The Conservative budget ‘could hit Islington hard’, say MPs

Islington’s Labour MPs have condemned the Conservative Budget unveiled last Wednesday as a raft of deep welfare cuts were announced.

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, who is running for the leadership of the Labour party, told MPs: “The Budget we’ve just received today is the first Tory budget for a very long time and...it’s a bit like this is the land that time forgot.

“It’s exactly the same, exactly the same narrative of cutting taxation for the very richest, making life worse for the very poorest and selling off state assets to pay for it all along the way.”

Mr Osborne last week unveiled a package of economic measures that would save £34bn over this parliament, including £12bn of controversial welfare cuts such as lowering the cap on benefits from £26,000 to £23,000 and limiting tax credits and universal credit support to the first two children from April 2017.

Other contentious measures included axeing maintenance grants for university students from low income backgrounds in place of maintenance loans that they would need to pay back once they are earning over £21,000.

Mr Corbyn criticised the Conservatives’ “anti-benefit narrative” and said that the Chancellor had “done nothing” to address the housing shortage, including the lack of council housing being built.

Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury joined Mr Corbyn in criticising the “Tory assault on working families.”

Speaking out in the House of Commons debate, Ms Thornberry told MPs: “This is a budget that does nothing for private renters, just as it does nothing to increase the supply of genuinely affordable social housing.”

The former shadow Attorney_General also condemned the cuts to tax credits “which will take up to £2,000 a year away from low-income families with children” before criticising Boris Johnson’s “obstruction of affordable housing” at Mount Pleasant.

She said: “Islington deserved so much better than this disgraceful budget.”