Budget Resolutions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

I am sure the hon. Lady will be pleased to know that the average earner will be subject to the lowest effective tax rate since 1975.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Laura Trott]

I am going to make a bit of progress.

Sadly, the Labour party is putting this in jeopardy. Labour Members have no plan to cut taxes, and cannot name a single one that they would cut. Instead, they are trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes by pretending that they have refinanced their £28 billion a year plan to decarbonise. They themselves have said that their pledge costs £28 billion a year, and they are apparently not scaling their promises down. We all know what that means: more taxes for hard-working families. What the public and the House need to know is this: which tax will they raise to pay for the plan, and, if they are in government after the general election, will they stick to our spending plans as set out in the Budget? The British public deserve to know.

During this Parliament, total departmental spending has increased by 3.2% a year in real terms, and day-to-day departmental spending will grow at an average of 1% a year in real terms beyond the current spending review period. The Government are protecting the record increase in capital spending over this Parliament, which will deliver about £600 billion of public sector investment over the next five years. As announced in the Budget, we are also committing an additional £2.5 billion for the NHS in England in 2024-25, protecting day-to-day funding levels in real terms.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Over the last 14 years, the Conservatives have clearly failed to act for the common good. Budgets are about choices, and they have consistently made the wrong ones.

We have the highest tax-raising Parliament since world war two. The Resolution Foundation says that the tax increases since 2019 will cost £3,900 per household, and that incomes will be lower at the next general election than in 2019. The year 2022-23 saw the biggest drop in year-on-year living standards since the Office for National Statistics began its work in the 1950s. Taxes are going up, not down, despite the protestations of the Tories. I have heard no apology for the fact that only a third of the Tories’ tax cuts in this Budget are funded by identified tax cuts elsewhere, with the majority coming from borrowing. We have heard nothing from the Conservative party about that fact. If the Minister wants to dispute it, perhaps he will take it up with the Resolution Foundation.

The Tories also made the wrong choice with their announcement that it is their desire to prioritise cutting national insurance and abolishing it completely. Given the state of our public services, that leaves them having to find £40 billion, which, in the absence of knowing how it will be funded, the Institute for Fiscal Studies described as a prospect not worth the paper it was written on. We still have the Conservatives’ irresponsible recklessness: the “Tory efficiency” in public services that they talk about is for the birds. How will we find those sorts of cuts to our crumbling public services? It is a return to the austerity that we had between 2010 and 2015, which brought our services to their current state. The Resolution Foundation says:

“The idea that such cuts can be delivered in the face of already faltering public services is a fiscal fiction.”

How did we get to this state? Nothing in our public services is better today than it was in 2010. We are a better country than the one the Tories have brought us to being.

Another choice that the Tories are making is to put up council tax. My council tax has gone up over 50% since 2010, and the fees and charges that are being imposed on local people are stealth taxes forced on them by the Government because they have starved local authorities of resources.

Budgets are about choices, including in education. Every school in my constituency has lower per-pupil funding than it had in 2010. My borough has had £33 million lower funding overall since 2010, which is £867 per pupil. These are the amounts needed to restore funding to 2010 levels. Why are the headteachers and governors I speak to in my constituency worrying about costs when we hear from the Government that they have never had it so good? It is about choice, and the Government have consistently made the wrong choices.

Before I finish, I want to make reference to the contaminated blood scandal. Justice for those infected and affected has been delayed unacceptably by the Government. Sir Brian Langstaff made it quite clear how compensation could be paid, and he published the details in April last year. We are nearly a year on, and we are no closer to those people being paid compensation. In fact, the Government are putting steps in place to delay compensation to beyond the general election. The only way these people will get justice is if there is a Labour Government, and the sooner the Prime Minister calls that election, the better for them and the better for the country. We need a Government who will make decisions in the common good and ensure that everyone benefits from the growth that we need in our economy. We are certainly not going to get it from the Conservatives.