Budget Resolutions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to learn that I do not agree with him. In fact, what we have seen are billions of pounds generated for this country since the 1960s, driven by the private sector investing in jobs, investing in this country, creating wealth and making the North sea one of the cleanest and safest basins in the world in which to invest. I am very proud of the companies, and the men and women, who have driven that oil and gas industry to be the best in the world. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, and unlike the Government, we want to see that go further—we want to see further investment in our North sea oil and gas industry.

As I was saying, consensus is welcome, because we are in an energy crisis and there is no escaping that. The people and businesses of this country face some of the highest energy bills, domestic and industrial, in the developed world, and it is getting worse. Under Labour, our energy system is becoming increasingly unreliable and intermittent, and more reliant on imported energy. The burden of expensive energy is bearing down on Britain in households, businesses and industry, and having severe consequences. While the Chancellor acknowledged that, which was as welcome as it was surprising, it was entirely underwhelming.

Some of the announcements in the Budget may have seemed impressive, but they will not even touch the sides. There may be £100 for certain households, but when people’s bills are set to increase by over £500 in January, many will ask what was the point—will people even notice it? It is clear, however, that the Chancellor had at least noticed the Conservatives’ cheap power plan. Cutting VAT and scrapping levies on energy bills—I wonder where he might have got that idea?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

With respect to the Labour Government, one of the things that was missing in the Budget was the working middle class, who are caught in a devastating pincer movement between frozen thresholds and rising surcharges. They have worked extra shifts, been responsible in the way they have lived and managed to put some savings aside. In the Budget, the working middle class find themselves penalised for their aspiration, forced to pay out more of their hard-earned money, while watching inflation erode their savings. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what is missing is any consideration for the working middle class?

[Andrew Bowie]

The hon. Member is absolutely right, but, as usual, the Labour party gives no regard to those with aspiration or who want to succeed and get on. All it cares about is handouts and subsidies for “Benefits Street”. The Conservatives are the party that will support those who are working hard to do the right thing and move forward.

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[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

The Budget was great news for Derby—particularly the £2.5 billion investment with Rolls-Royce to develop the next generation of aircraft engine and keep us at the forefront of this country’s reindustrialisation—but I rise to speak about justice. Whether it is growth in every postcode, high streets being brought back to life or getting everyone in and off the streets for Christmas, none can be achieved without investment in and reform of our justice system.

The Prime Minister’s first instruction on entering Downing Street was to end rough sleeping, an objective that is inspiring, ambitious and right. The near doubling of the £442 million to £874 million for those measures in the Budget showed intent, but here is where our justice system comes in: every month, 1,000 people go straight from prison to homelessness, with many rough sleeping. That figure has gone up and outpaced the increase in the number leaving prison. Being homeless doubles the risk of reoffending and makes the goal of ending rough sleeping unobtainable. That is why we need a duty for rehabilitation services to ensure that, on leaving prison, people do not go on to the streets and into worklessness.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Lady for the point she is making and the Government for what they are doing on homelessness in particular. Does she agree that there should be priority for veterans in the homelessness scheme? They come out of prison, get lost in the system and nobody catches them where they are. I see that happening regularly in my constituency. Should they be given priority to address that?

[Catherine Atkinson]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. I acknowledge that there are many categories of people who we want to ensure have real priority. The Government already have the ambition to halve the number of prisoners who are released into homelessness, but, if we are to end rough sleeping and break cycles of offending, that ambition is not ambitious enough.

Just as it is morally offensive to us when we see someone sleeping rough in the doorway of a really high-end hotel, it should also offend us when we see the global elite and blue chip companies coming to Britain for our world-class justice while our own citizens are often left outside that justice system, getting rough justice. We should be rightly proud—and the Treasury mindful—of the huge contribution that international cases make to our country’s economy. In 2024 alone, the UK legal sector contributed £42.6 billion to the economy, and the UK is the largest legal services market in Europe and second only to the US globally, but we should be using some of that revenue to improve access to early legal advice and to legal aid, and to address the dire shortage in duty solicitors for our own people.

Lastly, there was positive news for our high streets, with the Budget taking many of our cafés, pubs and beauty salons completely out of business rates. The Home Secretary is putting police back on the frontline, and we have reversed the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under the previous Government, but the justice system needs to work much faster for all of us, including on our high streets and in our town and city centres, where people need to feel safe if they are to want to be there and spend money.

But as well as fast, justice needs to be fair. It is not right for people on the minimum wage to face custodial sentences—potentially going up to two years’ custody—and not qualify for legal aid, leaving them unrepresented in court.

