Seamus Logan MP has slated the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget for taking a wrecking ball to the North East during this week’s debate on the Budget in the House of Commons.
Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Budget announced a slew of measures last week that have been criticised for breaking manifesto pledges, raising the cost of living, unemployment, and energy bills and leading to a downgrading of UK economic growth. The North East of Scotland has been hit particularly badly with the retention of policies such as the Energy Profits Levy and duty rises on Scotch Whisky.
Commenting on the Budget, Seamus Logan MP said:
“To describe Rachel Reeves’ Budget as a no show for the North-east is an understatement. Because this fiscal fiasco is a fatal blow to families, farmers, firms, fossil fuel workers and the fishing community in the North East.
“No change to the Energy Profits Levy that is causing catastrophic damage to the industry, no change to the family farm tax that will decimate our local generational family farms as well as our food security, more pressure on our world-class Scotch Whisky sector, the complete absence of anything for the fishing community or the WASPI’s and sleight of hand on the cost-of-living crisis for households. No wonder my constituents feel despair and anger with Labour.
“They haven’t even bothered to ‘do the math’ – £150 towards energy bills for Scottish consumers is a straightforward swindle in broad daylight. Bills have already risen more than four times under Labour with the recent £187 increase adding insult to injury. £150 won’t cut it for my constituents living in one of the coldest corners of Scotland and the UK. It’s also insulting when it’s our renewables that are powering the rest of the country.
“Add to the mix, the fiscal fiction of the so-called financial ‘blackhole’ that Labour has used as the excuse for taxing our energy system out of existence, which now turns out to bear no relation to the £20billion they originally quoted. While they play fast and loose with these figures, the reality is further job losses with another North-east energy firm this week announcing a further 100 job cuts to add to their existing workforce reduction measures.
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“Every way you look, the signs of an urban centric Westminster government, divorced from the reality of rural life in Scotland, are all over this budget. Do they have any idea how people get about in the North-east? Adding to electric car drivers’ tax burden makes no sense when you live in a rural community far from major rail links. I don’t even think the Chancellor mentioned fishing it’s so low down this government’s priority list – but their continued hostile environment on immigration and refusal to countenance a bespoke Scottish Visa to address our workforce issues and unique demographic challenges means that the fishing sector will struggle to grow.
“This is not a cost-of-living budget, it’s a chaotic cost of Labour Budget. Reeves may think she’s got her MPs back on side, but it’s the North East of Scotland that is paying the price for her incompetence. It’s time for Scotland to rid ourselves of Starmer and Reeves’s damaging doom loop once and for all.”
