Meeting of the Parliament 23 November 2022
The great snake oil that the SNP tries to sell us is that independence would somehow be an antidote to all the problems that we face. It would compound all the misery and economic cost to hard-working families across the country. It is well past time that the UK Government brought in a proper windfall tax on the banking sector’s profits. We, along with others, successfully dragged the UK Government to the point where it levied a windfall tax on the super-profits made by oil and gas producers. We must now look to the banking sector because, at a time when people are at risk of losing their homes because of the mortgage repayments that are being exacted on them by the banks, the UK Government has initiated a tax break of £18 billion through a cut to the bank levy on those profits. That is unconscionable and should be reversed.
That is how to pay for the measures that we have been calling for since October last year, but the UK Government has not gone far enough. Instead of making sure that banks pay their share, they are happy to impose years of painful stealth taxes on ordinary families.
People deserve much better than that. We, in the Parliament, are duty bound to ensure that our focus is squarely on the issues that make a material difference to the lives of the people who we are here to serve. That is why Liberal Democrats believe that all those who have seen their mortgage payments increase by a significant amount should be able to access a welfare support fund for grants to help cover some of the cost of that rise. That would protect families from falling into arrears or losing their homes, and it is the right thing to do.