Budget 2017 and Finance Bill

[Steve]

Mr Deputy Speaker,

This Government came to office earlier this year with a simple promise.

That we would govern for the many, not the few.

This Budget, Mr Deputy Speaker, delivers on this promise. It is a Budget for the many, not the few.

And it is about time, Mr Speaker. When the former Chancellor of the Exchequer came to office in 2010, he held a so-called emergency Budget. In it, he set out country, and our economy, on a path. Lower growth, higher taxes on working people, cuts for the most vulnerable, and public services on the brink.

So today, Mr Deputy Speaker, this Budget will put an end to the sorry politics and damaging economics of austerity. 

We can all see the damage of the last seven years.

NHS waiting lists at record levels.

Millions having resorted to foodbanks for the basic dignity of a hot meal.

Our basic infrastructure as a country crumbling: potholes on your local road, local bus services cancelled, green home improvements dropped.

Tuition fees and funding cuts pricing poor kids out of university and further education, cutting the deficit by pouring more debt on their shoulders

Tax cuts for the wealthy and for big corporations, while the poorest and the smallest businesses pay more.

And we can also see the economic cost, Mr Speaker. 

Real wages and incomes have stagnated: barely growing for most families. 

Our productivity as a country - the amount we produce per person - has stagnated, with France, Germany, the US, Japan - all surging ahead of us.

Business investment, stubbornly low.

And that is today confirmed by the Office for Budget Responsibility in their latest assessment of the UK economy, in what they called “a remarkable period of post-crisis weakness”. 

In undertaking their forecasts, they have reassessed those recent trends, and concluded that the economy will, without further policy action, grow more weakly in the future than they had previously anticipated: by 1.2% this year, and by 0.9% next year. They then expect growth to pick up, but are clear that their current expectation is that it will grow more slowly than their previous expectations.

This, Mr Speaker, is the price of austerity. Poorer public services. A weaker economy. More inequality.

Today, Mr Speaker, this Budget rises to the challenges that austerity has left us with, and leaves us well placed to prosper as we leave the European Union: it will deliver a stronger economy, a fairer tax and welfare system, and better public services. For the many, not the few.

This will be underpinned by the Government’s new fiscal credibility rule, which will be presented to Parliament to vote on early next year. The rule requires the Government to balance the budget on day-to-day spending: we will not put the spending of today on the credit card of tomorrow. And we will ensure that debt-to-GDP by the end of this Parliament is lower than at the beginning.

I can confirm that on the basis of this Budget and plans submitted to the Office for Budget Responsibility, we are meeting those rules with plenty of headroom to spare. On current forecasts, the current budget deficit and net debt as a share of GDP will both fall every single year of the forecast period, while overall spending will grow in real terms every single year.

The overall deficit will rise slightly next year as we establish the National Transformation Fund and with growth below trend, but will then fall as a share of GDP in subsequent years, and will remain around 3% of GDP - around the same level as its average since the 1960s. That is a rate consistent with our debt falling.

Beyond ensuring that we finish the job that austerity could not, this Budget will focus on three big priorities: ending austerity, investing in transforming our economy, and fairer taxes to fund better public services.

Ending Austerity and investing in public services and social security

The first priority of this Budget is to reverse the effect of austerity on our young people, our sick loved ones, and our communities. 

We will do that by restoring our world class public services, and reversing the most damaging cuts to social security spending.

The crisis faced in some our hospitals, schools, and communities demands immediate action. I have listened, and will take action.

That is why the Budget takes £5 billion of immediate action to relieve pressure in our hospitals, schools, and communities for the remainder of this year. That will include around £1 billion each for hospitals and schools; allowing hospitals to come closer to meeting their targets and reversing completely the cuts made schools funding made by the previous government; £500 million to begin plugging gaps in our social care system; as well as investment in flood defences, HMRC compliance, and our commitments made to investments to ensure that there is never another Grenfell.

From January 1st, Mr Deputy Speaker, we will also reverse the most egregious cuts to social security: removing the two-child limit, cancelling the cuts to universal credit, restoring the family element to tax credits, abolishing the bedroom tax, and reintroducing housing benefit entitlement to 18-21 year olds.

And I am also pleased to announce that all social security payments will be uprated on 1 January with the updated inflation forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility: ending the unfair welfare freeze early, and giving everyone a boost in January ahead of the regular uprating in April next year.

These immediate changes will benefit all of us, Mr Speaker.

And next year, 2018-19, we will go further, taking decisive action to end austerity and build world-class public services.

I am cancelling the £8 billion of cuts to public spending planned for next year by the previous Government. Every department will see its budget rise at least with inflation, and our core public services by significantly more.

As part of that, I am pleased to announce the end of the public sector pay cap and a return to normal collective bargaining. 

The cap has left the public sector struggling to retain staff, our NHS nurses and doctors demoralised, and our schools struggling to attract talent. It was a blunt, self-defeating policy that made all of us poorer. I have asked the pay review bodies to report ahead of the financial year on their recommended pay awards. I expect departments can, in the scope of their new and enhanced budgets, manage reasonable pay awards, and my expectation is generally that they will recommend pay increases in line with inflation this year. However, I am setting aside £500 million to support pay awards above inflation in specific circumstances where there is a clear need and no departmental means to fund them.

But stopping £8 billion of cuts this year would do nothing to undo the damage done to our public services. This Budget, Mr Speaker, will seek a step change in the performance of our public services - for the students, the patients, the people that rely on them

We will build a National Education Service, with cradle-to-grave high quality education accessible to all. My Right Honourable Friend, the Secretary of State for Public Services, made an excellent statement to this House just last week laying out our plans. Plans that will give everyone in this country the best start and, if they want or need it, restart in life.

This Budget makes significant investments to start that work by:

• Investing £1.7 billion in childcare and pre-school education to raise standards, build graduate capability in the sector, and prepare it for the Government’s plans to significant expand access to childcare in the next five years.
• Permanently reversing Conservative Party cuts to school funding, worth £4.3 billion a year, and rolling our universal free school lunches at primary school
• Restoring the education maintenance allowance for further education students from lower income families, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies said will actually save money in the long run; and equalising the funding between schools and further education to raise standards in our colleges and sixth forms
• Providing for 50,000 apprenticeship to reverse the first significant decline in starts last year since modern apprenticeships began, and providing £40 million to the Open University to work with employers on the next generation of degree-level apprenticeships

And yes. Mr Speaker, for the working class student out there wondering whether they can afford to apply for that university place next year, I am pleased to confirm that the Government will completely abolish tuition fees for students from the 2018-19 academic year onwards, and restore maintenance grants for low-income families.

We will not Mr Deputy Speaker, balance the books by shoving more debt on our young people.

