Budget Resolutions

Debate between Graham Stuart and Mike Wood

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

I do not know whether you, like me, are a fan of “Yes Minister”, Madam Deputy Speaker, but if you are, you may remember the first ever episode of what was supposed to be a sitcom. In the episode called “Open Government”, Sir Humphrey started by explaining to Bernard, “Dispose of the difficult stuff in the title. It will do far less harm in the title than in the actual report.”

That seems to be a lesson that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken to heart. While we see any number of posters, slogans, signs and reports with “growth” in the title—it even popped up once or twice in the Chancellor’s speech—there is virtually nothing in today’s Budget statement, or in the hundreds of pages of documentation that the Treasury has published today, that will actually lead to growth in our economy, and there was almost nothing in the King’s Speech that could deliver the meaningful growth that the economy clearly needs.

With every hour that passes, it becomes clearer that the Chancellor’s promises have not been delivered, and that there is a very wide gap between what was promised and the hopes that were raised before the election and what we have seen both in the legislative programme and in the first Budget in 14 years—as has been said—to be presented by this Chancellor of the Exchequer. The problem is not the black hole that the Chancellor claims to have found, but whose existence the OBR’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” report does not support; the problem is not that hole, but the enormous gap—the chasm—between what the Chancellor and the Prime Minister promised in opposition and before the election, and what they are now delivering for our constituents. With every hour that goes by, people are seeing that they were sold a false prospectus on that growth. The OBR’s report makes it absolutely clear that while it expects a temporary boost to GDP in the short term, there will probably be some crowding out of private activity in the medium term. That is why the OBR forecasts that the measures in the Budget will not raise growth but will cut growth, in 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029. This is an anti-growth Budget.

We were looking to the Chancellor to announce measures to support growth locally in our constituencies. Where is the certainty when it comes to the levelling-up funds that our communities were promised? Where is the certainty when it comes to the long-term plan for towns that our communities were promised—the plan that, in my previous constituency before the election, I worked so hard with local stakeholders, local councils and the combined authority to help to secure? The new boundaries mean that those projects are no longer in my constituency but in those of Labour Members of Parliament. Although it has been pointed out repeatedly that people voted for change, the people of Brierley Hill did not vote to lose a next-generation vehicle technology centre that would deliver the new skills that the community needs. The people of Dudley did not vote to lose £20 million of long-term investment from the towns fund, which would make such a difference to the community.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is giving a powerful speech on this Budget of broken promises. People in Dudley and elsewhere did not vote for this Labour Government to put up taxes on working people, yet the OBR has said today that 76% of the cost of the rise in national insurance contributions will come out of ordinary working people’s wages. Does he agree that they are rightly angry about that and will get angrier still when they understand the implications?