Barnet Labour Leader Barry Rawlings has today written to the Chancellor to demand answers after the Conservatives secret £5m cut to local families was exposed. This comes just a year after the Conservatives crashed the British economy.

The Household Support Fund is an £842m fund to help families with food and energy costs. Incredibly, as the cost of living crisis deepens, drivenin no small part by the largest tax burden in 70 years, the Chancellor has abolished the fund – cutting £5m in support for households in Barnet.

Cllr Rawling’s letter to the Chancellor is reproduced in full below

Dear Jeremy,

Under the Conservatives families in Barnet have faced 13 years of stagnation, low growth, falling wages, rising taxes and crumbling public services. Last year, your party recklessly crashed the British economy, setting off run-away inflation and hammering working families further. The cost-of-living crisis you have delivered is hurting each and every one of us.

Your Autumn Statement was an opportunity to fix the mess you have created. Labour has set out a plan to deliver the growth this country needs – it is a real shame you failed to take it up.

Now, to add insult to injury, it has emerged that you not only failed to offer the support struggling families need – in secret you are taking it away. The Household Support Fund provides much needed assistance to those who need a little help to make ends meet through the cost of living crisis your party helped create.

Taking that support away is an attack on hard working families in Barnet who are doing everything they can to get their families through the worst parliament for living standards in history.

The Conservatives have utterly wrecked the British economy – and you are asking families in Barnet to pay the price.

Barnet needs an end to the unthinking incompetence. After 13 years of failure we badly need a plan for growth.

I look forward to your response – and your plan to properly support families in Barnet through the Conservative cost of living crisis.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Barry Rawlings
Leader, London Borough of Barnet Council