• Lib Dems and Tories approved 20% VAT last night in Commons vote 
  

• From January, pensioners will face a £400 million VAT tax bill which they will have to start paying months before any increase in the Basic State Pension. Pensioners face paying nearly £8 billion in VAT over the parliament.

• In 2011, weekly pension increases fall behind VAT-fuelled price rises.

• In 2012, pension rises fall behind price rises again, after the Treasury quietly changed the way the so-called ‘triple lock’ up-rates pensions in practice.

• By 2013, pensioners face cuts to Disability Living Allowance benefits, which may total £350 million a year by the end of the Parliament, alongside cuts to Housing Benefit and the lower uprating of public service pensions and benefits.

“This is a betrayal of Scottish pensioners by the Tory-Liberal government. Our retired community has paid in for a life-time and is now being hit hard in the pocket.

“I wanted a plan in place to protect local pensioners from the £8 billion VAT bill but the Liberal Democrats refused to help.

“I can't believe the Tories and Liberals are trying to disguise the tax bill with a few promises which on closer inspection just don't add up. The Budget small print says pensioners keep up on getting hit every year with a host of Treasury tricks”.

Ann McKechin MP today spoke out against the Tory-Lib Dem government's draconian housing benefit cuts which will cause serious hardship in Glasgow communities.

The Glasgow North MP condemned the housing benefit caps of £250 for a one-bed property and £400 for four or more bedrooms, which will hit the most vulnerable people in communities up and down the country.  And, if you’re stuck on Jobseekers Allowance for over a year you will have a further 10% of your HB taken away, notwithstanding the fact that there are fewer job vacancies than there are jobseekers.

The cap will hit the 200,000 single, childless jobseekers and low-paid, hardest. Unemployed people will now have to find the difference out of their weekly JSA payments of £65.45 (higher rate for over 22-year olds) – which are also being squeezed.

A single jobseeker in Glasgow North burgh constituency paying the average £400 per month in private rent could be left with as little as £112 per month to pay for all bills and food.

Private rents are generally significantly higher than social landlord rents. In Glasgow North 20.1% of people live in private rents, in Glasgow Central it is 25.6%, both built up areas are well above the city’s average of 13.8% private rent dwellers.

Ann McKechin MP warned that the housing benefit cuts amounted to a regressive broadside against the low-paid and unemployed, struggling with high rents in our community:

"This is about hitting the poorest and most vulnerable hardest.  Many of my constituents on low incomes have to stump up private rents in excess of £400 per month in order to keep a roof over their head.  When the housing benefit caps come in, many people in this city will face primitive choices between heating and eating through the winter, or ending up homeless.

"There is something truly stomach churning about a cabinet, 23 out of 29 members of which are millionaires in their own right - forcing those who depend on housing benefit to stump up more rent money out of low incomes.

"Housing Benefit is not some cushy number for people in posh areas of London, as portrayed by the Tories and Lib Dems. It is largely claimed by very vulnerable people in subsistence situations who struggle with the cost of living on very low incomes.

"This Government's choice, for it is a political choice not a necessity, is to hit the weakest hardest and it is inexplicably cruel.  

"This is not just bad government, it is cruel government."

Organisations such as Inside Housing have warned that the caps will lead to a 'ghettoisation' of benefit claimants, causing serious social dislocation.

The Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation warned that significant numbers of people on jobseekers allowance live in social housing and cutting their benefit could lead to escalating arrears and hardship. People occupying a property the government thinks is too big will have to make up the difference from or move.

For all the misery this government's caps will cause, they will only 'save' £70 million. The biggest saving (£490 million according to the 2010 Budget Red Book Policy Costings p41) will come from restricting working age entitlements in the 'social sector' (council housing and housing associations).

Ann McKechin MP added:

"Millions across Scotland and the UK will now face a miserable challenge to keep a roof over their head, as a direct result of the arbitrary decision to give a 10% kick in the teeth for people unlucky enough to be stuck on JSA for a year and to cap housing benefit, upon which many of the most vulnerable depend."

On Friday, 25 June 2010, I visited the Glasgow North ESF employability project in Maryhill.

I was very impressed with the training project for people who have experienced mental ill health. The project offers various opportunities for people to build their confidence and self esteem, learn new skills and gain work experience. The service is supported by the Department of Work and Pensions, the European Social Fund, SAMH and the NHS.

These services are vital and offer real support for local people. I am concerned that changes might be proposed as part of the Tory Lib Dem plans for welfare reform that could cut support to services such as this. These services are vital for many vulnerable people and offer a real opportunity for people to access training and employment.

• Click here to visit the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH) website

Today's Budget was as feared a direct attack on the poorest and displayed an ugly lack of care for our nation's children. Cuts to tax credits, pregnancy grants taken from new mums, child benefit frozen for years, support for disabled people being cut, housing support slashed, attacks on the public sector - they are just as we expected from the same old Tories aided and abetted by their new Libdem partners.
 
Rises in VAT will hit the poorest people the hardest and force families to pay over £400 a year extra on household bills. But yet as late as this April , Nick Clegg, now the Deputy Prime Minister declared "Liberal Democrats have costed, in full, our proposals for tax cuts. We can tell you, penny for penny, pound for pound, who pays for them. We will not have to raise VAT to deliver our promises. The Conservatives will. Let me repeat that: Our plans do not require a rise in VAT. The Tory plans do." This is a shameful day for the Libdems in Scotland and they will be judged by their actions over the coming weeks and months.

I have no doubt that Child poverty will increase and the hopes of growth reversed as unemployment rises. Taking such draconian cuts in public services - estimated at over 23% for most departments -over the next 4 years will lead to misery for the many and the real risk of deflation. We need to spread the costs on those with the broadest shoulders and to provide the incentives for growth so that jobs will increase. Even the new Government's Office of Budgetary control pointed out that the Labour Government's fiscal stimulus had increased tax revenue and helped to lower unemployment.