[Pauses for a sip of water]

All of us, Mr Deputy Speaker, will have constituents who have come to them unable to see their doctor, or have waited at A&E for hours and hours, or have been waiting months for surgery.

When Labour left office in 2010, nearly everyone was seen at A&E within four hours; was referred to treatment at hospital within 18 weeks; and saw their GP within 48 hours.

The last government had to change the first target because they couldn’t hit it, and still missed it; abolished the second target when it transpired that nearly a quarter of people weren’t getting seen in 18 weeks; and scrapped the first one before they could even fail it.

They paint a clear picture: our NHS struggling.

So next year we will make an extra £4.5 billion available to our NHS, and direct that funding towards those trusts most struggling to meet core NHS standards.

The biggest annual increase in NHS funding since Labour were last in Government.

And we will abolish the unfair hospital car parking charges once and for all, restore nurses bursaries, and invest £2 billion total every year to meet the immediate funding gaps in our social care system.

[Pauses for a sip of water]

Since 2010 we have seen a growing crisis in our policing and criminal justice services.

There are 10,000 less bobbies on the beat. It takes nearly two years on average for a serious case to make it through the Crown Court, denying victims swift justice. And the innocence tax imposed by sweeping cuts to legal aid has left people forced to spend their life savings and remortgage their house, or worse, be forced to defend themselves.

So we will take the first important steps to reverse this, Mr Speaker. We will recruit 10,000 more police to work on community beats this Parliament, we will reverse the last three years of cuts to the courts system, and we will invest £400 million in rebuilding our legal aid system.

Thanks to our decisions, core public services will see their first real growth in spending since 2010. This will extend all across our United Kingdom. Thanks to our decisions, the Governments and Executives of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will see their funding grow by over £1 billion each in Scotland and Wales, and nearly £1 billion in Northern Ireland.

[Pauses for a sip of water]

This Budget, Mr Speaker, begins the long and hard work of ending austerity.

It ends austerity for the many, not the few.

It ends austerity for students in our schools, for whom we are immediately reversing all the cuts the previous Government made to funding per pupil.

It ends austerity for patients who can’t see a GP or a doctor, for whom we are delivering the biggest increase in NHS spending in nine years.

It ends austerity for communities at risk of, and victims of, crime, by reversing cuts to the police, the courts, and legal aid.

It ends austerity for the millions of families resorting to food banks, by ending and reversing cruel cuts to social security.

But ending austerity in our public services and in our social security system is just the first step, Mr Deputy Speaker. Because we need to go further to repair our economy from the damage that austerity has done to it.

The National Transformation Fund

That is why, Mr Deputy Speaker, the second priority of this Budget is transforming our economy to the higher wage, lower emission future.

The stagnation of the last seven years cannot be allowed to persist. It would mean lower living standards, less economic security for ordinary people, and less money for our public services.

Ending austerity must also mean moving past the austerity economy. A path to prosperity, not austerity.

And as we leave the European Union, it becomes even more important for us as a country to forge our own, uniquely British path to prosperity. One that harnesses the skills of all our people, all our nations and regions, and all our talent and ingenuity.

That is why today I am confirming that the Government will establish a ten-year £250 billion National Transformation Fund - borrowing at record low interest rates to invest in transforming our economy to a higher-wage, lower-emissions future.

Alongside Budget I am publishing The National Transformation Fund White Paper, setting out the current allocations of the fund; and the Secretary of State for Transport and Infrastructure will make further detailed announcements. 

However, I can confirm that over the next five years the Government has set an overall envelope of £115 billion, which will include:

• Funding to roll out gigabit broadband to the vast majority of homes by the mid 2020s - making sure that the UK is world leading on high-speed internet, not lagging behind like we have on superfast broadband
• £20 billion of new R&D funding, building the new high-tech economy of the future
• Investment to achieve our target of the Government building 100,000 homes every year - with 20,000 of them for sale
• Funding for a record rail programme, with a firm commitment to electrification of the majority of the rail network, re-opening branch lines, and improvements to Welsh Rail to bring it up to higher speed standards and connect it to HS2 in the north, Midlands, and South Western Rail.

My Right Honourable Friend, The Secretary of State for Energy and Infrastructure, last month laid out our commitment to complete the full HS2 route. Today I can announce that the National Transformation Fund will go further than that.

Today, I can confirm that we will commit to a truly revolutionary Northern Powerhouse Rail programme so that it can achieve its full potential: connecting the great city regions of the North of England with new or upgraded lines, interoperable with HS2. A true High Speed 3 for the North, creating prosperity, jobs, and cutting our carbon emissions.

We are setting the ambitious target for work to begin by the early 2020s, and for it to be fully complete by the mid 2030s, opening in stages. We expect the network in total to cost up to £39 billion.

HS2 and HS3 will connect the South of England to the Midlands of England, the Midlands of England to the North of England, and the great cities of the North of England together.

And after discussions with the Scottish Government, I am delighted to announce that we will commit to a new scheme - High Speed 4, or HS4 - that will connect Glasgow and Edinburgh into this new High Speed network via upgrades to existing routes and new high speed routes to around busy tracks. While work is in its early stages, we and the Scottish Government has agreed to jointly funding this new HS4 from the early to mid 2020s onwards, with initial estimates of a cost between £20 and £25 billion.

A truly national high speed network, fully in place in Britain by the mid 2030s; connecting our country and our cities and our economies.

Combined with re-opening branch lines to towns, a revitalisation of local public transport, and investment in Welsh Rail that connects upgraded lines into this network, it offers a truly national 21st Century public transport network.

While this national transport is vital, so is good local transport. Since 2010 there have been 3,000 bus routes cut because of cuts to bus funding outside London of up to 50%. So I am also investing £150 million extra a year, outside the National Transformation Fund, in bus subsidies and funding so that local transport in our towns is not left behind.

And as well as these shared investments, the Governments and Executives in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland will benefit too: receiving their fair share of this fund. Next year, Scotland will receive nearly £1.5bn, Wales £750m, and Northern Ireland over £500m - all helping them achieve a step change in investment and prosperity.

This National Transformation Fund will turbocharge the growth and prosperity of our economy in the future.

And it will be supported in that by a new National Investment Bank, which will leverage £250 billion of investment in infrastructure and businesses at safe and secure interest rates. I will introduce legislation on this early next year.

Next year, Mr Speaker, myself and the Secretary of State for Energy and Infrastructure will deliver to this house our new industrial strategy - setting out how the Government will support industrial transformation, growth, and decarbonisation: creating the green and highly skilled jobs of the future.

Fairer Taxes

Mr Deputy Speaker,

Putting the end of austerity behind us does not, and will never under a Labour Government, mean that we do not live within our means. 

