Budget 2016: Gavin condemns regressive Tory budget
Gavin Newlands, the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, has responded to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s budget today – saying that it is an attempt to “balance the books on the backs of cash-strapped families, our poorest and disabled”.
In his eighth budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed that the UK Government is committed to a further £3.5 billion cuts by 2019/20, that the OBR had downgraded UK growth forecasts and that he had failed to cut the debt-to-GDP ratio.
Speaking after the Chancellor unveiled his budget in the House of Commons, Gavin Newlands MP said:
“As he admitted himself at the dispatch box, the Chancellor has failed to meet his self-imposed targets on debt, deficit and borrowing. This failure stems from his ideologically-driven austerity agenda – cutting too much, too quickly; cuts that have hindered our economy and restrained our recovery.
“The Chancellor’s cuts are of choice, not necessity. The Tories have chosen to try and balance the books on the backs of cash-strapped families, our poorest and disabled.
“The Chancellor often uses the rhetoric of ‘difficult decisions’, but the undeniable truth is that it is his decisions, his political choices, that cause great difficulty for people across Renfrewshire and throughout Scotland.
“We know that his choices will cost millions of families £1,600 per year by 2020. We know that his choices will make disabled people’s lives harder by slashing their benefits and support. His ‘difficult decisions’ are in fact disgraceful decisions.
“This budget is not ‘compassionate conservatism’, instead it showcases the callousness of this out-of-touch Tory government – and they should be ashamed of themselves.”
