I really worry that 2024 is set to be the year of the squeezed middle as families and households face a typical hit of over £4,700 from soaring taxes, mortgages and shopping bills.

Research shows a typical middle-income family will pay an extra £1,576 in taxes in the coming year due to the government’s freezing of income-tax thresholds.

The impact of the Chancellor’s cut to National Insurance will be massively outweighed by the government’s stealth taxes, which are clobbering families and dragging people into higher rates of tax.

In addition, a typical family seeing their mortgage deal come to an end will increase their repayments by £240 a month, or a staggering £2,880 a year. This is based on figures from the Bank of England, showing the impact of soaring mortgage rates after the Conservative Party’s disastrous mini budget.

Finally, a typical family’s food shopping bill is still £270 a year more expensive than this time 12 months ago, despite the rate of inflation gradually falling. This adds to a combined hit of £4,726, or £393 a month.

The Lib Dems and I think the government needs to set up a cost-of-living rescue package this year, including support for those hardest hit by mortgage hikes and extra help with energy bills.

A ‘Mortgage Protection Fund’ can be paid for by reversing Conservative tax cuts for banks, to protect families falling into arrears or facing repossession as a result of soaring interest rates.

The fund would be targeted towards homeowners on the lowest incomes and those seeing the sharpest rises in mortgage rates. Those whose mortgage payments rise by more than ten per cent of their household income would be eligible for grants to help cover the cost of that rise, paid monthly.

The government has a Warm Home Discount on the books, but its eligibility is so strict that not everyone on the Universal Credit benefit is allowed on it. If eligibility were extended to include people on Universal Credit, it would take £300 a year off the heating bills of around 7.5 million vulnerable and low-income households.

This can be paid for by putting in place a proper windfall tax on the superprofits of oil and gas producers.

The Conservatives have cut taxes for the big banks by more than £3 billion a year since 2016, through cuts to both the Bank Levy and Bank Surcharge. These cuts need to be reversed so that big banks pay their fair share.

I’ve been out knocking on doors in Woking – I know people are worried sick about paying the bills and having to make big cut backs just to get by. But instead of helping, Rishi Sunak and the government are hitting families with yet more tax rises while the Conservative Party soap opera continues in Westminster.

People are fed up with paying the price for this endless Conservative chaos. This is the year we can finally kick the Conservative Party out of government and offer the hope the country so desperately needs.