Budget Resolutions

Adam Jogee Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Many of the measures announced yesterday will make a real difference to the lives of the people I represent back home in Newcastle-under-Lyme. To whom much is given, much is expected. The Labour party received a mandate and the trust of the people last year, so we must get on with the job of getting our country back on track, and this Budget helps us do that.

Communities like mine in the industrial heartlands believe that hard work should always pay off, that people should contribute their fair share, that nobody should walk by on the other side, as Holy Scripture tells us, and that everyone in our United Kingdom should be able to live with dignity and opportunity and to get by and get on. Nobody in a country like ours, rich in people, ambition and potential, should ever be forced to choose between heating and eating. Nobody should be left living on social security when they can and should, if able, be at work, benefiting from the dignity and power that work provides.

I am grateful for the announcement on the BCSSS. That change is something that I have campaigned hard for, alongside colleagues such as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), and my Staffordshire colleagues and neighbours, my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) and for Lichfield (Dave Robertson)—and yes, my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), and many others. Men and women from Newcastle-under-Lyme who worked down the pits in our coal industry, fuelled our economy and kept the lights on, will now finally get the justice that they deserve. They will get the money that they are owed, and it cannot come fast enough.

In our United Kingdom, no child should grow up in poverty. That is why I welcome the decision to tackle real injustice and inequality, and lift 1,770 children out of poverty in Newcastle-under-Lyme. I am glad that two local schools back home—the Meadows school and Langdale primary school—have already received funding for breakfast clubs. I look forward to more local schools benefiting, so that no child goes to school hungry.

Newcastle-under-Lyme is home to many wonderful family farms and the farmers and families who live on them—people who tend to our land, feed us and keep our country going. I have raised their concerns, which I share, about the proposed changes to APR for farmers. I welcome the sensible concession in the Budget that will allow for a clearer and smoother transfer of reliefs between married couples and civil partners, but I urge colleagues on the Front Bench to consider the threshold. Going for the baddies who land bank is the right thing to do, because those who should pay must be made to pay, but we must not allow an unintended impact on small family farms.

[Graeme Downie]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue of family farms; I have a number of them in my constituency. Does he agree that it is important to strike a balance in his part of the country, as well as in the devolved Administrations, and to put the tax burden in the correct place, while protecting small family farms?

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who gives voice to the fact that we are one United Kingdom, and the same approach must be taken in Scotland as in the centre of our collective universe, Newcastle-under-Lyme. It is important to note that the challenges facing our farming industry did not start last July—we all know that—but this Government now have the chance to give our farmers the support that, I am afraid, the previous Conservative Government failed to.

It is easy to be gloomy about the state of the world, but there is always hope. This weekend marks the first anniversary since the cowboy operators at Walley’s quarry landfill site were closed down; 147 days into my time as our MP, we finally secured justice for the people in my community who were forced to live with the disgusting and disgraceful situation at Walley’s. That is a sign that things can only get better, and I pay tribute to all the campaigners who worked so hard with me over my first 147 days as MP.

With this Budget, we are fixing the roof—and while the sun may not be shining, it certainly is not raining outside. We will see more children eating properly and not going to school hungry; more parents able to work without worrying about childcare; and more former miners finally getting justice and the money that they are rightfully owed. We will see prescription charges and rail fares frozen; more pensioners able to afford to heat their homes and buy Christmas presents for their grandchildren; and the disgusting rape clause gone. We will see more people able to afford their energy bills, which will be cut by £150, and more young people will be supported into life-changing education and employment opportunities. We will see support for farmers, but there is much more to do on that. I hope that the Minister has heard that, for the third time this speech.

There is more support for universities and colleges, such as Keele University and Newcastle College in my constituency. They will receive the support that they need to continue providing a world-class British education. We will see more doctors, nurses and NHS staff getting the credit and support that they richly deserve. I declare an interest, as my wife is a nurse—an excellent one, as are all her colleagues.

The Budget will not change the country overnight. It will not solve every issue immediately, but it sets us on a path to a fairer, better and more inclusive United Kingdom. I will always shout loudly when we show the difference that a Labour Government can make. I will speak truth to power when we need to do things better, and I will always ensure that the people of Newcastle-under-Lyme are heard loudly and proudly in this place. We have much to do, so let’s get on with it.