Budget Resolutions

Ashley Dalton Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel). I gave my maiden speech in the Budget debate this time last year, so I am feeling a little reflective and reminiscent, and I have found myself reflecting on the past year and on what has changed. In what state do we find the economy, a year on? Supermarket prices are still rising, living standards are falling, the tax burden is at record high, and there is still no real sign of interest rates coming down to where they were before the Tory mini-Budget tanked the economy. But one thing has changed: the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have managed to put the country into recession. At a time when every other economy in the G7 except one is growing, the Conservative party has fallen asleep at the wheel, and the UK economy is getting smaller as a result. Had the UK economy grown at the average rate of OECD nations over the past decade, it would be £140 billion larger today. That would have contributed an additional £50 billion in tax revenues to invest in our public services.

Let us be clear: the economic issues we face today are the result of 14 years of mismanagement of the country’s finances. The Government are out of ideas, and fast running out of time. The economic reality that we face in Britain today is a pale and weak imitation of the sunny uplands promised by the Conservative party at every election since 2010. Britain has always been a country where we are proud to pay our taxes. We understand that by contributing from what we earn, we fund the public services that we all rely on—roads, schools, the NHS. So with taxes at their highest since the war, Britain’s public services must be the envy of the world, right? Sadly not. They are creaking at the seams. Time and again, I hear from constituents how hard it is to get an appointment with a doctor or register with a dentist. School budgets have been stripped to the bone, and teachers are having to fund pens and pencils from their own pockets. Our roads are littered with potholes. Many routes in West Lancashire are bordering on dangerous, given the state they have been left in. Taxes are at record highs and public services are on their knees. The national debt has trebled since 2010.

The Government are giving working people a raw deal. The state of our economy is not an accident, but a choice. Conservative Chancellors chose to impose austerity on public services and to let the covid fraudsters get away with billions of taxpayers’ money. It was a Conservative Chancellor who rushed through the “kamikwasi” Budget, crashing the economy. Those were choices that the Conservative party made knowing that working people would foot the bill.

I am glad that the Chancellor decided to draw inspiration from the Labour Benches. Scrapping the non-dom status is a choice that we on this side can get behind, but why has it taken so long? The shadow Chancellor has been calling for non-doms to pay their fair share for two years. That is £6 billion that the Chancellor has left on the table—£6 billion that could have been funding our schools, hospitals and roads, and used to relieve the pressure on household bills. Faced with the worst poll ratings on record, the Chancellor is so desperate to cut national insurance that he has introduced a policy on non-doms that he has consistently argued against since getting his job. He has even promised to abolish national insurance altogether, but that leaves a £46 billion unfunded hole in the economy.

Working people are still worse off. For every £5 the Chancellor gives with one hand, he takes £10 with the other. The average family will be £870 worse off under his plans. It gets worse: someone with a mortgage in Tory Britain in 2024 will have hundreds of pounds added to their bill. This summer, we are set to see even more mortgages get even higher at the end of their terms. There is nothing in the Budget for parents, the elderly or first-time buyers; in fact, I am not sure what the Budget has for anyone. There is certainly nothing for the loan charge or infected blood scandals—not much at all, other than gimmicks and unfunded promises. Whether at by-elections or in the polling, it is the Labour party that voters are choosing to trust with the economy. It is about time the Government gave them a chance to decide. It is time for a general election.