The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne last night announced a series of measures in his annual Mansion House speech. Mr Osborne went on to announce that the outgoing governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King would be raised to the peerage as the Lord King. Osborne paid tribute to Sir Mervyn by saying that he had: “helped to lead our country through an extraordinary period of its economic history.”
The global economic crisis that not has not only had a catastrophic impact on small and medium sized businesses, governments and ordinary people – but also large multi-billion pound industries such as Google and Amazon – is continuing to spread. And as governments around the world look to raising as much money as possible, the question has to be asked ‘why are some companies avoiding paying tax?’
The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby has hit the headlines this week after criticising bankers. Archbishop Justin Welby, who was an oil executive on a six figure salary, quit the oil industry to become a man of the cloth in 1992 and was enthroned in February 2013, is well placed to criticised senior executives. The Archbishop also serves on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards thus is insightful on banking matters.
The latest GDP figures were released this morning at 9.30AM. They showed that the UK had very narrowly avoided an unprecedented triple-dip recession. With growth for the first quarter of 2013 coming in at 0.3% – much to the relief of the Chancellor and Prime Minister.
As Britain struggles to get the economy moving again, it is the hard working people and business owners that are struggling to stay afloat. Those on benefits who are in real need are starting to sink and it has to be up to the government to help them stay afloat.
Figures released today from the end child poverty campaign show that child poverty in the UK has continued to rise in some parts of the country. Manchester Central has the highest level of child poverty followed by West Belfast. My home constituency of Blackley and Broughton which is also in Manchester has the ninth highest level of child poverty with 38% of children growing up in poverty; Sheffield had one of the lowest with 5%. With benefit cuts, the bedroom tax and child benefit frozen – it is the poorest families in our society that are going to be hit the hardest. There has been a sharp increase in the number of food banks across the nation as hard pressed families struggle to eat and heat. Rising fuel bills have pushed even middle earners into fuel poverty.