Chancellor George Osborne is celebrating the fact that Gross Domestic Production (GDP) is now 0.2 per cent larger than it was in the first quarter of 2008, prior to the worldwide financial crisis.

Most of this increase was in finance and services, plus we now have a larger UK population.

The government is telling us that more people are employed than ever before. Questions need to be asked about the quality of this work. Most is low skilled, part time, zero hours and insecure.

Many ordinary people are concerned about increasingly squeezed household bedgets. Prices continue to rise for life’s essentials such as food, energy and housing costs, which takes up the larger part of many people’s household budget.

We are told that at times inflation has been lower than prices rises.

Benefits such as Working Families Tax Credits, unemployment benefit and pensions have been increased over the last 20 years based on Cost Price Index (CPI), which does not include the cost of food, energy or housing, as the old Retail Price Index (RPI) did.

This move from RPI to CPI instituted by Mrs Thatcher has cost most households dear.

In the 1990s, Age Concern became increasingly concerned about rising deaths of pensioners during cold winters. It became apparent that these people were having to choose between eating or heating.

This led to George Osborne now telling future pensioners that they may get up to £150 per week in the future; that is if they live long enough to collect it.

Cllr Freda Henderson Westhoughton Town Council