'Constituents have been having a rough time for far too long'

MP for Ellesmere Port

WHEN it comes to assessing the state of the nation’s finances we do try to look on the bright side, however hard a task that might be.

The glimmer of hope that my constituents have been offered – lean pickings indeed – is that although we will soon be entering a recession, it might not be as hard and last as long as we all feared.

That was the assessment of those in the highest echelons of the Bank of England as they increased interest rates yet again from 3.5 per cent to four per cent – their highest level in nearly 15 years and the 10th interest rise in a row.

That makes for grim reading for many of the people I represent who are struggling to make ends meet in these challenging times. Many of them have increasing mortgages and loan costs to pay while others are struggling to get onto the housing ladder at all, either as a first- time buyer or as tenants.

Constituents have been having a rough time for far too long and the suggestion that they will have another year, rather than two, to wait before there is any prospect of an improvement in their fortunes will be by no means an easy pill to swallow.

The good news, according to the Bank of England, is that fewer workers are likely to lose their jobs in the 12 months ahead and prices might start to slow. Of concern to many forecasters is that the UK has a record 1.1 million job vacancies while the number of people classed ‘economically inactive’ – people aged between 16 and 64 not looking for work – has risen. In most other countries the number of economically inactive workers had fallen since the height of the pandemic, but not in the UK.

I believe people took the Bank of England’s unpalatable announcement relatively in their strides. They have got used to bad economic news and have become resilient in their approach to coping with the cost of living.

But their mood will have probably turned to anger after learning of the latest political intervention from former Prime Minister Liz Truss.

In a detailed analysis in a national newspaper of her 49 days at the helm in 10 Downing Street, she offers no apology for the fact that the economic policies that she and ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng introduced freaked the markets so much that interest rates were sent sky high, causing long-term misery for so many people in this country.

Within hours of her mini-Budget the pound plummeted and borrowing costs soared, gilt markets plunged and the Bank of England rushed in with a huge £65 billion rescue bailout.

Instead of saying sorry, Liz Truss appears to blame everyone else for the failure of her disastrous fiscal experiment which has cost us all so dearly.

The result is a forecast from the International Monetary Fund that the UK will be the only major economy to shrink in 2023, even performing worse than war-mongering Russia.