Labour must break from failed Tory economics - Lorna Slater

Scottish Green Party co-leader Lorna Slater

It was a shameful start to Keir Starmer’s tenure and kept in place one of the most deeply cruel and unfair legacies of Tory rule.

The UK government said that they couldn’t remove it now as there is a review of it taking place. But what can a review tell us that we don’t already know?

The cap has been condemned by every child poverty group in the country and we know that it is actively plunging families into totally avoidable poverty. Every day they delay ending it is a day of hunger or desperation for thousands.

Labour may well get round to removing it eventually, but what they have made clear is that they care more about looking ‘strong’ than they do about the impact they are having on people’s lives here and now.

That is what really worries me about the months ahead. Labour may have finally acknowledged the huge gap in their spending plans, but they are offering more of the failed Tory economics that brought us to this point.

When politicians start to use the language of “tough decisions” it is almost always followed by cuts or broken promises.

We have already had 14 years of Tory governments telling us that we were “all in it together” while cutting back on the kind of services we all rely on. We’re only one month into a new government and they seem to be doing the same.

I was on the debate stage with Scottish Labour’s leader Anas Sarwar when he told a BBC audience “read my lips: no austerity under Labour.” Did he know what his party leadership were planning when he said it?

The reality is that there is more than enough money to transform our country for the better.

By replicating the tax changes we have already made here in Scotland, Labour could raise over £11 billion a year. But that’s only the start of what is possible.

Analysis by the University of Greenwich shows that a progressive wealth tax on the richest 1% of households could raise over £70 billion a year. Just think what that could do for public services.

The UK faces immense challenges, and I know that the new Prime Minister has only been in place for a matter of weeks. But when a government is suspending MPs for voting against something as brutal as the Tory two-child cap it’s not a good start.

I truly hope that this government will live up to the urgency of the times we are in. But it will take a lot more courage than they have shown in the early days.

Lorna Slater, Scottish Green Party co-leader