MIKE HILL: We must keep numbers down but not at the cost of jobs and livelihoods

On Tuesday, I voted against the new tier system because of the harm I know it will do to businesses and livelihoods here in Hartlepool.

I understand the need for restrictions to limit the spread of Covid-19 and I understand the need to tackle the pandemic every way that we can. However, Hartlepool Borough Council only just have the funding available to them to cover the costs of this crisis after a decade of cuts from Westminster.

Yet the Government expects Hartlepool Borough Council to manage the crisis in Hartlepool without the full support we desperately need.

With no more funding from Government, this will ultimately result in the council borrowing huge amounts of money to cover future costs of the crisis or making the people of Hartlepool pay for them through increases in council tax, neither of which are appropriate options.

Our rate is coming down because of the hard work and sacrifices of the people in the town.

Our rate is falling at a higher rate than anywhere else in the North East and yet, areas in the south, with increasing rates or higher rates than ours, have been placed in a lower tier.

The Government have still not learned their lessons from the first wave of the pandemic.

My office is still receiving queries from businesses who have not been given the level of support and assistance that they deserve and desperately need.

There are countless self-employed people and small business owners who have been left to fend for themselves.

It would be unthinkable to vote for a system which will continue to exclude them.

We must get a grip on the pandemic and keep those numbers down, but this cannot be at the cost of people’s jobs and people’s livelihoods.

The people of Hartlepool deserve better than what they are being offered from the Tories.

They proved it in Manchester.

They proved it in their spending review. They have proven it time and again over the last 10 years’ worth of savage and politically motivated cuts.

The Tories do not care about the North.