This week marked the Government’s Autumn Statement, which I attended in Parliament, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer laid out his economic priorities. 

After thirteen years of economic failure under the Conservatives, working people are worse off. Our NHS is on its knees and our school buildings are crumbling. Prices are still rising in the shops, our energy bills are among the most expensive in the world and mortgage payments are soaring after the Conservatives crashed the economy.  

The questions people will be asking after today are these: do me and my family feel better off than when the Conservatives were elected thirteen years ago? Do our hospitals, our schools and our police work better than they did thirteen years ago?  

In fact, does anything in Britain work better today than thirteen years ago? 

We all know the answer is no. 

This week, the Conservatives have put forward a desperate and unbelievable attempt to convince people that they are not the party of high tax and low growth. 

With 25 Tory tax rises since 2019, households are left paying £4,000 more in tax each year than they did in 2010. Taxes are at their highest for over 70 years. It’s like the Tories have nicked your car but offered to pay for the bus ride home. 

In contrast, Labour’s defining mission is to restore growth to Britain – delivering higher living standards and better public services. Labour’s next Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s priorities will be tackling the cost of living, growing our economy and boosting people’s wages. 

Over the weekend, we unveiled our Better Off Plan to cut household bills by up to £3,000 a year over the next decade. This includes saving families and working people £500 a year by insulating homes to make them more energy efficient and £900 a year by building cheaper, cleaner power across the country by switching on Great British. 

A further £400 will be saved through a crackdown on unfair car insurance practices with a huge £1,200 a year saved on mortgage bills by building 1.5 million homes over five years to keep housing affordable. 

This comes on top of our existing commitments to rebuild the economy in the interests of working people and on the foundation of economic stability and fiscal responsibility. 

Labour will put forward a new Charter for Budget Responsibility to avoid a repeat of the devastation Liz Truss and the Tory Party inflicted on family finances, and appoint a Covid Corruption Commissioner to help recover billions lost to waste and fraud. 

Second, we will invest in British industries, so we can unlock billions of pounds of private sector investment to create better paid jobs at home and bring more money into local areas. 

Third, we will give working people more skills and security in the workplace, so we can make work pay again. Under the Tories, earnings have risen by just 3p a week but under the last Labour government, earnings rose by £58 a week. 

It’s time for a change from the party which has presided over the biggest hit to living standards on record. Labour is now the party of fiscal responsibility, the party of growth and the only party with a plan to make working people better off.