The Conservatives in Government tried - and failed - to use austerity to balance the books.

They failed. Debt as a share of GDP rose every single year they were in office.

They failed: they simply pushed debt onto young people instead.

Ending austerity will benefit our economy and our people. But paying for it does mean taking a good hard look at the taxes we pay in this country.

The UK tax system currently taxes ordinary, hardworking people more than people who earn money through investments, companies, or the gains they make on shares or second homes. It taxes small businesses far more than it taxes large multinational ones. It taxes distributed profits more heavily than it does high quality investment.

We can’t fix all those problems at once. But we can make significant advances on it, while raising money to fund the end of austerity.

That is why this Budget delivers tax reform for the many, not the few.

Successive cuts to corporation tax have not delivered on the trickle-down economic benefits promised, while exacerbating inequality and rewarding large companies for hoarding profits. Britain now has a rate of corporation tax 8% below any other major advanced economy. Therefore, corporation tax will rise to 26p in the pound by 2020-21. The small profits rate remains at 19p in the pound. Britain will continue to have the lowest rate of corporation tax of major advanced economies, while raising £20 billion extra a year for public services.

To support the most innovative businesses, and those investing in their growth, we will increase the R&D Tax Credit to 15%.

To support our smallest businesses, particularly with the transition to a real living wage, we will increase the National Insurance Employment Allowance by £1,000 this year, while reforming it so that it no longer applies to larger businesses with a National Insurance bill of more than £100,000

As Labour’s manifesto promised, income tax will remain unchanged for those earning under £80,000 - 95% of taxpayers. New rates of 45p and 50p will apply above £80,000 and £123,000 respectively, reversing previous cuts to income tax for higher earners and asking those on higher incomes to make a meaningful contribution to the end of austerity. Alongside reforms to the taxation of dividends consistent with these changes, including removing the dividend allowance and introducing a new rate alongside the 50p rate, these reforms will raise nearly £10 billion a year for public services.

Since 2010 there has been an extreme rise in inequality among very top earners. The pay of FTSE100 CEOs has risen by more than 33% since 2010, while real wages elsewhere have stagnated. This has taken the ratio of CEO pay to average pay from 150:1 to 183:1, despite a deteriorating economic situation that suggests little return for that investment. 

Therefore we will introduce a new levy on companies that pay their staff excessive salaries - including non-cash options like stocks and pension contributions - above £330,000 a year. That levy will be 2.5% paid by employers, and will  raise £1.3bn a year while also discouraging excessive salaries.

Currently, a significant proportion of the income of the wealthiest in our country is made through capital gains on property, shares, or other assets. Those capital gains are taxes much more lightly than hardworking people. The average worker pays a rate of 32% on their income; some investors just 10% on their capital gains.

This simply isn’t fair.

Therefore, we will reform the taxation of capital gains, raising rates by 8ppts - reversing cuts made by the last Government in 2015; abolishing the unfair and so-called Entrepreneurs Relief that serves to allow hedge funds to pay half the tax they ought to; and we will reduce the Annual Exempt Amount to £1,000 - ensuring as much capital gains income is taxes as administratively possible. Together these measures will raise £6.1 billion.

We will reverse the previous Government’s cuts to the bank levy, raising £1.6bn a year.

Currently, the very wealthy can easily avoid paying inheritance tax by structuring their investment in business or agricultural policy. Genuine family farmers and family businesses owners - except the very largest - will continue to be able to pass their assets on tax free or tax advantaged. But we will introduce new tests to ensure that it is not subject to abuse, halving the costs of these reliefs and raising £650million a year. 

To support our investments in the National Education Service, we will levy VAT on private school fees next year onwards at 5% and then by 5% more each year until it pays the full 20% VAT rate; and to support our investments in the NHS we will apply the higher rate of Insurance Premium Tax to medical insurance.

A package of reforms to tackle avoidance, evasion, unfair exclusions from Stamp Duty Reserve Tax, and offshore company property acquisitions will raise £8.1bn this year; and we will raise at least an extra £2.5bn a year from avoidance and evasion by the end of this Parliament.

This package of tax reforms will, Mr Speaker, significantly rebalance our tax system: wealthier people and larger corporations will be asked to pay a fairer share.

Among the tax reforms made by the last Government, the introduction of the Marriage Tax Allowance stands out as a particularly cynical ploy. A widely misunderstood relief claimed by less than half that are eligible, it is a tax break for a specific subset of a specific group of married couples. It takes no account of need, has no real policy rationale, and is so complicated that the Opposition - in trying to oppose its abolition - actually got it wrong in the first place.

So we will abolish the Marriage Tax Allowance, Mr Speaker. And the proceeds will support a £5 a week increase to Child Tax Credits: a measure worth more to working families really in need of support. It will cut child poverty and cut the net tax bill of low and middle income families raising kids.

But a fairer tax system will not only raise the taxes paid by those not currently paying their fair share.

The Labour Party, Mr Speaker, believes in lower taxes for hardworking people. Not lower taxes for the wealthy and the rich.

That is why from next April, everyone will be able to earn up to £11,500 every single year before paying a penny in National Insurance Contributions or in income tax.

That is a tax cut of up to £400 a year to any taxpayer earning at least £11,500.

No one earning up to £11,500 will pay a penny of income tax or national insurance at all.

Around three quarters of that tax cut will be withdrawn from those paying the higher rate of income tax. But the 95% of people earning less than £80,000 a year will pay less, not more, in tax under a Labour Government.

A tax cut for the many, not the few.

Mr Deputy Speaker,

This Budget delivers on our central promise to the British people at the last election.

It ends austerity: putting patients, students, and communities first.

It invests in the transformation of our economy: building the high-wage, low-emissions economy of the future as we leave the European Union.

It delivers fairer taxes: ensuring big corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share to end austerity, while cutting taxes for lower income earners.

A Budget, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the many, not the few - and I commend it to this House.
 

[Steve]

Budget 2017: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SupVdHB1wgzknexUamRsKcXlZdyLMnQC5Ptw6gYh2Q8/edit?usp=sharing

Summary of changes, and National Transformation Fund document, attached.

 

High_wage_low_emission_1.pdf Budget decisions.pdf

Edited November 4, 2022 by Harry West
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[Sir Peregrine Messervy]

 

Mr Deputy Speaker,

 

I’m sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought he had seen the last of me. But like a dodgy kebab on the morning after the night before, I have risen up again from the political underbelly to give him some aches and pains.

