Tory budget offers nothing to Croydon North.

Steve Reed MP has condemned Tory Chancellor George Osborne for doing nothing in his budget to help families in Croydon North.

In a House of Commons budget debate Mr Reed pointed out that after four years of Tory rule and eight years under a Tory council, Croydon North has record numbers of people living in substandard housing and more than a 1,000 young people out of work for more than a year.

Speaking during the debate Mr Reed said: “There is a desperate housing shortage across London. Croydon North has extremely high numbers of people living in substandard overcrowded private rented housing and what is needed is an urgent increase in the building of affordable and social housing.”

He continued: “One of the most painful of all the challenges facing Croydon North is the scandal of long-term youth unemployment. Week after week in this Chamber I watch Tory Ministers’ complacency about that issue. In Croydon North, more than 1,000 young people have been unemployed for more than a year. That figure remains unacceptably high and the statistic masks the tragedy of individual young people growing up to be told that the society around them thinks that they have nothing to offer. It is a waste of their talent and of their ability, of their present and of their future. A national house building programme at scale could have helped to provide the jobs that those young people need, but that opportunity, alas, was missed.”

Every week people contact Steve struggling to make ends meet due to the cost-living-crisis and this Government are failing to take the required action.

Instead of tackling these critical issues, the Tory budget offered tax breaks for the wealthy and failed to implement Labour’s proposed Youth Jobs Guarantee funded by a tax on bankers’ bonuses.

You can see a full copy of Steve’s speech here