Budget Resolutions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think it is pretty accurate to say that this will be the last Budget speech that I make in this House. I have just worked out that this Chancellor is the 14th since I came into the House in 1979, and that this is the 50th Budget that I have sat through. There should be some sort of medal for that.

I am always tempted in these debates to go back to my origins as an economist at the London School of Economics. I think that was a harder and tougher place to learn economics than Pembroke College, Cambridge—at least from what I have heard from those on the Front Bench today. There is a tendency among those of us with such a background to look at the detail. I want to look not so much at the detail today, but at the two broad issues that have been totally missing in this vital Budget. Many Conservative Members were hoping for a post-Budget boost. Well, I always used to counsel my colleagues that we can never know how a Budget has gone down until the Sunday papers are out, but in this case do we need time to reflect for long? We have heard that 10% of the population believe that they will be better off after the Budget, that 20% think they will be far worse off, and most tellingly, that 58% of the public feel that the Budget will make no difference to their lives at all. So there is no Budget bounce here.

However, I do not want to talk about that; I want to talk about the two big issues that were not even mentioned. The most important things for all human beings on this planet are global warming and climate change. The Chancellor did not mention the words climate change in his whole speech. There was nothing in that Budget that would give hope to those of us who have been campaigning for years to stop the global warming that will destroy human life on this planet. Nothing in this Budget will help us to meet that terrible existential challenge.

I sometimes get teased when I point out that I was born during the blitz of London, around the same time that this place was bombed and destroyed. I did not know my father for six years, because he went off to serve in the war. Those of us who come from that generation look at our defence spending and preparedness with horror. I said yesterday that former Ministers and Back Benchers from the Conservative party—the party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher—have pointed out that there is a serious cut to the defence budget smuggled into the Budget. Those comments are from the Government’s side. Those two issues were not confronted in the Budget.

People in this country are not short-termists, although they want a better life and lower taxes, and to drive greater productivity. We all remember the productivity driver, George Osborne, so I say to Government Members: do not talk to us about productivity failures. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing in the Budget about getting manufacturing going again or about linking our wonderful university researchers with small businesses to tackle climate change, develop hydrogen power and look at the ways in which clever human beings can and will ensure that this planet is safe to live on.

Whoever is in government must wake up to the fact that that ghastly man, the leader of Russia, is not going away and will persist in undermining our institutions, not just in terms of arms and by encroaching on territory across Europe, but through his pernicious ability to use social media and other means of undermining democracy in this country and worldwide. I grew up passionately influenced by the democracy of the United States. When I was a student, I emigrated to the United States, basically because that was the only way I would not get deported for working as a student. I admire and love the United States as a champion of freedom and democracy, but our greatest ally is in deep trouble. The ghastly ex-President Trump—a man who does not believe in special relationships with anyone, especially our country—looks like he might come back again. He does not believe in the relationship with NATO and in standing up to the foes of democracy in China and Russia.

We should be ashamed if we do not talk about those two issues in the Budget debates and if the Government do not make the wherewithal available, first, to confront climate change and global warming and, secondly, to secure the defence of our country.

As I say, this will be my last Budget speech. I have loved speaking in this House. Everyone knows that I love interjecting at Question Time. These are serious times, and I hope we all remember that the big issues—climate change, the future of our planet and the defence of our country—are hard to tackle because they are expensive. Some on the Labour Benches sometimes do not grapple with that fact, but we must be honest: if we want this country to be secure and have great defence, we have to pay for it. All of us in this House must learn that lesson.