Autumn Budget 2024

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my register of interests.

It is a huge privilege to congratulate my new colleague and noble friend Lord Booth-Smith on his wonderful maiden speech— and made without notes. A previous Cabinet Minister once suggested that we should relocate the House of Lords to Stoke-on-Trent; instead, we welcome one of the finest sons of Stoke-on-Trent to your Lordships’ House. A disciple of Roger Scruton, my noble friend is a deep thinker of Conservative philosophy. Talent-spotted by James Brokenshire, he worked with Roger Scruton to make all new buildings beautiful. Indeed, in No. 10, a bust of Sir Roger kept a watch over him.

It is to my noble friend’s lasting credit that the philosophy of building beautiful has been at the heart of policy for all subsequent Secretaries of State in the previous Government. At the Treasury, he was instrumental in designing the furlough scheme that saved the livelihoods of so many during the ravages of Covid. As chief of staff to the Prime Minister, he helped to bring order to the public finances, ensured that inflation was brought down and, as a champion of the levelling-up agenda, secured support and investment for so many of our towns. Despite his usual leather jacket and the John Travolta moniker, my noble friend is steeped in the ancient wisdom of Conservatism. He has already played a huge role in making this country stronger and more beautiful. With his formidable intellect and great political acumen, he will be an enormous asset in this House.

The global financial crisis, the Covid pandemic and the 2022 energy crisis all prompted previous Governments, for entirely understandable reasons, to expand sovereign debt significantly. Successive Governments of both parties have reached the same conclusion: that improving the UK’s growth prospects and productivity are the ways to avoid some very difficult choices about public services in the years ahead.

This Budget was hailed as a moment to reshape tax and spending in the UK so as to ignite growth. It has certainly reshaped tax, with the biggest increase in a generation. The £40 billion whammy means that it is the highest tax burden on record. The election promises not to raise national insurance have been comprehensively broken. The tax on farms and other family businesses will potentially kill off homegrown family businesses and start-ups.

You do not encourage growth by punishing the very businesses that create that growth. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast following the Budget shows that growth is forecast to fall steadily. Incidentally, the OBR was also unable to corroborate the figures quoted by the Chancellor about the fictitious black hole she has repeatedly claimed to have inherited.

The Chancellor has opted not to confront our ballooning public debt, instead electing to change how that debt is measured to facilitate ever-higher levels of borrowing. This was justified on the grounds that new borrowing will be allocated to capital investment, yet, on closer inspection, the lion’s share of the money raised is for day-to-day expenditure and not capital investment.

The real concern is that the eye-watering rise in taxation is not accompanied by any appreciable plans for public service reform, despite specific assurances by the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary that money would come only with reform. The Government have instead cancelled plans to reduce the Civil Service to pre-pandemic levels and increased the salaries of train drivers without asking for any improvement in productivity in return. The much-vaunted reforms to the NHS seem to have been reduced to an online national conversation, despite a 22% pay rise for junior doctors—although I look forward to the Health Secretary’s Statement later this week.

I read today that the Chancellor will ask for help from businesses with reducing waste. I suggest she looks to the example of the coalition Government; in five years, they cut the running costs of government by a cumulative £52 billion, as well as introducing reforms that led to this country being ranked No. 1 in the world for digital and open government.

What is the money being spent on? If the party opposite is serious about growing the economy through investment, surely its priorities should be transport, housing and big regional capital projects. In fact, transport capital spending will be cut in real terms in future. There is no plan for new nuclear power stations; no money for the Deputy Prime Minister’s highly publicised new towns; and no clarity on spending 2.5% on defence.

The Chancellor claimed her Budget will bring growth of up to 1.4% in the longer term; she neglected to point out that the OBR says this longer term comes in 2074. Keynes pointed out that:

“In the long run we are all dead”.


I am an optimist, so perhaps I will make it to 106, but I suspect we will clearly see long before then that this Budget will have squandered the growth our economy was enjoying; burdened businesses with new tax and costs they cannot easily absorb; and led directly to higher inflation, lower wage growth and higher interest rates.