Sign up to FREE email alerts from crewechronicle - weekly Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

As parliament goes into recess for the summer, I took the time to reflect on my Westminster experience so far.

This government seems completely incapable of getting anything done. Although parliament has sat for 21 days since the election, it has only discussed legislation for four of those days. Where else would this level of inaction be tolerated?

Remember the Dementia Tax, new grammar schools, the scrapping of free school lunches and the reversal of the fox hunting ban? Pressure from the Labour Party has forced the Conservatives to abandon some of their most unpopular policies since the election.

For a moment, it looked as though we might have defeated the cuts to our schools with the announcement of an extra £1.3bn in funding. However, this turned out to be all smoke and mirrors. There is no extra money for the education budget and the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed that there will be a 4.6% reduction in education spending between 2015-2019.

Public sector workers, such as those working in our schools, our hospital, our fire station or our police service, have faced years of real-terms pay cuts. A leaked report earlier this year warned that care staff at Cheshire East Council may be paid less than the minimum wage. Almost a quarter of teachers who qualified since 2011 have left the profession and one in five NHS workers are forced to take a second job.

However, the Conservatives cheered as they voted against Labour’s attempt to give these workers the pay rise they deserve.

The Conservative Party’s Chancellor is reported to have said recently that public sector workers are “overpaid”. This is an insult, coming from the second-richest member in cabinet whose salary alone costs the taxpayer almost £12,000 a month!

Workers in the UK are underpaid, in both the public and private sector. The debt charity, StepChange, warns that people are getting into debt at a younger age and renters, in particular, are under pressure. They also point to wage stagnation as a key factor, highlighting that the average client household wage is £46 less per month than it was five years ago. And we all know that things haven’t got cheaper!

Students can leave university with debts in excess of £57,000 these days and Labour had to call for an emergency debate over the Conservatives’ proposals to raise tuition fees again this year.

Car loans, credit card balances and personal loans have risen by 10% but wages have only risen by 1.5%.

I am really concerned about where this will all end. The Bank of England has sounded the alarm over the dangers of rising household debt in its toughest warning yet about the possibility of a rerun of the financial crisis.