New analysis of Office for National Statistics data has revealed that the Government’s failure to grow the economy for everyone has left people across Yorkshire and the Humber £1,500 worse off in 2022 than when they came to power in 2010.

Since the current Conservative Government took office in 2010, real term wages for people across Yorkshire and the Humber have fallen by 5%, equating to a £1,500 drop in income even before the soaring cost of energy bills is taken into account, and forcing households across the region to stretch less money further.

Consequently, around 700,000 households across the region, just under 30% of the total, experienced financial difficulties according to Bank of England survey data from September 2021 to September 2022, before energy bills skyrocketed further after the energy price cap was raised in October 2022. These figures also show how 1 in 10 households said they were already falling behind on bills before the price hike.

However, the same analysis shows that if the economy had continued to grow at the same rate as it had been with the last Labour government, then there would be £30 billion more to spend on public services without having to raise a single tax.

Speaking on the fall in wages across Yorkshire, Imran said:

“For the last 12 years, this Tory Government has failed to build an economy that actually works for ordinary people, and we are now feeling the cruel consequences of this with stagnating wages and squeezed household incomes as families are having to make smaller wage packets go further than they have done before.

“As a result, we are seeing more and more families finding themselves trapped in poverty as wages simply don’t keep up with the cost of living, whilst good, secure and well-paid jobs also become scarcer and scarcer as the Government pursues a race of the bottom on employment standards and protections instead of growing the economy in a balanced way for everyone, not just those at the very top.

“Given their failure to ensure that our country thrives, it could not be clearer that this Tory Government is out of ideas, out of momentum, and needs to be out of office. Instead of their failed approach, we need a real plan for raising wages by creating an economy that works for everyone through Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan that will deliver good, new, sustainable jobs and through properly engaging with business.”