Tory MPs demand Chancellor Jeremy Hunt cuts £7billion spending on ‘woke’ anti-racism and LGBT projects and cut UK’s record high taxes instead amid cost-of-living crisis
- A group of 40 Tories has written to the Chancellor about woke spending
- Conservative Way Forward slammed £7bn for anti-racism and pro-LGBT projects
- Ex-ministers David Davis, Esther McVey and Sir Jake Berry among signatories
Jeremy Hunt is under pressure from Tory backbenchers today to axe public funding for ‘woke’ diversity projects and use the savings to cut taxes.
A group of 40 backbenchers have written to the Chancellor as a new analysis by a socially conservative grouping claims as much as £7billion is being spent on anti-racism and pro-LGBT measures.
Conservative Way Forward said its audit of of 6,000 public bodies found more than half a billion pounds is being spent on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within the government.
Billions more is being spent by quangos and contractors on public projects including HS2, it alleged, including an Arts Council programme on ‘unlearning whiteness’.
Senior party figures, including ex-ministers David Davis, Esther McVey and Sir Jake Berry, are among those who signed the letter telling the Chancellor ‘we need to be able to reassure our constituents, who are worried about the cost-of-living crisis, that every penny of taxpayers’ money spent on their behalf provides value for money and is not wasted.
A group of 40 backbenchers have written to the Chancellor as a new analysis by a socially conservative grouping claims as much as £7billion is being spent on anti-racism and pro-LGBT measures.
Senior party figures, including ex-ministers David Davis, Esther McVey and Sir Jake Berry, are among those who signed the letter telling the Chancellor ‘we need to be able to reassure our constituents, who are worried about the cost-of-living crisis, that every penny of taxpayers’ money spent on their behalf provides value for money and is not wasted.
‘We will have a much better chance of cutting taxes or spending more on frontline public services if we end this sort of waste.’
Steve Baker, now a Northern Ireland Office minister, re-launched the Conservative Way Forward group this summer but stepped away when he joined the Government in September.
The Chancellor is understood to be open to considering an upcoming Conservative Way Forward report on the issue as part of a wider efficiency review.
A Treasury spokesperson said: ‘The Chancellor has been clear that spending discipline is crucial for building market credibility, ensuring economic stability, driving long-term growth and sustainably funding public services.
‘Value for money remains paramount for the Treasury. To help manage pressures from higher inflation and keep spending focused on the Government’s priorities, departments will continue to identify efficiency savings in day-to-day budgets.
‘To support departments to do this, the Chancellor is launching an Efficiency and Savings Review. This will include reprioritising spending away from lower-value and low-priority programmes.’
It comes as Tory MP Lee Anderson said he is putting Rishi Sunak ‘on notice’ after accusing his own party of failing to get a grip on illegal migration.
Mr Anderson, a former Labour councillor who defected to the Conservatives before getting elected in Ashfield in 2019, used a piece in the Mail on Sunday to warn his party leadership that it was ‘losing control’ on illegal immigration and was ‘making a mockery of Brexit’.
It comes as the paper reports that the Prime Minister will use a major speech in January to offer voters a clearer vision of the future that includes tougher migration policies and support for families amid the cost-of-living crisis.
Mr Anderson, part of the crop of so-called ‘red wall’ MPs who took Tory seats in former Labour heartlands across the north of England and elsewhere, was a Boris Johnson loyalist who only withdraw his support amid the outcry over the Chris Pincher affair controversy.
He has repeatedly demanded tough action from new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as well as Home Secretary Suella Braverman, in tackling cross-Channel migrants.
The attack from the Tory MP comes only days after a rebellion by backbenchers forced the Prime Minister into two separate climbdowns on onshore wind and housing targets.
Mr Anderson uses the letter to float the possibility that he could end up leaving the party if insufficient action is taken, in what would prove to be another headache for the Prime Minister.
‘We need to sort this out by the end of March – otherwise my constituents and I will rightly lose patience,’ writes Tory MP LEE ANDERSON
JANIS, the father of my constituent Alan Bite, witnessed the horrors of the Second World War before being granted asylum in Britain. He threw himself into British life, worked hard, became a British citizen, and was forever grateful to our country.
Janis is no longer with us, but his story makes me feel incredibly proud of our great country. Britain has always been a kind, welcoming and tolerant country that has looked after refugees from all over the world – including today with Ukrainians.
Yet today our warmth and generosity are being abused by the criminal gangs who are trafficking people to British shores.
We currently spend £6million every day on hotel rooms to house illegal economic migrants from safe countries, at a time when my own constituents in Ashfield can’t afford to heat their homes, let alone pay for hotels and holidays.
These hotels are cancelling constituents’ weddings and holidays, and seaside town hotels are fully ‘booked’. I’ve even got homeless people in my patch who cannot use the local halfway house hotel.
We currently spend £6million every day on hotel rooms to house illegal economic migrants from safe countries, at a time when my own constituents in Ashfield can’t afford to heat their homes, let alone pay for hotels and holidays.
The Permanent Secretary at the Home Office said to me in Parliament that this is a ‘global problem’ requiring a ‘global solution’. This is nonsense. This is a UK problem.
This year, more than 12,000 people have arrived in Britain illegally from Albania – up from 800 last year and 50 in 2020. Almost nowhere else in Europe accepts asylum claims for those coming from Albania – because it’s a safe country. If this is a ‘global problem’, other countries are doing a far better job at solving it than we are.
The Home Secretary told me the Home Office has ‘failed to control our borders’ and she’s right. Parliament and the Conservatives have let down the British public.
Kind-hearted Brits will always want to provide a safe haven for people in genuine need, just as we did for Janis all those years ago. But we’re tired of being taken for fools by greedy lawyers, criminal gangs and human-traffickers who have captured government institutions and who are using our laws and institutions against us.
I still believe that the Conservative Party is the best-placed party to put this right, and the Government can count on my loyal support. But we need to sort this out by the end of March – otherwise my constituents and I will rightly lose patience.
Source: Read Full Article