"  It's rubbish.  Anybody can have a postal vote, for one election or forever.  No reason is required.  Any problems, email us at lutterworth4labour@outlook.com.

Labour's response to Osborne's Budget

Ed Balls says:

“George Osborne boasted once again today that everything was going well. Perhaps it is for the people he mixes with. But in the real world, people on middle and low incomes are still not feeling any recovery. And after today’s Budget, they still won’t be feeling it. Wages are down £1,600 a year since David Cameron came to office. And independent forecasts today showed people will be worse off at next year’s election than in 2010.

 

 

So it’s official: You’re worse off under the Tories. Yet there was no action in the Budget to deal with this cost-of-living crisis. No energy prices freeze to help pensioners and families struggling with soaring bills. No help for families with rising childcare costs this side of the election. And no action to get young people stuck on the dole into paid work. Despite all the hype, the Budget totally failed to deliver, except for the very richest who will still get a £3billion a year tax cut. And when Ed Miliband challenged David Cameron and the Chancellor in the Commons, they refused to rule out giving millionaires another tax cut.

Specifically...

 

Real wages are forecast to fall by 5.6% over the Parliament meaning people will be worse off in 2015 than when David Cameron came to power.

Three years of flat-lining and falling living standards has led to more borrowing than planned to pay for the costs of economic failure.

 Let's hope the measures in this Budget are better than the Government's Export Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme which helped just five firms before it folded.

 

It looks like the dear old threepenny bit.  Coincidentally, in real terms it will have about the same purchasing power.

The Budget failed to cap pension fees and charges which leave pensioners paying up to £230,000 over their lifetimes.



 

In summary...





In Spring 2013 the IMF said that the Conservative-led Coalition was "playing with fire ... with the growth flat-lining... [and] should be easing off some of those spending cuts."

This is Robert Peston on BBC Radio 4's PM last Tuesday:

There is a debate still to be had about whether or not the UK approach over the full period of the parliament was the most effective in terms of generating recovery.

It shouldn't be forgotten that UK national income is still below its peak of the first quarter of 2008.

Other counties that are currently growing more slowly than ours, such as Germany, have an income that is about that of 2008.  In other words, these countries have continued along the path of enrichment better than we have and they are wealthier than they were before the crash of 2008 whereas we are less wealthy than we were before the crash.

Thanks to David F.

The case for Labour's Banking Reforms

Ordinary British people are facing the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.  We here in relatively prosperous South Leicestershire are no exception.

Prices are soaring, wages are falling, working people are £1,600 per year worse off and small businesses are struggling to access the finance they need to grow. Yet David Cameron continues to demonstrate how out of touch he is with the struggles millions are facing and is determined to operate our economy as business as usual.

Members of Lutterworth and Broughton Astley Labour Party are delighted that Labour has made firm plans to help people struggling with the rising cost of living, such as Ed Miliband's pledge to freeze energy bills until 2017. But as important as this pledge is, it only helps to deal with the consequences of our current economic state, and not the symptoms.

The Tory-led Government has failed to make the long-term changes needed to build a new economy that works for everyone and not just a few at the top.

The Tories won’t build a new economy that can tackle the cost of living crisis. They are determined to cling on to the old economy in a global race to the bottom. They think low wages, low skills and insecure work is the way to take Britain forward in the hope that some of the wealth will trickle down from the top. 

If we’re serious about dealing with the cost of living crisis and winning the race to the top with countries like China and India, then we need to build a new economy that works for everyone, and that means dealing with one of Britain’s broken markets: our banking system that works for banks but not for businesses and families.

Britain’s banking system is dominated by just four banks that control 85 per cent of small business lending. This lack of competition is a root cause of poor service, a breakdown of trust and a massive drop of £56bn in lending to business since May 2010.

Part of the reason we rely too much on low paid, insecure work is that the small firms that could create the good, high paying jobs of the future can’t get the finance they need to grow both themselves and our economy.

Of course we need to keep supporting Magna Park and the international companies based there. But we mustn't forget that our local economy depends on small and medium-sized businesses. Even our villages have small business parks which are key to growing our future economy. For these enterprises to thrive, government must promote a wider range of banks that have to compete harder with each other for customers.



That’s why the next Labour Government will bring in a legal threshold to ensure no bank can get too big and that the market remains competitive for the long-term. We will improve the amount of lending to small businesses, improve the service to all customers and create new banks that will work for the communities they serve.

Under a Labour Government, small businesses will have a better chance of getting the support they need to grow, employ more people at decent wages and help Britain earn its way to better living standards for everyone.

Cameron pledges the rich will pay less tax

 

 Michael Dugher, MP for Barnsley East and Labour's Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, condemns David Cameron's pre-election speech on the Andrew Marr Show:

 

"David Cameron wants to be judged on his record.  Families are £1,600 a year worse off and Cameron showed once again he has no answers to the cost-of-living crisis facing millions of families across Britain.

 

"Rather than helping hard-working families, David Cameron is again choosing to stand up for just a privileged few at the top.

 

"In 2013, Cameron gave people earning over £150,000 a year a big tax cut.  Now he's paving the way for yet another cut to the top rate of tax, a further tax giveaway for millionaires and the top Tory donors who bankroll Cameron's Conservative party.

 

"Under David Cameron millionaires get tax cuts while hard working people are worse off.  Cameron's tetchy interview underlined that he is out of touch with the country and that he has no answers to Britain's cost-of-living crisis."