Failure to cut interest rates from record high shows scale of Tory cost crisis
The Bank of England’s decision not to cut interest rates from a 15 year high of 5.25% will mean a harsher than hoped for winter for households and families across Scotland, says the Scottish Greens economy spokesperson Maggie Chapman MSP.
Ms Chapman said: “This will be another blow to households and families who are already struggling with a Tory-inflicted cost of greed crisis. We keep hearing that their so-called recovery is underway, yet the UK Government has normalised interest rates that would have been unthinkable in previous years.
“This is already a really difficult time of year for millions of people, who are being weighed down with lots of extra pressures and costs and greater energy use driving up bills that were already too high.
“It has to change. This is 2023. Nobody should be forced to choose between heating their home and feeding their children or themselves. But that is the position that more and more people have been plunged into, with far too many families finding it harder to do either.
“It’s not as if we don’t have the resources, this is one of the wealthiest economies in the world, but too much of that wealth rests with a very small number of people.
“The poverty, anxiety and fear that so many are experiencing is having a terrible human cost. It will not be tackled by leaving the most important economic leavers with a broken Tory government and sticking to a tired economic model that is entrenching low wages and inequality.
“We are making the changes we can, with the groundbreaking Scottish Child Payment that is lifting children out of poverty and the decision to increase the benefits we control in Scotland in line with inflation. But too much of our work is focused on offsetting the damage being done by Westminster.
“If we are to make the fundamental changes that are badly needed then we need the power to do so. It is only with the powers of a normal country that we can make the break from Downing Street and deliver an economy that works for people and planet and has care and compassion at its heart.”