A few months ago I visited a school in my constituency and took part in a question-and-answer session with young pupils. One girl raised her hand and asked me: “Why is everything in the shops so expensive?”
In just eight words she had encapsulated the mood of the country. She had cut through to the core question that people had on their minds when they went to the polls on 4 July last year. If the question wasn’t “why is everything so expensive?”, it was “why are our pay packets not going as far as they used to?”.
The Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine might have pushed up prices, but it was the pure negligence of the Conservatives that squeezed the country’s household finances. They played fast and loose with spending, frittering hard-earned taxpayer money on political gimmicks such as their failed Rwanda scheme. Their carelessness came at a cost, most acutely felt by the lowest paid in the country. It was a dereliction of duty that resulted in their legacy being summed up in one statistic: that people were worse off by the end of the government than they were at the beginning.
The biggest failure of all was that working people, doing the jobs that keep the country going – in shops, care homes, cafes, as couriers – weren’t earning enough to make ends meet. The system had failed, and something had to change.
Last summer, the country made clear that it wanted a government that was on the side of working people. We had made a promise to it that we would deliver a genuine living wage. It was the last Labour government that introduced the national minimum wage. It was one of our most transformational policies. A policy that was true to our core: recognising the dignity in secure work – a decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work, opposed, unsurprisingly, by the Conservatives.
In October I stood up to deliver the first Labour budget in 14 years, and made a promise to put more money in working people’s pockets. Today we deliver on that promise by increasing the national minimum and living wage, a pay rise that will go straight into the pockets of up to three million workers across the country. That’s a pay rise worth an extra £1,400 per year for an eligible full-time worker, and a significant boost that will ease the strain on household finances and finally make work pay. A boost for those in work and those looking for work. A boost for productivity and for the economy as a whole. And a boost – and a pay rise – that is once again dismissed by our opponents.
I am in no doubt that there is more to do. That too many people are still struggling with the cost of living or in insecure work. That’s why we’re going further and faster, rolling out breakfast clubs in every primary school to save families £450 per year. It is why we are strengthening the rights of people at work through our employment rights bill. And it is why we are investing in the industries of the future – from life sciences to green energy – to create high-skilled, well-paid jobs in every corner of the country.
Today marks a milestone on our most important mission: to put more money in working people’s pockets. This is a changed Labour party showing that we can change Britain. Security at work and renewal for our country, that was our promise and we are getting on with delivering it.
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