 

And may I congratulate the Chancellor, on a serious note, for the presentation of his first budget. I note with some pleasure that coming in at under 45 minutes, his speech in the House today makes history as the shortest budget speech since Benjamin Disraeli’s in 1867. I have always believed that brevity is the best friend of clarity; it is certainly the best friend of Labour Prime Ministers and Chancellors, and I can only hope that the government’s tenure in office will be similarly time-limited. To be serious for a moment, I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to be brief, for it gives the rest of us more time to examine his proposals: I will endeavour to be similarly concise in my own remarks.

 

Mr Deputy Speaker, the headline features of this budget very much speak for themselves.

 

The Chancellor proposes a £68.5 billion new public spending splurge, funded by a combination of £60.6 billion in new taxes and £8 billion in new borrowing.

 

His proposals see the budget deficit increase in size for the first time since the financial crisis, both in real terms and as a proportion of GDP.

 

His tax and spend bonanza includes an 11.1% real terms increase in the total value of income tax levied; a 14.1% increase in corporation tax; an incredible increase of over 50% in stamp duty receipts and an Earth-shattering nearly 70% increase in income from capital gains tax.

 

With inflation standing at 3.1%, the real growth as an average across all forms of taxation stands at 6.21%. In other words, the value money in the pockets of families and businesses up and down the country is being eroded twice as quickly by government policies as it is by the normal process of increasing prices.

 

The Chancellor’s decision to freeze the personal allowance will drag more working households into income tax by stealth, securing an extra £1.5 billion for the government’s coffers.

 

And his broader income tax changes will see the family doctor, the train driver, the dentist… all pay thousands of pounds more in tax than they did under the Conservatives.

 

Mr Deputy Speaker, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has styled himself this festive season as Father Christmas in a cheery suit of socialist red, distributing giveaways to the working people of the land.

 

A truer reflection would be to personify him as the Grinch who stole Christmas: because he is stealing over £20 billion from Britain’s working families through his income tax hikes and his instigation of the highest top rate of tax Britain has seen since the 1970s.

 

His tax raid continues when it comes to the businesses which employ our hardworking workforce and create economic growth. For this Chancellor intends to hit businesses with £9 billion in new taxes at just the time that this country should be embracing the opportunity of Brexit to welcome investors to these shores.

 

His £6 billion hike in capital gains tax, partnered with the abolition of entrepreneur’s relief, is another major blow against investment and enterprise in Britain.

 

It is little wonder, then, that the government’s own forecasts present a vision of anaemic economic growth over the next five years, with the result that both taxation and spending as a proportion of GDP will be dramatically higher in 2022 than in 2017.

 

And the tax raid continues, with a tripling of stamp duty reserve tax; a further great barricade thrown up against the private sector investment which this country needs to thrive.

 

All in all, Mr Deputy Speaker, the government’s £60 billion tax hike is worth nearly £2,000 per working adult in this country.

 

The sums are eye-watering, and the effects are gut-wrenching. Investment down. Businesses struggling. Middle earners squeezed. Anaemic growth. A swelling state. And the promise of even higher taxes tomorrow.

 

Truly, the government could not have created a budget more hostile to businesses and families if it had tried.

 

But we expect nothing else from Labour, do we? It’s the same old story.

 

Taxes - up.

 

Borrowing - up.

 

The deficit - up.

 

Economic growth - down.

 

Investment - down.

 

Take home pay - down.

 

The Chancellor’s credibility - down.

 

The glut of wasteful spending intended to balloon the deficit and return Britain to where it was during the dark days of the financial crisis is bad enough.

 

The massive hikes in taxation designed to bankrupt Britons are bad enough.

 

But when you look at the spending decisions the Chancellor has made in detail, and what he intends to do - and not do - with the public’s money, the picture becomes even more bleak.

 

He boasts of his National Transformation Fund, with its £200 billion price tag.

 

But included in its parameters we find no allocation of funding for the retrofitting of high rise buildings with active fire suppression systems, agreed on by the government and the opposition just a few short months ago.

 

That doesn’t matter to the Chancellor. He can’t find the money for that. But he can find the money to reopen railway lines that have been closed since the 1960s.

 

If you’re a highly paid criminal barrister, you’ll benefit from the government’s £800 million spending boost for the courts.

 

But if you live in fear of crime in your community, you’re out of luck: the Chancellor can’t find any money for crime and policing.

 

If you’re a public sector consultant revelling in the fees you’ll get from advising on a massive reorganisation of the sector, you’ll be delighted by the government’s £13 billion “National Education Service.”

 

But the Chancellor can’t find a penny extra to provide support to low income children and families in schools.

 

If you’re a 16-18 year old pursuing training or an apprenticeship, there’s very little in this budget for you.

 

But your tax payments will go on giving free university education to people who are, by and large, richer than you. 

 

The Chancellor has found an additional £1.3 billion to give away in foreign aid.

 

But no real terms funding increase for the British armed forces.

 

The examples go on and on. At every corner, at every turn, when the Chancellor has had the chance to invest in Britain, in the working people of this country, he has chosen instead to throw money at left-wing pet projects.

 

And to do that, he has dramatically expanded the size of the state, the size of the deficit, the extent of the tax burden and the breadth of public spending.

 

So let me talk about what the Chancellor could and should have done instead; indeed, what a Conservative government would do instead.

 

If I was in the Chancellor’s place, and he in mine, we would be debating today and increase in the personal allowance to £12,000, with a commitment to increase it to £15,000 over five years.

 

We would be debating a budget which saw the budget deficit fall below 3% of GDP, and the current budget deficit fall to just £7.4 billion - on track to be eliminated altogether in 2019/20.

 

We would be debating a budget which kept corporation tax and capital gains tax down, and which cost the taxpayer altogether £30 billion less than under Labour’s plans.

 

We would be discussing Conservative plans to more than halve the beer duty, supporting our hard-up pubs and publicans.

 

And we would be looking at sustained and sustainable investment in public services, with the size of the state - expenditure as a proportion of GDP  - continuing the slight downward trend which began in 2011 even as we invested an additional £30 billion into the economy.

 

We would be talking about over £10 billion in investment in major capital projects this year, funded not by borrowing but by a 1% increase in the national insurance charged to the highest earners.

 

We would be looking at real growth in taxation averaging out at 1.6% this year, six times smaller than under Labour.

 

And our sustainable management of the economy would enable sustainable investment. £1.7 billion for the armed forces. A £600 million investment in crime and policing. £100 million for the Security Service. Nearly £3 billion in extra funding for mental health trusts; £3 billion for acute care and hospital trusts; £2 billion for primary care services and £500 million for dental and ophthalmic services. An £800 million boost to supporting low income children in schools. £2 billion for schools more broadly. And a commitment to nuclear power for 10 million homes, driving the green revolution and net zero at a net profit.

