Barnsley’s dismay at Rishi Sunak’s low key response to cost of living crisis in Spring Statement – Jayne Dowle

Covid reflections two years after lockdown and lessons for schools over teacher recruitment – The Yorkshire Post says

Inflation hit a 30-year high of 6.2 per cent in February – a level not seen since 1992 when I was too young and too foolish to think about how much it was costing me to eat out all the time and buy clothes every weekend.

Mr Sunak can come out with any number of promises, which he has done in his Spring Statement, but the fact remains that real incomes are simply not keeping pace with living costs.

Even before the 2008 recession, I don’t remember ever feeling half as squeezed as this. I didn’t count every drop of diesel I put in the car; I even bought a new (second-hand) model.

I had enough income spare every month to put a little away in an ISA for emergencies, and rarely needed my overdraft. I was careful with all purchases, obviously, and spent hours researching the cheapest tariffs for everything from gas and electricity to pet insurance. However, the difference is that I felt in control.

Right now, however, we’re entirely at the whims of a government which was left almost bankrupt over Covid and stands to make further losses chasing policies to alleviate climate change.

This leaves voters contemplating, on one hand, the withdrawal of the HS2 fast train line from Leeds to London, and on the other, the threat of more toll roads and motorways. It’s said they’re scratching around finding ways to balance the books as road tax dividends fall – thanks to the policy of promoting electric vehicles.

If this is pursuing a policy of levelling up, I’d hate to see what a divisive political agenda looks like. People can barely afford to put their car on the road as it is, without having to pay yet more for the privilege, and I do use that word – privilege – with confidence.

One key point – and the point that everyone in government either misses or chooses to ignore – is that spiralling inflation has an evil twin. Falling or stalling wages.

I’ve checked with official figures compiled by Payperspective, an organisation which monitors pay levels. Apparently, the average (median) annual salary in the UK in 2021 was around £31,461 per year, which equates to £585.5 per week.

This may well be true in some parts of the country, and for some jobs, but a quick scan of local job vacancies here in Barnsley paints a very different picture.

I recently spotted an advert for a senior post – a team leader for a well-established local gardening company. It involves driving, organising projects, managing other people, financial calculations and dealing with customers.

The salary? £21,000 a year, before tax – £1,750 per month, before tax, so around £1,300 after tax. Average rent or mortgage, say around £500 a month. Gas and electricity perhaps £150 a month, and taking into account the rises coming in April perhaps even more. Council tax (for Band D, in Barnsley 2022-23) £161 per month.

If my maths serves me correctly, that’s leaving about £500 a month for everything else. Just over £100 a week to live on, to cover food, running a car and absolutely everything else. A single person would be struggling to make ends meet on that, never mind anyone with a family.

This is just one job. If you look at salaries for trainee teachers, for instance, they’re actually less. Glassdoor, a jobs website, says the average UK base pay is £20,954 per year.

I understand, and the P&Q ferries debacle proves this all too well, that the Government has no power to intervene in the private market economies of individual companies. And it also treads carefully in public sector wage negotiations as the Prime Minister discovered when his promised pay rise for nurses failed to materialise.

However, if rumours prove to hold weight and we really might face a General Election next year, Ministers must take note. We’re a country adrift on a sea of rising prices and stalling incomes. And ordinary people feel increasingly marooned, without any kind of life raft at all.

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