Budget Resolutions

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome). It is fair to say that all Budgets are keenly awaited, speculated about and then scrutinised in great detail. Some herald landmark decisions, such as the initial covid response package in March 2020. Others live in infamy, such as the mini-Budget that crashed the markets in 2022. This one is more difficult to categorise, coming as it does at a time when the unpredictability of the White House and Trump’s provocation of foreign wars creates instability in the international markets and for families in the UK, and massive uncertainty. That is why the £15 billion for Ukraine is so important for its defences, for ours, and for Europe’s.

There is much more that I welcome in the Budget, partly because this is not the time for disagreeing for disagreeing’s sake, or point scoring. The people of this country face massive problems with energy prices and the cost of living, and it is down to us to work together to fix them. Any measures to bring down the crippling cost of energy bills, remove the unfairness of gas standing charges and give families a little headroom in the cost of living crisis should be endorsed.

We must remember that while supermarket shelves are filling with luxuries, for too many people, this winter will be about keeping warm and keeping their children fed. Businesses will also struggle, so I was delighted to see that funding from gambling and vape shops will go to support other high-street businesses, and that the Government are asking the banks that the British taxpayer bailed out two decades ago to return the favour.

It will be no surprise to anyone in this place to hear that I heartily endorse the impetus to create a better working relationship with the EU, as well as the £18 million for advanced chip development led by Edinburgh University and the £6 million for Glasgow’s Scottish Event Campus, but I worry, as most Scots here do, that many of the measures in this Budget, which will lead to £600 million of consequentials for Scotland, will disappear into the black hole created by the Scottish Government, given the £5 billion shortfall that their budget now faces.

Yesterday, the Chancellor said:

“This is a Labour Budget for the worker, the sole trader, the parent at the school gate, and the young person desperate to start their first job or…business.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2026; Vol. 792, c. 314.]

Those are the people who will decide which category this Budget falls into. They will decide whether their lives are better for it. When we come out of the “storms” that the Chancellor talked about, we will see whether this tanker, which will take a long time to turn around, is facing in a direction that families will welcome.