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[Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)]

The Budget was a missed opportunity for our rural economy, which yet again this Government have failed to back. My message to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor is simple: stop saying that every postcode matters, and start showing it. In Chester South and Eddisbury, around our farms sit the contractors, vets, farm shops, pubs and family businesses that keep our villages alive.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing agriculture and the farming life to this debate. That is important, and I congratulate her on being the first person today to mention it. The family farm inheritance tax will have a destructive impact on farming in Northern Ireland. The Ulster Farmers’ Union—I declare an interest as a member—says that people will be forced into a tax bracket not because a family is wealthy, but because the value of the land and buildings has risen on paper. Hard-working families are asset rich but cash poor, and the family farms that I live among and represent in Northern Ireland will be those that feel the pain caused by this Government.

[Aphra Brandreth]

The hon. Gentleman is a champion for farmers in his community, and he is right—the Chancellor had the chance to repeal the vindictive family farms tax and family business tax, but he chose not to.

Nearly nine in 10 rural businesses have paused investment, and when investment stops, the consequences ripple through the whole rural economy. Conservatives would scrap those damaging taxes. The Government also had the chance to give small businesses some much-needed breathing space. They did not. Our rural businesses, particularly in hospitality and tourism, are being squeezed by rising costs, higher taxes and more regulation.

When businesses are struggling they stop investing, they stop expanding and, crucially, they stop taking on staff. These are the businesses that give so many young people their first step into work, and we should be making that easier, not harder. That is the difference between this Government and the Conservatives: we would halve the jobs tax for under-25s and create 100,000 new apprenticeships, because the best way to get young people into work is to back the businesses willing to employ them. This Budget did neither.

Then there is the cost of fuel. The fuel duty freeze is welcome, but the Conservatives kept it frozen for 14 years because we understand how much rural communities rely on their cars. This is not just about fuel for transport. On Saturday, I was out chatting to residents in Audlem, and so many of the people I spoke to are living off-grid. The price of heating oil has nearly doubled this year, and families are wondering whether they can afford to fill their tanks before winter.

Rural communities are being left out in the cold, quite literally, and the Budget offered them nothing. That is the real cost of this Budget in the countryside: investment on pause, young people not taken on, homes going cold, and family farms wondering whether they will survive. The contrast could not be clearer. The Conservatives would back our family farms, cut taxes on jobs, bring down energy bills through our cheap power plan, and get our rural economy growing again.

The president of the National Farmers’ Union described this Budget as

“tinkering while Rome is burning”,

and he was right. Our farmers, rural businesses and families do not need more promises, more consultations or more plans for the future. Rural Britain needs action now, and this Budget has failed to deliver it.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate; thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to welcome some of the good things in the Budget, because it is not all bad news, by the way—[Interruption.] Members should not put their thumbs up just yet—I am coming to the parts about which I have important Northern Ireland-based concerns.

I am concerned for the squeezed families of Strangford, who look at the Budget and have little cause for celebration. Look at the uncertainty facing the local business community in Northern Ireland. Standard small business rates relief is being permanently expanded in England, yet there is zero certainty that our small and medium-sized enterprises back home will see an equivalent benefit. Our highly capable SMEs, which form the bedrock of the Northern Irish economy, need iron-clad guarantees, not vague hopes.

The working middle class go to work and pay their taxes. They try to build something for their children, yet they are treated like a bottomless well of revenue by the Treasury. Take, for example, a hard-working family in my constituency of Strangford—a schoolteacher and a mid-level nurse. They have managed to put away a modest amount of savings to help fund their children’s university education. They will get no help for their children’s education and future, yet they will be forced to work on past retirement to ensure that their child has a chance at a future.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the cruel and punitive approach to family inheritance tax. Our agricultural sector in Northern Ireland is in a state of absolute panic. I have spoken with the Ulster Farmers’ Union, which tells me that generations of family farms—the very lifeblood of our rural communities—are now halting investment decisions because of inheritance tax fears. Passing a family business or a family farm down to the next generation is not a luxury; it is a way of life, and the Budget threatens to dismantle that.

On the Barnett formula, let us be realistic: the Barnett consequentials are totally inadequate. Why is that the case? Throwing a general lump sum at the Northern Ireland Executive and hoping that it covers police, health and education is a failure of governance. We need an allocation method equivalent to that for Wales, not a funding system that is not fit for purpose. That must be sorted out. Funding must be based on genuine local need, not a rigid, detached mathematical formula. We must protect our middle class, safeguard our family farms, and give Northern Ireland the specific, targeted support that it desperately needs.

Our hard-working middle class see no benefit for themselves, and even less for their children. When a parent works 50 hours a week, pays their taxes—big taxes—plays by the rules and still cannot see a path to a better future or a stable inheritance for the next generation, the social contract is broken. If the Government continue to bleed the middle class dry to paper over the cracks of their own fiscal failures, they will destroy the very aspiration that keeps this nation, this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, moving forward. The Budget offers no security on defence, and no reason to build a business and to work hard. It relies on the ethic of some to make up for the lack of ethic in too many. The Government must look closely at the people it punishes, because they need to breathe, and I do not believe the Budget provides that.