Labour calls for the Chancellor to set out concrete plans for the months ahead

Today, Labour council leaders and MPs from across the North West have written to Chancellor Rishi Sunak urging him to publish plans for the exit out of this current lockdown.

The letter points out that the chopping and changing of plans and a lack of coherent strategy have caused great pain in the North West and stopped individuals and businesses being able to plan from one week to the next.

The letter says:

“It is an outrage that during the negotiations for entering tier 3, the government said that workers in the North West should only get 67% of their pre-crisis income and that 80% was impossible. Now, when restrictions have to be introduced in the south, you have changed your mind.

“People in the North West are not worth 13% less than those in the rest of the country.”

It calls for assurance that this will not happen again and to see the exit plan out of this lockdown. If that involves a return to places like the North West having to live under tougher restrictions for longer, what support our businesses, NHS, public health and individuals can expect to receive?

The letter further says:

“We cannot afford for any more time to be wasted or plans to be made and scrapped. The people of Lancashire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region deserve to know that their government has a strategy to see them through this crisis and prevent waves of unemployment only too familiar to some of our communities in the North West.

“We need to see concrete plans for what happens when this lockdown is lifted and we need to see them now.”

Full text of the letter below:

Dear Chancellor,

We are writing to you as the leaders of councils and MPs in the North West where many of us have been living under extra restrictions long before the national lockdown was announced.

Once again the Government has waited until the last possible minute to act, meaning a huge amount of anxiety for the people of Lancashire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region. This chopping and changing of plans and a lack of coherent strategy have caused great pain in the North West and stopped businesses being able to plan from one week to the next. We have faced months of restrictions and the truth is that morale is very low here because of government failures.

It is an outrage that during the negotiations for entering tier 3, the government said that workers in the North West should only get 67% of their pre-crisis income and that 80% was impossible. Now, when restrictions have to be introduced in the south, you have changed your mind. People in the North West are not worth 13% less than those in the rest of the country

We are writing now to ask for assurance that this will not happen again. We ask to see the exit plan out of this lockdown and, if that involves a return to places like the North West having to live under tougher restrictions for longer, what support our businesses, NHS, public health and individuals can expect to receive.

We would like to see:

·       Localised Test, Trace, and Isolate run by the people who know their areas the best

·       Fix the gaps in support for the self-employed

·       Convert the Universal Credit loan into a grant, end the five week wait, and scrap the benefit cap, the two-child limit and the savings limit

·       Renew the evictions and repossessions bans, reduce the waiting time for Support for Mortgage Interest and increase Local Housing Allowance to average rents

·       Restart the “Everybody In” scheme to look after rough sleepers ahead of the winter.

·       Suspend sanctioning benefit claimants

·       Continued support in place for areas that need to remain under restrictions

We have lost valuable time in this battle against Covid when Labour’s call for an earlier circuit breaker would not only have slowed the rate of transmission but would have minimised the impact on the economy and prevented the loss of many jobs.

We cannot afford for any more time to be wasted or plans to be made and scrapped. The people of Lancashire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region deserve to know that their government has a strategy to see them through this crisis and prevent waves of unemployment only too familiar to some of our communities in the North West. We need to see concrete plans for what happens when this lockdown is lifted and we need to see them now.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Mohammed Iqbal

Cllr Matthew Brown

Barbara Keeley MP

Kim Johnson MP

Andrew Gwynne MP

Cllr Miles Parkinson

Cllr Sean Fielding

Cllr Louise Gittins

Alison McGovern MP

Cllr Ian Moran

Cllr David Baines

Cllr Andrew Western

Debbie Abrahams MP

Cllr Russ Bowden

Chris Matheson MP

Cat Smith MP

Navendu Mishra MP

Mike Amesbury MP

Cllr Graham Morgan

Cllr Paul Foster

Cllr Alistair Bradley

Lucy Powell MP

Cllr Erica Lewis

Cllr Rob Polhill

Cllr Alison Barnes

Cllr Azhar Ali

Rosie Cooper MP

Mayor Paul Dennett

Rebecca Long Bailey MP

George Howarth MP

Maria Eagle MP

Cllr Mohammed Khan

Yasmin Qureshi MP

Yvonne Fovargue MP

Tony Lloyd MP

Mark Hendrick MP

Ian Byrne MP

Mayor Joe Anderson

Margaret Greenwood MP

Cllr Stuart Young

Kate Hollern MP

Justin Madders MP

Angela Eagle MP

Jim McMahon MP

Mike Kane MP

Sir Richard Leese

Cllr Alan Brett

Angela Rayner MP

Kate Green MP

Jonathan Reynolds MP

Conor McGinn MP

Bill Esterson MP

Jeff Smith MP

Janette Williamson MP

Marie Rimmer MP

Paula Barker MP

Peter Dowd MP

Cllr Ian Maher

Cllr Sam Corcoran

Dan Carden MP

Charlotte Nichols MP

Afzal Khan MP

Lisa Nandy MP