Budget Resolutions

Blake Stephenson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to nip out to my Delegated Legislation Committee without missing my spot.

I met with businesses this morning, and it is clear that the people who take risks, invest, create jobs and drive tax receipts are busy scratching their heads to find some positive from this Budget. The truth is that it is a disaster for everyone in Mid Bedfordshire and right across the country—for young people looking for their first job, for hard-working families, and for aspirational business owners and job creators. Our country does need investment and renewal, but to pay for it, we need strong businesses and a strong business environment. The Chancellor is delivering the absolute opposite. Just like last year, she has launched a calculated assault on all our constituents; they are now paying the price for spiralling welfare and higher debt costs with their jobs, all to save the Chancellor’s own. The simple truth is that this Government are backing benefits Britain, not alarm clock Britain, and with broken promise after broken promise, the Chancellor is slipping into a black hole of her own making—one that cannot come quick enough for most of us.

[Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)]

The hon. Member asked whether there were any positives in the Budget. Does he not think that raising more children out of poverty than any other Parliament on record is a positive? Does he not welcome that—does he not think it benefits all of us?

[Blake Stephenson]

I think everybody in this House wants to bring children out of poverty. The way to do that is to get more families into jobs, so that they can afford to bring their children up and take responsibility.

Conservative Members know that it is business that invests, creates jobs and grows our economy, which enables investment in our public infrastructure. The backbone of our economy includes our high streets. Labour Members may visit their local pubs and cafes and post on social media expressing how much they back their high street—even posting about visits to businesses that have since closed—but the truth is that they have been standing idly by while the Chancellor has thrown the local businesses they rely on and claim to champion under the bus. They did it last year; they will do it again this year when they vote this Budget through; and if the Chancellor comes back for more, as she will, they will do it again.

Let us look at the damage being done to a typical high street pub in Bedfordshire. Charged £7,448 in business rates by the last Conservative Government, that figure increased after the last Budget to £24,309. While local authorities are yet to publish the charge for next year, after the three-yearly business rates revaluation and the abolition of retail, hospitality and leisure relief, the charge is likely to be around £45,000 when transitional relief ends. That is a whopping tax increase of roughly 500% over the course of this Parliament before a single penny has been taken in sales. That is an absolute disgrace. It is an attack on our ambitious small business owners—on our constituents who leap out of bed at the sound of their alarms, work hard, play by the rules and create jobs. Is it any wonder that many of them are now asking themselves, “What’s the point?” Business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses must be abolished, and that is exactly what a Conservative Government will do.

Who is paying for the price for this Budget? It is the very working people whom this Government pretend to support, especially young people starting out as I did—washing dishes in the pub, waiting on tables and working in local shops. Labour Members pat themselves on their backs with smiles all around for increasing the minimum wage, but they are doing so while crushing jobs. It makes absolutely no sense to do this at a time when the market can least afford it. Unemployment is through the roof; some 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, and that number is rising. That is an absolute scandal that this Government’s economic plan does nothing to fix.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It makes it worse.

[Blake Stephenson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—it makes it worse. The benefits of an increased minimum wage are meaningless for those who do not have a wage. We should be investing in a brighter future for young people, one of aspiration, hard work, investment and wealth. Only the Conservatives have a plan to do that, by bearing down on welfare spending, cutting taxes, and repealing every job-destroying, anti-business, anti-growth measure in the Employment Rights Bill. We will kick-start young people’s working lives with a £5,000 first jobs bonus.

[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Blake Stephenson]

I have no time.

We will back young people to buy their first home. We will not stifle the chances of a good job, punish people with higher taxes when they do find employment, push graduates into higher student loan repayments or make it harder to save for retirement, which is what this Government are doing. The appeal of fleeing socialist Britain has never been more obvious, nor has it ever been so easy, and the exodus has already begun.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Despite all the “lines to take” that the Labour Whips have handed their MPs in an attempt to sell the Budget as something positive, the reality is very different. The content of this Budget is deeply damaging to pensioners, employees, employers and the wider economy. This is a Government who, it appears, are making up reasons to take back double or treble. While the rise in pension is welcome, it is not a new policy. Yes, the protection for pensioners’ ISA savings is welcome, but it penalises those who have not yet reached pension age and limits their ability to save. Where do hard-pressed workers get the benefit to invest their money? At the same time, saving into pension schemes has become yet another tax grab.

We have been consistently told of a £20 billion black hole, and for weeks we have been fed the line that it has ballooned into a £50 billion crisis in just one year, but now we hear that there is no black hole at all. The OBR has been keeping both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor updated on a bi-weekly basis in respect of their forecasts. We now know that when the Chancellor and other Labour Ministers were out in the media painting their stories of doom and talking down the situation, creating volatility in the stock market, the Government knew all along that their briefings were inaccurate.

What we have in this Budget penalises those who work. I noted a quote yesterday from the Leader of the Opposition about how a working family needs to earn £71,000 per year to be as well-off as a family of three on benefits. This Budget is a burden on workers, and it is clear that Labour Members are not the friends of workers. For years in opposition, they made great promises to the nation that they would lead, but the reality has been very different, with broken promises and broken manifesto pledges, and they are slowly breaking our country’s workers, who cannot give any more.

Looking closer at the Budget, the increase in the minimum wage is positive in principle, but it will mean little in practice when employers are hit with the double blow of the national insurance rise and higher wage costs. Retailers and other businesses will inevitably raise prices to cover these additional burdens, and perhaps have to make redundancies, wiping out the benefit for many workers.

[Blake Stephenson]

Does the hon. Lady agree that while Labour in government pretends that it is the party of fairness, this Budget is deeply unfair to both her constituents and my own constituents?

[Carla Lockhart]

I thank the hon. Member for his point.

The poorest will become poorer while workers are asked to pay more to support people who come here from overseas and go straight on to benefits, with little incentive to work. The system means it is more lucrative not to work than actually to contribute. It is time that this Government put British citizens, British workers and British employers first. It is time for the Chancellor to get tough on tax avoidance and offer genuine support to the hard-pressed workers who are doing the right thing and paying their way.

Perhaps the most appalling tax grab in this Budget is the attack on our family farms. The announcement making business property relief and agricultural property relief transferable is a meaningless gesture and an insult. The family farm death tax remains fully intact—farmers gain nothing. Across the UK, the picture is grim. The Government seem intent on taxing family farms beyond profitability. It is a tax on death and a tax on tragedy. What can be more immoral? This path will damage agriculture at its core. Farming is the backbone of our nation. Food security is national security. Undermine it, and food prices will rise and we will rely on lower-quality imports at higher cost. There is no good news for farmers in this Budget, and when we vote on that resolution later, I urge Members to do the right thing.

Furthermore, the Budget does nothing to remove the trade barrier separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. The £16.6 million package does not change the reality that businesses still face checks, paperwork, delays and extra costs when trading with Great Britain. If the Government remove the checks, they will save the £16.6 million immediately. We look with some envy at the Department of Government Efficiency in the United States, and wonder why the UK cannot match that level of waste reduction. There are quick, real-time savings available such as to cut excess immigration spending, make work genuinely rewarding, ensure everyone pays the tax they owe, pulp the costly madness of net zero and tackle waste across Government.

This Budget offers presentation rather than substance. It fails workers, employers, farmers, policing, health, hospitality and our taxpayers. There is a clear solution: get tough on immigration, tough on crime and tough on tax evasion, and get our country back to being the envy of the world. That is where we belong.