The mood music emanating from the Treasury ahead of the November 17 Autumn Statement is funereal: tax rises and spending cuts are imminent. Amid anaemic economic growth and following a mini-Budget that spooked the markets and saw the cost of borrowing rise, there is a clear need to make the numbers add up. How the Government goes about that is critical.
Ministers say it is “inevitable” that “everybody would need to contribute more in tax in the years ahead”, not just the rich. This is, of course, at the same time as mortgage rates, rents, energy bills and the cost of food continue their seemingly inexorable rise.
The challenge for the Government is therefore enormous. To pull off these cuts and rises without crashing the economy, ensuring vital public services are able to function, and protecting the most vulnerable in our city and across the country from destitution. If nothing else, it makes any potentially lower-hanging fruit — such as an extension of the windfall tax on oil and gas giants — far more likely.
The Government will also need a compelling narrative to try to explain why this action is necessary in the first place. After 12 years in office and two months of self-inflicted chaos, the Prime Minister and Chancellor will face a tough time shifting the blame elsewhere.
Inflaming tensions
Conditions at the Manston asylum processing centre in Kent are grim. There is overcrowding, disease and people sleeping on mats for weeks on end. The Home Secretary stood at the despatch box in the Commons yesterday and brushed it all — including her email breaches — aside. And the language that she used, referring to an “invasion”, threatens only to raise tensions.
What we need is not inflammatory language, but an actual plan. First, to ensure that migrants arriving in Britain can be processed quickly and found appropriate accommodation. Second, that the asylum system is accelerated; the average case is taking 480 days to process and this leads to huge backlogs. Third, we work more closely with French authorities to stop more of these dangerous “small boat” journeys across the Channel and allow for a greater number of safe routes for people to claim asylum in Britain.
None of this is easy. The scale of the challenge would put pressure on any government. But the answer is not to stoke tensions by demonising people, many of whom have legitimate claims and are in search of a better life. Instead, it is to cut the backlog, work with our partners and institute a relentless focus to make things better, not worse.
Clean up our air
Clean air is a human right, but it is one many Londoners are denied. Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, the mother of Ella — the first person in the UK to have air pollution recorded as a cause of death on her death certificate — says that expanding the ultra-low emission zone across Greater London would be a “great” tribute to her daughter.
Few understand the grave impact of air pollution more than Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah. Doing all we can to prevent any further deaths would be a worthy tribute to Ella and a life cut far too short.
