Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Gentleman, although I am not sure that the Liberal Democrats are always quite so bold when it comes to local decision making.

It is a pleasure to support the measures announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. I have known him for many years, and he certainly knows Cambridge well. The measures on rough sleeping will be strongly supported in the city of Cambridge. They are the right thing to do, because they also help tackle a problem that I have talked about before, which I described as the pauperisation of the public realm. Over the last few decades, too many of our city centres and towns have not had the investment and care that they needed. That goes some way towards explaining how we can be a country that, by international and historical standards, is well off, yet has a general sense of unhappiness.

The fragmentation and privatisation of public services and spaces, widely attributed to decisions made in the 1980s, have come back to haunt us. I was pleased to hear the suggestions in the Chancellor’s speech, echoing the comments made by the Prime Minister over the last few months, that address those points.

[David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)]

I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman says—I have been a critic of some privatisation myself—but it does not explain why those same malaises did not apply during the Blair years.

[Daniel Zeichner]

As I said, I think it goes back over decades, and it needs to be reversed. I thought the most radical measure in the Chancellor’s statement was the fiscal devolution. I am someone who, along with many others in the Chamber, has argued for business rates retention over many years. I look forward to seeing how that plays out.

I represent a young city, and I am confident and optimistic about the future if we can give our young people the opportunities they need. I was pleased to hear about the measures to support innovation and entrepreneurs. At the Innovate Cambridge summit last week, we were told by local people that as an innovation cluster by density, Cambridge ranked second in the world and first in Europe in 2026. Just a few months earlier, the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board published research showing that the growth corridor has produced 740 university spin-outs—almost 70% more than the fabled Bay area in America—and produces more scientific publications per resident than anywhere else in the world.

As we know, all too often we manage to generate tremendous start-ups, but have a problem with scale up. The points in the statement about the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank can help us use the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor to drive prosperity for the whole nation, not just the region. I welcome the announcement of the flexibility that will be offered to the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation, which will allow us to be innovative in the way we use public funds to also pull in private funds.

I welcome the optimism and confidence that the Budget brings, but I add one word of caution. The success and strength of cities such as Cambridge, and of the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, is based on the strength of our universities. Colleagues will know that universities are facing acute financial pressures, made more difficult by some of the measures that are being taken to address international students. The changing attitude of UK Visas and Immigration on visa applications is increasing the pressure, while the introduction of the international student levy will increase the financial pressure.

I strongly urge my colleagues on the Front Bench to talk to Universities UK and look at alternative ways to fund maintenance grants. I understand and appreciate that there are long-term structural issues, but it is dangerous to allow universities to get so close to the financial brink, and it potentially undermines the success of the Ox-Cam corridor and cities like Cambridge. We should be optimistic about our future. That we have the talent to succeed is based partly on the fact that we attract talent from across the world. We need to remain competitive internationally.

Innovation and knowledge are things that we are good at in this country. They should be celebrated, and there are measures in the Budget that will be strongly welcomed by innovators, but we need to ensure that they are not undermined unintentionally as the Government seek to address other issues.