Labour minister Sarah Jones came under the cosh on Question Time this week after an audience member blasted the Labour government for “screwing people over.”
The member of the public asked Ms Jones, the Minister of State for Industry, when people in the UK will start to feel the benefit of the Budget.
They said: “Quite frankly, you’ve screwed a lot of people over: pensioners, farmers… and it’s alright saying ‘make an unpopular decision now’…but when are we going to feel the benefits because what we don’t want is another return to austerity.”
Ms Jones told the audience member that “there will be no return to austerity”, adding that the last government left Labour with a number of economic problems to address.
This comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves raised taxes by £40billion. The Government has also cut the Winter Fuel Allowance.
Reeves targeted employers’ National Insurance contributions while making changes to wealth taxes to raise more funds.
The employers’ National Insurance hike has sparked controversy because experts have warned that working people will feel the effects too, despite the Government vowing taxes will not be raised for working people.
The audience member continued: “But surely better decisions could have been made” before listing some of the demographics hit hard by the Budget.
“Many Labour voters will go against you.”
The minister said austerity was “not the plan in the Budget and that is not the long-term plan.”
She continued: “The second thing I want to say is, I came in as a minister in the Department of Business and Trade.
“It’s where the money for the Horizon Scandal was supposed to be. It wasn’t there. It’s where the money for the advanced manufacturing fund: £4.5bn, important to this region…There was no money for that.
“The scale of the problem was significant.”
She added that “people on the lowest income will get a benefit now” because the Government has increased the living wage to a point “where three million people will get a pay rise”.
