COVENTRY South MP Zarah Sultana is calling on the Chancellor to ‘squeeze profiteers, not ordinary people’ ahead of tomorrow’s Spring Statement.
Ms Sultana has written to the Chancellor highlighting the ‘impossible choices’ the cost of living crisis is imposing on people in Coventry, such as a father who recently spoke about going days without eating so he could afford to feed his daughter.
In the letter, Ms Sultana focused on a range of policy choices made in recent months – such as ditching the £20-a-week Universal Credit uplift last autumn, the National Insurance hike, and raising the energy price cap – saying the cost of living crisis was ‘a political choice from the Conservative government’.
She accused the Government of a ‘lie’ about the cost of living crisis being about ‘enduring hardships in solidarity’ with the Ukrainian people, saying it was ‘a blatant attempt to divert attention away from the government’s political choices that were driving this crisis’.
She argued super-rich individuals and businesses – such as fossil fuel giants BP and Shell – which made an average of £85million in profits every single day should ‘make greater sacrifices, not ordinary people’.
Ms Sultana’s letter concludes with a list of calls on the Chancellor that would ‘tackle the cost of living crisis’, such as reintroducing last year’s energy price cap and paying for it with a windfall tax on fossil fuel giants.
She also called for the National Insurance hike to be scrapped and for the Government to end poverty pay with a real living wage.
Earlier in the day, Ms Sultana had joined colleagues to hand-in a separate letter, coordinated by Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, calling on the government to tackle food poverty.
She was a signatory to the letter, alongside football clubs Liverpool FC and Everton FC, trade union leaders and city council leaders.