 

The contrast between us couldn’t be clearer. This government has delivered a plan for eye-wateringly high taxes, high borrowing and high spending; the Chancellor today has announced a package designed to drive investment away and make Britain hostile to business. It is a plan to bankrupt Britain and bankrupt Britons. And when it comes to spending the massive sums the Chancellor is taxing and borrowing, he priorities vanity projects and left-wing fantasies over real initiatives aimed at helping the people most in need.

 

I urge him now to reconsider. There is an alternative - a real alternative. At a time when we need to see the deficit falling, Labour has it going up. The Conservatives have a plan to get it down. While Labour’s plans see a swelling state, the Conservatives will shrink the state. While the Chancellor unveils billions of pounds in new taxes,  we would keep taxes low. Whilst he drives business and enterprise into the ground, we would foster and nurture it. While he makes all the wrong choices, we stand ready to set course for growth.

 

I urge the House and the nation to see this budget for what it is. I was asked in the media if I was trying to serve bangers and mash while the Chancellor took everyone out for lobster. But this government’s economic policy is not a seafood surprise: it’s a vat of treacle, designed to look appealing but certain to give you a stomach ache. There are now two very different economic visions on offer in Britain: on the one hand, a vision of ever increasing taxes, borrowing and spending; an ever more clumsy state; an ever more indebted and inefficient economy. On the other, a country in which hardworking people keep more of their own money, in which investment is sustainable and sustained, and in which we get our debts under control and go for economic growth. I urge the House to walk with me in categorically rejecting this budget of false promise from a false fiscal prophet. Mr Deputy Speaker: This budget must fail - or Britain will fail.

[Steve]

Mr Deputy Speaker

It is a pleasant surprise to see the right honourable gentleman back opposite me at the despatch box. I am glad to hear his wife is recovering and hope that means we will see plenty more of him - unlike the dodgy kebabs.

While I am happy to welcome him back, I unfortunately did note quite a few times he unintentionally misled the House. While I’m sure it does us both credit to our respective backbenches to inflate the size of the spending boost delivered in this Budget, I’m afraid he has the number wrong by a factor of nearly 100%. 

But as he does seem to be intent on pointing out at length, Mr Deputy Speaker, the size of the spending package isn’t everything. No, we have moved on, as night turns to day - from austerity to “targeted spending”, to “sustainable investment” - the same buzzwords that he and his lot used to sell the British people on the false promise of austerity eight years ago. He can dress it up as much as he likes: what he’s selling is just more of the same. More cuts. More stagnation. More degradation in our public services.

He’s treated us to a glimpse of what they plan, and indeed it sounds precisely like the return to austerity he will claim that it is not. Spending as a share of GDP falling just like it did in every year of austerity. Tax cuts for the rich at the expense of public services. 

By my reckoning he’d tell us to spend well over £30 billion less next year. Where does the axe fall, Mr Deputy Speaker? On students? On patients? On social security?

And for what purpose you have to ask. I’d like to quote from someone who last week made a lot of sense: “I am committed to halving the current budget deficit in a year and eliminating it within three.” That was him - extolling the virtues, not that he realised it at the time, of this very Budget that does just that!

Now he’s advocating for deeper cuts, faster and harder, because Labour in government delivering the deficit reduction he called for isn’t the political narrative he wants to spin. 

And the same is true on tax - where he’s proposing a tax cut for working people barely a quarter the size of what we have delivered; while we are delivering the single biggest tax cut to income tax and national insurance in decades.

It’s all spin, Mr Speaker, but the substance is the same: austerity, and the working people of this country paying the price.

I also took some copious notes during his discussion of our spending package, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I’d like to just take the opportunity to correct the record on a few matters - I’m sure he will appreciate ensuring that he is not inadvertently misleading the House.

He incorrectly says we are not investing the promised money in fire safety - I’m afraid he doesn’t seem to have read as far as the seventh line of the Budget package, which confirms nearly £3 billion over the next two years.

He incorrectly says that it is barristers that are going to benefit from our boost to spending on courts and on legal aid. Now I’m not sure what he has against your average criminal barrister - quite a few of them are on his backbenches. But I’m happy to confirm to him that the funding will ensure swift and fair justice for victims. His cuts mean that victims are waiting nearly two years for a judgement on serious crimes. I don’t think that’s good enough, even if he does.

He incorrectly says there is no extra money for police. There’s actually £300m this year to start the process of reversing his cuts to police - hiring 10,000 more for community beats, after the last Government cut 10,000 police.

He incorrectly claims that we are spending £13 billion on consultants to reorganise education. I’m more than happy to confirm to the House that that money is all going on schools, universities, students, colleges, day care, sure start. 

He incorrectly claims there isn’t a penny for low income families - I’m happy to clarify that there’s £700 million for universal free school lunches and an increase in the youth pupil premium to £600.

He incorrectly claims there’s nothing for 16-18 year olds in the Budget. There’s plenty, Mr Speaker, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to set that out: restoring the EMA, a cut they made so self-defeating that the IFS said it would probably end up costing money; and bringing post-16 funding in line with school funding. And 50,000 apprenticeships - reversing the fall in starts we saw last year.

I think that’s seven times in his speech that he got it wrong, Mr Deputy Speaker - and that’s when I stopped counting.

But I think the biggest clanger of all was to claim that these are all “left wing pet projects”.

Left wing pet projects, Mr Deputy Speaker, like reversing all cuts to the school budget; the biggest rise in NHS spending since 2009; abolishing tuition fees so working class kids don’t get a small mortgage worth of debt just to get an education; increasing the child tax credit bu £5 a week; investing £1 billion in crime and justice…. I could go on Mr Deputy Speaker, but I think he gets the point. These aren’t left wing pet projects. They are investments in our country, in improving the lives of patients, students, and communities.

I’m also grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contrast his approach to tax with ours. I’m sure the hedge fund managers and the house flippers and the very wealthy and the very profitable businesses are happy to have a champion in him. They’ve had a champion in Tory Chancellors for the last seven years too. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that as much as he and his predecessors were so willing to champion them, that kindness was never repaid to the country. 

Their cuts to corporation tax, capital gains tax, the top rate of income tax - what did they gain? Britain’s productivity has grown more slowly than any of our main competitors; wages have stagnated, business investment has stalled.

We build a productive economy by investing in innovation, in skills, and in the high quality transport connections we need. That is what we are doing. Not aimlessly spraying money out there to those who already have a bunch in their bank accounts and hoping they might do something productive with it.

Mr Speaker, the member has one thing dead on. It is now clear the choice between Labour and the Tories.

