This week is the beginning of a new financial year. Over the coming months, we should begin to see the benefits of some of the economic measures that Labour has put in place since the election to tackle the cost of living crisis.
These include:
•Removing the two-child benefit limit. This affects around thousands of households across the constituency, putting more money directly into the hands of those who need it most.
•Introducing Statutory Sick Pay, paternity and unpaid parental leave rights from day one of employment (key measures in Labour’s Employment Rights Act) making employment more secure and improving workers rights
•Freezing prescription charges for the second year in a row
•Freezing rail fares for the first time in 30 years, a significant saving for everyone who uses the railways
•Ensuring a pay boost for thousands of workers in Stroud and the district as both the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage increase by 4% – a rise worth £900 a year
•Energy Bill Support, with an average £117 reduction on household energy bills, applied to all households on top of the £150 Warm Homes Discount for low income households.
•Uprating inflation-linked benefits by 3.8%, alongside a State Pension uplift of 4.8%
•Launching the Crisis and Resilience Fund, a new fund covering cash-first crisis payments and housing payments to assist people when faced with a financial crisis.
All this means that those people who need it most will have more money to spend locally – putting millions of pounds back into the local economy.
There’s so much more to do, and we don’t get all of it right – but we are making a real difference.
