Autumn Budget 2025

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Oh, I do feel ill at ease on these Benches. I welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth to his place and look forward to his future contributions.

This is the second Budget from this Labour Government and I still cannot see the vision. It does not seem to be there in any direction; it is not at all clear. People voted for change and to fix broken Britain, but this looks like more of the same and it will do hardly anything to fix our public services or make bills cheaper. I hear a lot of talk from the Government about big projects and growth, but how much of that is just a taxpayer subsidy for private corporations? I welcome a new generation of local health centres, but why are taxpayers paying several times over for these via PFI schemes? I also welcome fixing our neglected sewerage system, but why are private water companies allowed to up their prices by almost half when water bill payers have already paid for this work to be done?

There is waste in the public sector and that waste is the billions of taxpayer and bill- payer money that gets siphoned off into private profits. Around a quarter of our energy bills ends up as private profit. The solutions are obvious to anyone apart from the corporate lobbyists who infest Westminster. If we want cheaper energy, then take the energy companies into public ownership. If we want lower water bills, then let the water companies fail and take them into public ownership, and free the captive consumers.

As for the Government’s green agenda, I am afraid that this Budget does not measure up. Oil and gas companies are due to get taxpayer millions to try out carbon capture and storage, which is a simply rubbish and untested idea which wastes money that should be spent on insulating homes. We have airport expansion and more pollution, but no tax on aviation fuel, private jets or frequent flyers. My fear is that much of the £1.5 billion being spent on moving the M25 to allow Heathrow to expand will end up being funded by taxpayers. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of bus and rail improvement schemes around the country which get absolutely nothing. The planning system has been changed to allow developers to make a bigger profit with a “trash for cash” approach which will impose schemes on local people which damage nature and do not meet the needs of those communities.

The Budget is meant to be about growth, but Labour is promoting the unhealthy growth of corporate profits and greenhouse gases. The Green Party solutions would cut energy bills by enabling consumers to pay for cheap electricity separately, rather than having energy prices linked to expensive and polluting gas. We would fund any policy measures via tax and reduce energy bills that way. We would also take the big six into public ownership and stop the drain of bill payers’ money into private profits.

Water companies would be expected to do their job and if they fail, they lose the licence. Instead of the Government signing off on higher and higher bills for consumers, we would take them into public ownership and consumers would no longer spend a third of their water bills paying off debt. We would bring in local rent controls, similar to those that have just been granted in Scotland, by giving local authorities the power to control rents.

We would introduce an annual wealth tax of 1% on assets over £10 million and 2% over £1 billion. This would raise at least £14.8 billion. We would also align rates of capital gains tax with income tax, and close loopholes. This would raise at least £12 billion, even after accounting for changes in behaviour. Both these measures are designed to address growing inequality, as well as providing government with the funds to bring down bills for ordinary people.

A Green Budget would be the beginning of the end for a system of privatised utilities fleecing bill payers and the ultra-rich getting away with not paying their fair share. Where is Labour? Where is its vision?