Our beautiful North Northumberland landscape has had its first covering of snow, school Nativity season is in full, adorable swing and, with just days left until Christmas, this is a perfect moment to pause and reflect on what has been a tough year for many.
The Government stepped in and subsidised around half of typical households’ energy bills to help with last winter’s energy bill challenges. Inflation has now halved, which will also help with other bills.
Helping you and your family even more, January’s tax cut (National Insurance cut from 12% to 10%) will ensure you can keep £450 a year more, on average, of your hard-earned pay – £520 for the typical nurse and £630 for a typical police officer. This, alongside the £1,800 a year pay rise for full-time National Living Wage workers in April, plus the 8.3% uplift in the triple locked State Pension, means 2024 will be more financially comfortable for all!
As family and friends visit for Christmas, gifts for friends and family, or your own drinks cupboard, can be solved by shopping local at one of our many fantastic North Northumberland businesses! It was lovely stocking up on Small Business Saturday for pre-Christmas parties with sausages and turkeys from the marvellous Green’s the Butcher in Longframlington – as well as hosting Wooler’s very own Ad Gefrin whisky distillery in Westminster recently!
For my team at my constituency offices in Alnwick and Berwick, who work hard day in and day out on the casework issues that constituents write to me for help with, this is a time for friends and family too, so this is the one time of year that my office is closed, with emergency contact details available on my website.
I wish you and your family every health and happiness – a very Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year!