Our focus as a government is on tackling the cost of living, reducing the pressure on households and putting more money into peoples’ pockets.
All of the work last year to stabilise the economy, to deliver investment and new jobs is now starting to bear fruit ahead of significant measures in a few weeks’ time that will see the scrapping of the two-child limit benefitting 69,000 children in Wales, another rise to the national minimum and living wages helping 160,000 Welsh workers, protecting the triple lock with an increase to state pensions for 700,000 Welsh pensioners, a record-breaking permanent increase to Universal Credit standard allowance helping 320,000 Welsh families (including many working families in Cardiff East), and the energy bill cap coming down by 7%.
- Inflation is down
- Wages continue to increase above inflation. Wages rose faster in the first 10 months of our government than they did in 10 years of Conservative rule
- Interest rates have been cut six times since Labour came into office reducing annual mortgage payments by around £1400 a year
- Government borrowing is down
- Retail sales are up 4.5%
- The UK is the fastest growing European G7 economy.
There’s still more to do, but this is good progress and people will feel the
benefit of the improvements this year.