Harrogate Chamber Hustings : Your Questions Answered
How do you see the cost of living easing in our area?
In preparation for the General Election to be held in less than 2 weeks, we hosted a Hustings of our own with 6 of the 7 candidates standing in the Harrogate & District constituency in attendance. This week we will reflect on the questions asked and the answers given.
The final question of the evening was asked by Jackie Snape, CEO of Disability Action Yorkshire:
The Harrogate District is a wonderful place to live unless you are poor. As voluntary sector organisations, we are seeing an increasing number of people who are struggling to get by on a day-to-day basis. How do you see the cost of living easing in our area?
Tom Gordon (Lib Dem):
I don't think anyone thinks anything is getting better or working. We need to see more support. Again, a proper windfall tax on the oil and gas giants is the one that will be able to make sure we can then invest in people in need that support through insulating homes and other measures too. One of the key things in our manifesto is we want every child to have a free school meal. That will help parents with the cost of living, taking that worry away from them, but also make sure that children have at least one hot meal a day when so many are not.
Paul Haslam (Independent):
Again, we’ve got to get the fairer funding formula to get better services in our part of the world. And the other thing is we have to get the council tax down so that it's fair. So, the council tax is the same amount as if we lived in Wadsworth; that would put money back into people's pockets straight away. And that could be done at the drop of a hat.
Andrew Jones (Conservative):
I think inflation has been a huge problem and you have to go back really quite some time to remember the impact of fuel driven inflation from the 1970s. So clearly a priority, all actions to bring that down. Jackie's question was about how do we address poverty? Well, the answer is we have to tackle low pay and improve the number of better paid jobs. I think one of the bigger achievements of the government has been the introduction of the National Living Wage that now stands at £11.44. It has been increasing year on year, but this increase is a boost of £1800 pounds for people on that level. The number of low paid jobs in our economy has also gone down. I'm defining low pay as two thirds of the median income as measured by the Office of National Statistics. When I became a member of parliament that was at 21.3% of jobs in our economy that has gone down to 8.9%. So, we have done significant work in improving the pay for the people in the lowest quartile.
Shan Oakes (Green):
Public services need support instead of being denuded. We've got issues with mental health services, special educational needs. The government has been blaming everyone but itself. If you're homeless, if you're vulnerable, if you're disabled, if you've got mental health problems, it's your fault. Teenagers are even being blamed. The government has presided over a grotesque inequality and that's what has to change.
Conrad Whitcroft (Labour):
We need to make sure, Jackie, that we can build those good solid fundamentals that only a national government can deliver. We need to build more homes so that we can lower the price of homes. My dad was 24 when he bought his own first home; I'm 24 now and I'm nowhere near. We need to stop denying our younger generation the chance to buy a home of their own, lower those mortgage costs and start building a chance for a better future. We need to switch on Great British energy. That will get the bills down by average, about £300 per family. And that's going to be a really key thing, not only for solving the climate crisis, but for making things cheaper for all of us that will lower them as well. And then also, I'm very keen about the free school breakfast policy to feed the hungry children. No matter where you come from, what your background is, you can all come to school because no one can learn where they're hungry, come to school and be fed there. So those are the three main things we're going to deal with. This isn’t going to happen overnight, but I firmly believe Starmer’s Labour Party is going to make that change and get Britain's future back.
We would like to thank all candidates for participating in a lively and engaging discussion, and all those who asked such pertinent questions.
Thanks also to John Plummer for facilitating the meeting and Pavilions of Harrogate for hosting.
Written by Zach Greaves - Chamber Press Secretary