With them, the choice is more austerity. More cuts. Higher taxes. A continuation of the economic failure of the last seven years, which has left Britain’s economy insecure, stagnant, and serving wealth rather than working people. A race to the bottom where we try and attract business to this country with low taxes and low wages rather than the advantages and strengths this country can bring to the table.

With Labour, the choice is an economy for the many, not the few. Lower taxes for hardworking people. Well-funded public services that mean you can see your GP in good time, your kids can be educated in good schools, and victims of crime can get justice. A strong economy built on the foundation of good infrastructure, high skills, innovation, and investment. 

Our vision, Mr Speaker, is an economy and a country for the many, not the few. Their vision is of more of the same rotten, failed policies of the last seven years.

[Amanda Stockley]

Thank you Mr. Speaker,

I rise today in support of the Budget. My right honourable friend the Chancellor has spoken eloquently and explained what our budget will do for the people of Britain. I applaud the end to austerity: by returning investment in our public services, we can raise our standards of living, our education, and our health, all of which have fallen far because of seven years of Tory government. Doing that through fairer taxes that ensure the broadest shoulders take their fair share in contributing to our economy is also good. The 'race to the bottom' ideology of the last government must be removed.

Mr. Speaker. I wish to specifically make my remarks to the National Transformation Fund. Because it is the largest investment of the government in a long time. 250 billion into making our country a green economy, construct a national high speed networks, rebuilding links between communities, and ensuring future generations have sustainable housing - it is a massive investment to improving Britain. I especially want to talk about Transport.

Mr. Speaker: the fund provides for 10 billion each year to provide for the goal of +50% electrification by 2030, as well as 5 billion for the reopening of Beeching lines and stations. I believe that rail transport is the future: it provides a sustainable transit option, it lowers congestion on roads, and it connects medium- and long-distance communities with each other. I am glad the government understands this...And I must say my lobby with the Chancellor was most interesting. It is obvious, I think, Mr. Speaker: I support these funds. As said by the Chancellor, I am working on the Rail Plan that will see these investments specified to tracks and lines. These will make transparent where and how we will invest these funds. Rest assured, Mr. Speaker: they are not limited to the South East. We are taking interest across Scotland and Wales as well. This is coupled with the investment of 2 billion into Welsh Rail, which will mean a significant upgrade to the railway network there. After I made a statement to fully implement HS2 by 2027 - and I will lay a bill to the House for Phase 2a shortly - I am glad that the Chancellor has said on my behalf that we will fully build NPR as well, and even the high speed network to Scotland.

But local transport is almost as paramount as national. That is why I support the Local Green Transport Fund of 5 billion: in concurrence with our Beeching rebuilding, we need to give our counties the means of upgrading and investing in expanding local transit such as tram, metro, buses, and the like. Over Tory austerity, we have seen bus subsidies on average slashed from 56 million in 2008, to a low point of 42 million in 2014. London alone lost more than 50 million pounds in bus subsidies. Labour will see supported services returned, especially in metropolitan areas. At the same time, the Local Green Transport Fund will create the investment we need to increase the electric buses fleet.

In short, this budget is a welcome message to Britain, by investing in our public services after years of Tory cuts. It truly commits us to the Net-Zero goals for 2040. And it even, contrary to what the party opposite has said and made its attack point for today, cuts taxes on ordinary people. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

[Jim Robertson]

Mr Deputy Speaker,

 

I would like to thank the Chancellor for the presentation of the Budget today, and his mercifully rather brief speech: which has given us all a good chance to digest it and analyse its contents. I mean no offence to him personally when I say that I hope it is the only one that he will present to the House.

 

This government came to power on one simple slogan: for the many not the few. And I must congratulate them in one sense, because it seems that they have achieved that vision. All of us, from someone working the nightshift on minimum wage in Liverpool, to a teacher in Loughborough, to a financial trader in London, are going to suffer from the reckless taxation and spending policies that this government has put out. This budget sees, as my Rt. Hon. friend the member for Winchester pointed out in his excellent budget response, the deficit rise for the first time since the financial crisis. For the first time since the financial crisis. Mr Speaker I remember, and people throughout this country absolutely remember, the hurt and pain and immeasurable damage that the policies of the last Labour government led to with their financial policies: and now this government proposes to go far further than they did. The countless jobs lost, businesses ruined and lives destroyed is something that cannot be repeated.

 

And despite this historic rise in borrowing, Mr Speaker, this unsound financial decision making makes up only a fraction of how Labour plan to fund their plans. The remaining 60 billion pounds of funding for their plans comes from a full blown tax assault on the British people. They have raised income tax in real terms by over 11%, by taking money and therefore spending power out of the pocket of middle earners across the country. And, if inflicting damage on businesses indirectly wasn't enough, the Chancellor has decided to launch a full frontal attack on them as well. Corporation tax has been raised by 14% in real terms. And the biggest rise of all, in capital gains tax, is a whopping 69%. The Chancellor has presented a budget that, far from rewarding those who choose to invest in our economy, our jobs, and people's lives, chooses instead to penalise them. Labour couldn't have sent a more clear message to people seeking to set up companies, to do business and to trade in this country: don't even bother.

 

The Conservatives would offer an alternative plan, and it is a plan that I will champion if the members of our party ordain it to put their trust in me to do so. We have advocated for the personal allowance to be raised to 15,000 pounds to take millions of people out of tax altogether, whilst raising the higher rate of tax to 50,000 pounds by 2021. We would cut corporation tax to 15% instead of raising it, to allow our large businesses to flourish instead of being punished. And we will support small businesses that will be impacted most by the government's brewing economic catastrophe and rules around worker's contracts by freezing business rates immediately, implementing a plan to reduce these to 25% during the next parliamentary term when possible. These are policies that will benefit millions across this country without running the risk of killing off growth, and I am confident that when this government is forced to go to the polls and answer to the people, they are policies that the British people will wholeheartedly support.

 

Moving onto the other headline announcements from the budget, Mr Speaker, and I would like to move onto a subject that is close to my heart: education. The government has talked a good game on education, and no doubt many people have reacted positively to the announcement of a National Education Service - despite the distinct lack of detail on what exactly this is going to look like. But in one area which I have focused on extensively recently - vocational education - the government is working only in half measures. They have announced 50,000 additional apprenticeships, but they have not been forthcoming in other investments in vocational education. We should be seeing investments in institutions such as technical schools, and more of these being created, as opposed to the government's punitive restrictions on these sorts of schools being created that have been announced by the Education Secretary. They claim they are being ambitious, so where is the ambition? Additionally, another area where the government has not shown the ambition that the country needs is in housing. The government has promised investment, through the National Transformation Fund, but they have not been clear on what they will actually do with that funding. Will the Chancellor commit, as I have promised to if I become Prime Minister, that the necessary target of 300,000 new homes a year will be hit?

