Budget Resolutions

Jeevun Sandher Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)]

I am going to give a slightly different speech today, because I think that what the Government are doing with this Budget shows both a material and moral difference between our two sides. For us on the Labour Benches, it has always been clear—indeed, it is in our founding values—that every single person in this country should be able to live a decent life and that out of that we build prosperity for all. Those on the Opposition Benches believe that only some should be able to afford a decent life—a vision that has made us not just materially poorer but morally poorer.

I have written Budgets in the Treasury and in Somaliland. I have seen really difficult Budgets and, make no mistake, this was a difficult Budget at an incredibly difficult time. We face existential challenges, including an affordability crisis, a burning planet, war in Europe—and all of it coming at the same time. Underneath it all is a question that underlines our politics: will we stand strong together to meet this moment, or will we fall apart divided, weaker and poorer?

We made our choice in this Budget: we will see every single person, family and place do even better than before. Families, workers, business and Government will work in partnership to create prosperity. In this Budget we reduced energy bills so that families can afford the basics, but also because when families have more in their pockets, they spend more down the shops, and that helps their local businesses.

We are helping businesses with the things that they require —roads, skills and investment in energy—and we are cutting rates to give them a bit of breathing space as we go into what we all know will be an incredibly difficult winter. For the Government, it is being able to raise the funds that we need in the fairest way possible and in a way that does not damage prosperity. That is why we have a windfall tax on the banks, who have made huge profits in the past few years, and on oil and gas giants. They are making tens of billions of pounds from Iran and Ukraine, so we are making a choice to use some of that money to help cut bills for people in our constituencies across our country.

We know that this works not just because we have the fastest growing economy in the G7 but because it is what our past tells us. We know that it was Bevin’s alliance of labour and capital that helped win the second world war. We know that Attlee built common prosperity based on common sacrifice, all of it from common endeavour, and Blair and Brown renewed a nation. All that built upon the fundamental ideal that we hold, included on our founding membership card and, indeed, today, that we achieve more by standing together through our common endeavour.

There are those who believe differently from us. They believe that we should allow oil and gas giants and banks to make huge, record windfall profits, leave that there and not try and help every single person in this country. We have also seen that Reform, which supports racist thugs and masked people on our streets, will use those kinds of tactics to distract from the fact that it wants to give its crypto-billionaire mates tax cuts. That is who we stand against and that is the ideal that we stand against on the Labour Benches.

We choose a different path. The British people are better than that—better than the anger and the division, but also better than the penury that leads to. We know, on these Benches, what we have always known and seen throughout our history: that we build prosperity for all; that we stand together when each of us can stand as tall; that a nation is only as strong as each of the people who has a stake in it; and that they have a stake in that nation if life is affordable for all. That is the choice that we have made in our history—in our greatest moments—that was the choice that helped us win a war and rebuild our nation afterwards and it was the same choice that saw us build prosperity in our past and, indeed, prosperity in our present. That is what this Budget represents, that is the choice that we make and every single one of us is so proud of it.

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It has just come to my attention that the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) made a particularly nasty age-related comment during my speech. I wanted to see, first, if that was in order and secondly, if he might like to say that so that his young constituents can hear what he thinks of them.