We are poorer. It's official.  ASDA supermarket produces a regular income tracker. It shows that the weekly spending power of the average family has declined from £180 per week last October to £176 per week now.

Each month for the last ten months families have become a bit worse off.  Family spending power has gone down because incomes have not kept up with the rise in prices of essential goods and services; major items from food to fuel prices go up every month.

And the government is making it worse with a 2.5% increase in VAT in January, and services costing more because of cuts. Slough Council enables local children to swim for free, but government cuts mean that will end soon. The cost of a swim for one adult and two children is around £12.00, nearly half of the average family's daily spending money.

And the educational maintenance allowance which has helped many local young people to stay on in education will end this year.  It's a great scheme, paying out £10, £20 or £30 a week to students who regularly attend and work hard on their course.

This week I voted against another move which will add to the financial pressure on families. Huge tuition fees will make British universities more expensive than any other public university system in the industrialised world.

The Conservatives (and liberals now) claim they have no choice, but they do.  The government has chosen to cut grants to university teaching by 80%, higher than any other public service.  Graduates will pay the whole cots of most courses, instead of sharing the cost with the state.

High fees are not fair; graduates will have to pay much more over a longer period, middle income earners are hit hardest. Future income trackers will show more people getting poorer still.