 

As I bring my remarks to a conclusion, Mr Speaker, I cannot help but feel that this government is going to dismiss my response, and indeed any response from this side of the House, as nothing but opposition for opposition's sake. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are not opposing this budget for the good it seeks to do, but the reality of what it entails for our country. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is: and I can think of no case where that maxim applies more than this Budget. They may promise the world, Mr Speaker, but the truth is these proposals fall well short of the mark in vital, vital areas where the government should and must be delivering. And the true cost of this budget is far deeper than just the massive cost on paper. It is a strategy built, like the house of the foolish man, on sand: and we are all going to pay the price for that. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall: and hard working people throughout this country do not deserve the catastrophe that is coming their way when it does.

[Laurence Foltyn]

 

Mr Speaker,

There is so much to applaud about this budget and I commend the Chancellor - indeed the whole team at the Treasury - for this fabulous budget. There’s so much that my constituents in Enfield North, and families throughout the country, will be celebrating. A £400 tax cut. Much-needed cash fusions for the NHS. Nursing bursaries. Scrapping the innocence tax. Hiring more police officers. Effective public transport. More housing. More child tax cuts. And all done while adhering to sensible fiscal rules. 

The party opposite crows and whines about this budget but really the central economic principle behind this budget isn't an ideological one. It’s not like their budgets, which were all fixated on ideological ends. It's a pragmatic one instead: focused on the truth that investing now pays dividends in the future. It is how we grow our economy, it is how we succeed as a country, it is how we develop the capacity to weather whatever storms and seize whatever opportunities come our way. The National Transformation Fund, of course, embodies this. Our country has long failed to keep up the building needs required to create a sustainable, green, and prosperous long-term economy. I am excited to see a renewed industrial strategy, and I hope it contains the reforms to areas such as planning and skills needed to really ensure these ambitious funding commitment can live up to their full potential. I have every faith that they will.

But this budget's potential doesn't end there. Throughout, the Chancellor has shown that we can both address short-term injustices and public service needs while at the same time creating the foundations for a prosperous future. In fact, the Chancellor has demonstrated that we need to do these things together. The immediate cash fusion into the Social Care system, for example, isn't just a great humanitarian move. It is smart economics too, keeping the social care system functioning and giving it the investment it needs to provide quality care. Including preventative care, and we all know stronger prevention is key to maintaining the promise and dignity of the NHS.

Nowhere is this excellent logic more on display than with Education. I look forward to the development of the National Education Service. The ministerial statement by the Education Secretary on this topic was very exciting, and that it is already being backed up with such sizeable investments shows that this government is working hard to make historic investments. This is a very smart proposal, both in that it rectifies the great inequalities cleaving our nation and in that it unlocks the growth and innovation potential of every community. 

I am especially pleased to see just how comprehensive this investment is. Childcare. Universal free school meals. The Education Maintenance Allowance. A commitment to skills, apprenticeships, and lifelong learning. I am curious to see how the tuition fees abolition will be implemented, and am sure it will be implemented in such a way that protects real term university funding levels and progressively advances social mobility. I eagerly await the government setting out how it will meet these two criteria in the long-term. 

But I also want to, in closing, say this: kudos to this Chancellor for having the political bravery to robustly invest in overseas development aid. Not only is such a move a moral imperative, but it is in our national interest as well. It is an investment in the brand of global Britain, in promoting our values of human rights and democracy abroad, and creating a greener, safer, healthier, and more prosperous world. 

[Steve]

On 11/9/2022 at 3:49 PM, Clarice Ashbridge said:

Mr Deputy Speaker,

 

I would like to thank the Chancellor for the presentation of the Budget today, and his mercifully rather brief speech: which has given us all a good chance to digest it and analyse its contents. I mean no offence to him personally when I say that I hope it is the only one that he will present to the House.

 

This government came to power on one simple slogan: for the many not the few. And I must congratulate them in one sense, because it seems that they have achieved that vision. All of us, from someone working the nightshift on minimum wage in Liverpool, to a teacher in Loughborough, to a financial trader in London, are going to suffer from the reckless taxation and spending policies that this government has put out. This budget sees, as my Rt. Hon. friend the member for Winchester pointed out in his excellent budget response, the deficit rise for the first time since the financial crisis. For the first time since the financial crisis. Mr Speaker I remember, and people throughout this country absolutely remember, the hurt and pain and immeasurable damage that the policies of the last Labour government led to with their financial policies: and now this government proposes to go far further than they did. The countless jobs lost, businesses ruined and lives destroyed is something that cannot be repeated.

 

And despite this historic rise in borrowing, Mr Speaker, this unsound financial decision making makes up only a fraction of how Labour plan to fund their plans. The remaining 60 billion pounds of funding for their plans comes from a full blown tax assault on the British people. They have raised income tax in real terms by over 11%, by taking money and therefore spending power out of the pocket of middle earners across the country. And, if inflicting damage on businesses indirectly wasn't enough, the Chancellor has decided to launch a full frontal attack on them as well. Corporation tax has been raised by 14% in real terms. And the biggest rise of all, in capital gains tax, is a whopping 69%. The Chancellor has presented a budget that, far from rewarding those who choose to invest in our economy, our jobs, and people's lives, chooses instead to penalise them. Labour couldn't have sent a more clear message to people seeking to set up companies, to do business and to trade in this country: don't even bother.

 

The Conservatives would offer an alternative plan, and it is a plan that I will champion if the members of our party ordain it to put their trust in me to do so. We have advocated for the personal allowance to be raised to 15,000 pounds to take millions of people out of tax altogether, whilst raising the higher rate of tax to 50,000 pounds by 2021. We would cut corporation tax to 15% instead of raising it, to allow our large businesses to flourish instead of being punished. And we will support small businesses that will be impacted most by the government's brewing economic catastrophe and rules around worker's contracts by freezing business rates immediately, implementing a plan to reduce these to 25% during the next parliamentary term when possible. These are policies that will benefit millions across this country without running the risk of killing off growth, and I am confident that when this government is forced to go to the polls and answer to the people, they are policies that the British people will wholeheartedly support.

 

Moving onto the other headline announcements from the budget, Mr Speaker, and I would like to move onto a subject that is close to my heart: education. The government has talked a good game on education, and no doubt many people have reacted positively to the announcement of a National Education Service - despite the distinct lack of detail on what exactly this is going to look like. But in one area which I have focused on extensively recently - vocational education - the government is working only in half measures. They have announced 50,000 additional apprenticeships, but they have not been forthcoming in other investments in vocational education. We should be seeing investments in institutions such as technical schools, and more of these being created, as opposed to the government's punitive restrictions on these sorts of schools being created that have been announced by the Education Secretary. They claim they are being ambitious, so where is the ambition? Additionally, another area where the government has not shown the ambition that the country needs is in housing. The government has promised investment, through the National Transformation Fund, but they have not been clear on what they will actually do with that funding. Will the Chancellor commit, as I have promised to if I become Prime Minister, that the necessary target of 300,000 new homes a year will be hit?

