Labour leaders sit in Tory trap

After a year in which the NHS and other public services have crumbled as never before, the Tories’ 22 November Autumn Statement responded by tax cuts for big business and no relief for public services.

Even before winter starts, the NHS waiting list (on latest available figures, September 2023) is still rising, and at a record level of 7.8 million in England. It was a bit over two million before the Tories came to office in 2010.

Most patients (57.6%) on the waiting list in September 2023 had been there for more than 18 weeks. 391,122 cases had been waiting more than 52 weeks and some for more than two years.

Eleven “section 114 notices” - where an elected council says it can’t balance its books, and hands over to unelected commissioners - have been issued by local authorities since 2018, where there were only two in the 18 years previous. Even Tory council leaders warn of worse to come.

Mostly, however, the Autumn Statement was an announcement of planned public-sector cuts in future, calculated to let the government claim that public debt will be falling in five years’ time. Some of the cuts are all too likely - like the move to reduce benefits for many disabled people (see back page) - and some others are probably just notional.

The Tories don’t expect to be in office when those cuts fall due. The aim is to enable the Tories to pretend to “balance the books” and to trap a future Labour government.

The Labour leaders are sitting in the trap and making no effort to get out. They criticised the Autumn Statement, but made no commitment to reverse the planned cuts, and no commitment to raise taxes on the rich in order to restore the NHS and public service. Labour leaders just talked vapidly about “growth”. They are driving the next Labour government into a brick wall of collapsing public services. The unions and local Labour Parties must mobilise to put taxing the rich onto the agenda.

The Autumn Statement continued a scheme, which had been temporary, for corporations to deduct investment spending from profits before calculating their tax. (Like a household deducting spending on durables before its income is assessed for tax). It also cut National Insurance contributions. Workers moving into higher income-tax bands through inflation will largely offset that.

A welcome by-product of the 2022-23 pay battles is that the minimum wage will go up to £11.44 an hour from April 2024, a 9.8% rise. Workers who are lower-paid but a bit above the minimum can take that as a cue to demand at least a 9.8% rise in 2024-5 pay deals.