Charlotte Cane

On growth in every postcode, the Chancellor seems to have forgotten the people in Ely and East Cambridgeshire. There was nothing in the Budget and no funding for the Ely junction improvements, which would increase capacity on that rail line for freight and for passengers and make it more reliable. There was nothing to reduce rail fares, which are getting out of many people’s reach. There was nothing to help the county council with the phenomenal cost of mending our soil-affected roads. It estimates the cost to be £500 million, an amount that no county council can find. It is roughly 10 times its annual budget for road repairs. We have roads that, over this summer, actually had no earth underneath them any more, and when people go out to repair them, they instead have to close the road, because there is no earth on top of which to repair it. On buses, it is great that we have capped bus fares, but many of my villages do not have buses at all. There was nothing in the Budget about improving bus routes and getting more buses. There was nothing on the A10. The money for that has been removed, and nothing has been put back in the Budget. So is growth really for every postcode? Not for mine. As for the farmers, who had that catastrophic sustainable farming incentive process that closed within hours, there is nothing for them. There is nothing to recognise the problems they had over this long, hot, dry summer. We need to back our farmers. They are in my postcodes, and they feed all of us. On the breathing space, there are some good things in the Budget to help people with the cost of living, but not for people on heating oil. I have had a letter from a young mum who tells me that she has to find £650 just to buy the minimum amount of oil that can be delivered, and that would not last her the winter. She cannot ask for money from the crisis and resilience fund, because she had that back in the spring, and she has been told she cannot ask again. Yes, she will probably get £100 in January, but she needs £650 now. To add insult to injury, the Chancellor has cut the budgets for helping people get away from their dependence on oil heating, so I cannot even be sure that all my constituents can take advantage of moving on to heat pumps or other technology. At the very least, will the Chancellor please look again at how he can help people on oil central heating, because they desperately need it this winter, and please can we not just tell them to eat gherkins?