Income Tax (Charge)

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal), who made a heartfelt and moving maiden speech. She will clearly be a doughty champion for her constituents in the years to come, and I wish her well in this House.

It has been barely five days since the Chancellor laid her first Budget before the House, and it was worse than anyone could have imagined. Far from protecting working people, it has punished workers, businesses, entrepreneurs and investors—the very people who help us to prosper as a country. It has spooked the markets. The cost of borrowing has gone up significantly, and debt interest will be higher as a result. So much for restoring stability. The Institute of Directors described it as a

“painful Budget for business”,

and the OBR has downgraded its growth projections for the next five years, and says that inflation will creep up again, which in turn means that interest rates will stay higher for longer, as will people’s mortgages. The IFS has warned that Labour’s national insurance hike will hit low-paid jobs the hardest, and will force firms to cut salaries, cut hiring and raise prices. So much for protecting working people.

Astoundingly, for a Government who claim that they are all about economic growth, while private companies have seen their taxes hiked overnight, the public sector will be protected and given much more funding. Public services are important—no one would claim otherwise—but the wealth of this nation is built not by the Government but by private enterprise and entrepreneurs. It is the innovation, ingenuity and enterprise of the private sector that creates opportunity, growth and prosperity. The Government should recognise and reward it, not stifle and punish it.

This was a Budget of broken promises. During the election, the Labour party promised voters 50 times that it would not raise taxes on working people. The Prime Minister promised it. The Chancellor promised it. The entire Front Bench promised it. Indeed, it was there for all to see, in black and white in their manifesto, but despite all their promises, they have raised taxes by £40 billion to an all-time high.

That has been done on the backs of working people, on the backs of those who own a business, on the backs of those who take risks, invest in the UK and create jobs, on the backs of those who have worked hard and saved to own property or shares, on the backs of those who work in agriculture, and on the backs of those who send their children to independent schools. The Labour party does not think that those people are working people, but they are, and they will not forget it. None of this should come as a surprise, of course. We know, given the farcical verbal knots that they have tied themselves in over the past few weeks, that Labour Front Benchers cannot even define what a working person is.

The British people have been betrayed, and everyone can see what the Labour Government have done. It is very clear that they had planned all along to jack up our taxes but would not come clean. They made all sorts of promises during the election—they were going to steady the ship and achieve the highest sustained growth in the G7—and said that all their policies were “fully costed” and “fully funded.” However, as soon as they got into power, they invented the so-called black hole, which no one believes exists, and which even the OBR has refused to legitimise. They have wasted no time in fiddling the rules so that they can borrow billions more for their lavish spending, subjecting the British people to misery through record tax rises.

The British people will not forget what is being done to them. Those high-tax, high-spend policies will not protect working people. The prioritisation of trade union donors over small businesses and pensioners will not protect working people. The deliberate punishment of risk takers and job creators will not protect working people. But at this stage, it is not too late. It is not too late to apologise to the British public and rescue them from this disaster. It is not too late to listen to people who have experience of the real world —those who have set up their own businesses, taken risks and employed people, and created wealth and growth. It is not too late to change course, so the Government should show some humility and do so.