 

As I bring my remarks to a conclusion, Mr Speaker, I cannot help but feel that this government is going to dismiss my response, and indeed any response from this side of the House, as nothing but opposition for opposition's sake. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are not opposing this budget for the good it seeks to do, but the reality of what it entails for our country. If something seems too good to be true, it usually is: and I can think of no case where that maxim applies more than this Budget. They may promise the world, Mr Speaker, but the truth is these proposals fall well short of the mark in vital, vital areas where the government should and must be delivering. And the true cost of this budget is far deeper than just the massive cost on paper. It is a strategy built, like the house of the foolish man, on sand: and we are all going to pay the price for that. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall: and hard working people throughout this country do not deserve the catastrophe that is coming their way when it does.

Mr Deputy Speaker

I welcome the honourable lady to the debate and welcome too her confirmation that whoever loses the leadership of the Conservative Party, it will be austerity that wins. 

I am hearing a lot from the honourable lady and others on that side of the house about irresponsible borrowing and about higher taxes. Well Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that they will be having a hard word with the former member for Tatton, because the only reason I am increasing many of these taxes is because he so recklessly cut them. If they were so concerned with fiscal responsibility, perhaps they should ask him why he decided to spend tens of billions of pounds cutting taxes for the wealthy and the large corporations. Had he not, we wouldn't have a budget deficit left and we wouldn't have had nearly half the spending cuts that we did. But those were their choices Mr Deputy Speaker. I have made different ones. I think when people can't see their GP or afford food on the table - I'm not going to prioritise a couple of percentage points of corporate profit or an extra few thousands in the bank accounts of millionaires. I'm going to prioritise working people.

And perhaps she would like to answer a question avoided by everyone - every single one of them - on that side of the House. They cut all these taxes. Handed out all of this money. played the austerity card to the tee to pay for it.

And what has it got us?

Wages, stagnant.

Business investment, stagnant.

The economy, stagnant.

The British people know a lemon when they're being sold one, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the opposition is trying to sell a very sour one indeed.

Our plan is simple: we are investing in the high wage, net zero economy of the future.

We're investing in skills. Unlike the honourable lady, I do not consider 50,000 extra apprenticeships next year and investment in bringing spending on 16-18 education up to equality with other education spending to be a 'half measure'. If that is a half-measure, Mr Deputy Speaker, then I wpnder what she makes of the fact that when they left office, apprenticeship starts were falling for the first time in five years and at the greatest rate since modern apprenticeships were introduced. We are reversing the damage that they did to the apprenticeships programme, and delivering a better chance in life for tens of thousands of young people.

Or on housing Mr Deputy Speaker, where the honourable lady has a laudable goal of 300,000 new homes a year: but no plan to deliver them. And if her memory is long enough, she will know that under their term in office, housebuilding reached its post-war low. We are going to be investing in building 100,000 council and housing association homes a year by the end of the Parliament - 20,000 of them for sale to first home buyers. A real and practical plan to build more homes - not just a meaningless target with no money and no policy behind it.

We have heard from both leadership contenders, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the press and here, and it's clear as day that both offer Britain more of the same.

More austerity.

More cuts.

More stagnation.

Britain has had enough.

This Budget ends the damage of austerity. It ends the cuts to our public services: to your hospital, to your schools, to your local police. It ends the economic stagnation they have delivered, and plots a course to a stronger and fairer and greener economy. A Budget, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the many and not the few.

[Addie]

Mr Deputy Speaker, 

I don't think there's anyone here who could look at this budget and not get a clear message from it: we're finished with damaging austerity. The Right Honourable Member for Coventry South said as much, over and over again, but at least with a bit of rhetorical variety that at least made the address interesting. The investments made here is a start- just a start- at undoing the damage done by the damaging policies of the last seven years of Tory leadership. 

But it is just a start. Austerity took more than the £1.7 billion increase to direct grants to Holyrood- not counting the capital spending- covered for here, and I hope this Government is using this as a foundation for future increases above inflation to ensure that the damage to Scotland- as well as to Wales and Northern Ireland- is addressed in a meaningful way. 

And there are other areas where this Government could have done yet more. Of course, I would not be opposed to another few billions for Scotland. I think my colleagues here would expect that.

One area where there could have been bold leadership would be with respect to Universal Credit. The rollout of this replacement for many allowances and benefits- a replacement that had and still has the aims of making it harder to access benefits- is apparently set to continue under this budget. Yes, the allowances have been increased by the rate of inflation with a bit of an increase for the child allowance portion of the benefit... but that is probably the least this Government could have done. I imagine it's probably not going to be as different and it may even be less than what the Tories put out in their Shadow Budget any day now. 

There could have a statement about how we're going to be making revolutionary changes to benefits and how they're applied. There could even have been a statement about how maybe benefits will be devolved more fully in the near future so that those of us who have always and consistently been against Universal Credit could actually do something about it and support people. 

As it stands we'll see this policy continue to be rolled out and continue to affect those who are most vulnerable in our society. Yes, the Government reversed cuts. But removing a threat- even only partially- is not a cure for what ails those in need. 

Another area that could have been prepared for and budgeted was economic support for businesses and for communities that are going to be affected by Brexit. The agreement is not finalised, but the more and more that seems to come out of this Government in little hints and jokes about where Brexit is going... there is going to need to be a serious effort to prepare businesses and communities for a loss of funding and for new barriers that are going to arise. Scotland's businesses rely on the stability that the Single Market provides- a Single Market this Government seems to be wanting to take away. That will mean businesses need to take on the costs of planning and ultimately the hits when they can't get workers or when they have to address new regulatory requirements of a hard border in the English Channel. 

This preparation needs to be done now- and yes, it will cost money- and there wasn't a single word that was brought up about the possibility of this through the budget, of an adjustment fund that would help lessen the damage that's to come. 

But there is more to celebrate in this as well- again, the clear end to austerity. There is a National Transformation Fund which provides the appropriate level of support to the devolved countries of the UK. There is a clear path to ensure that those who can pay more for the benefits of living in the United Kingdom. 

I hope that this is the first step forward and that Labour continues to push for what it promised- to provide needed support to communities, to continue to undo the deleterious effects of austerity, to end the Tory experiments such as Universal Credit that harm and hurt rather than help. The Government could have done more, but at least it's a clear departure from the last seven years.