Sending Osborne a clear message

By Lisa Nandy MP / @lisanandy

It’s been a big week in Westminster with Libya and the budget dominating debate, but it will most likely be remembered as the week that the Tories’ claim that they have no option but to slash and burn public services was exposed as a lie.

On Monday in education questions Gove repeatedly came under fire for his ‘inability’ to allocate money to new school buildings while spending untold amounts on his new free school initiative. Last week the Department for Education revealed they have 97 people working on their free school initiative in the Department alone but Gove has repeatedly refused to tell us how much public money is being spent on free schools until after the contracts are signed. It leaves no chance for local communities to decide whether that money would be better spent on new school buildings for all children, but then presumably that is the point.

Fast-forward to Wednesday and George Osborne’s budget. Many imagined help was to be forthcoming for young unemployed people who are forecast to reach an incredible 1 million this spring. The money allocated to measures to help them was a pitiful £20 million – just £20 per unemployed young person. By contrast the biggest companies will pay a staggering £450 million less in tax and overseas taxpayers came through the budget unscathed. The anxiously awaited announcement about what will replace the Education Maintenance Allowance was, it seems, taken out of the budget at the last minute leaving students up and down the country wondering if they will be able to continue at college next year. There was a small bright spot for children in care thanks to the persistence of Paul Goggins MP who has fought hard for a savings account to replace the lost Child Trust Fund, at a cost of just £5 million.

But it was when the chancellor pulled his fuel duty announcement out of the bag that the lie was really exposed. Osborne can, and will, cut taxes when he thinks not doing so will cause him a headache. It will make people wonder why hospitals, libraries and sure start centres are closing, public sector workers are being laid off and benefits for the poorest are being slashed if Osborne can choose otherwise. It is why tomorrow I will be on the TUC march in London with my colleagues from parliament and from Wigan, to send him a clear message that these are choices he has no mandate for, and we will not tolerate them.