Your say / budget
‘My message to Rachel Reeves is simple: cut bills, tax billionaires’
Across Bristol, people are at breaking point. Bills keep going up. Rents are spiralling, seeing renters paying on average a third of their income on rent each month – and forcing some to leave our city just to keep a roof over their heads. Families are struggling to put food on the table, and in some areas of our city half of all children are living in poverty.
The Labour government came in promising change – to make life better for people in this country. But instead we’ve seen more of the same. Cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners. Attempts to take away vital support from disabled people. Time after time this government has shown that it’s not on the side of those struggling to get by.
Life hasn’t got easier. For most people, it’s kept getting harder.
At a Bristol Green Party rally in November, Denyer said that people’s hopes were being “dashed over and over again” by the Labour government’s proposed methods of saving money – photo: Rob Browne
But there are some who are doing just fine: in 2024, billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by £35m per day, and Britain’s 50 richest families now hold more wealth than half the population combined. The super-rich are getting richer off the back of the hard work of everyone else – all while not paying their fair share of tax to keep our public services running.
That all needs to change – and the upcoming autumn budget is chancellor Rachel Reeves’ opportunity to change it. This must be a cost-of-living budget to make our system fairer and, most importantly, to make life affordable again.
Denyer was elected as MP for Bristol Central in July 2024 – photo: Rob Browne
First, she needs to cut bills. Household energy bills are now 42 per cent higher than they were in 2021 – meanwhile, energy companies made £30bn profit in just one year while their customers were struggling to keep the lights on. This government could bring bills down immediately by removing ‘policy costs’ – additional money charged to customers to pay for government schemes like assisting low-income households with their energy bills – and instead paying for these schemes through general taxation.
This would mean those with the broadest shoulders would contribute the most to these schemes, while those already struggling to pay for their bills wouldn’t pay any extra cost. Energy UK estimates that this would save households between £130 and £370 each year, and cut 15 per cent from businesses’ energy costs.
Second, Reeves needs to take urgent action to lift children out of poverty and make sure every child gets a hot meal every day. There are rumours that she’s set to scrap the cruel two-child benefit cap, which is currently keeping 330,000 children in poverty – which is welcome, but should have happened as soon as Labour got into government.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that inflation rates in the UK dropped to 3.6 per cent, raising hopes of interest cuts in the chancellor’s upcoming budget announcement – photo: Martin Booth
The government must scrap the cap entirely at the budget, but it should also introduce free school meals for every child – giving a hot meal to every child who needs one.
And there’s more. From bringing in rent controls to stop landlords ripping off tenants with unaffordable rent hikes, to bringing water companies back into public hands in order to stop the scandal of companies pouring sewage into our rivers and seas while charging us extra for the privilege – there are so many steps the chancellor could take in the autumn budget to put an end to the rip-off costs people in Bristol and across the country are facing every day.
And for those who ask how to pay for it, the answer is simple: tax wealth fairly.
Right now, many multi-millionaires and billionaires in the UK can get away with paying a lower rate of tax than the cleaners who clean their offices. That needs to change.
A 1 per cent tax on wealth over £10m, or 2 per cent over a billion, could raise nearly £15bn a year.
Add in other ways to tax wealth fairly and you could raise £30bn – money that would be much better spent feeding hungry kids or cutting energy bills than sitting in the ever-growing bank accounts of the super-rich.
So ahead of the upcoming autumn budget, my message to Rachel Reeves is simple: cut bills, tax billionaires. It’s time to make our country affordable again.
This is an opinion piece from Carla Denyer, Green MP for Bristol Central
Main photo: Rob Browne
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