Budget Resolutions

Josh Babarinde Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

The returning tide of populism that we have seen today is a sobering reminder of what can happen when people feel that the system has not been delivering for them. This reality makes fiscal events, such as a Budget delivered by a new Government, so critical. A Budget is more than just an annual accounting practice; it represents an opportunity to reassure our communities that they can trust us—all of us—to recognise their needs, aspirations and concerns. A Budget is an opportunity to meet those needs and to inoculate our communities and our country against the populist contagion that has invaded yet another host today.

Against that backdrop, I will shamelessly share some of Eastbourne’s needs. Eastbourne needs support to tackle homelessness, which has meant that our food bank was the country’s busiest last year. I therefore welcome the £230 million announced in the Budget for homelessness prevention, and I hope the East Sussex floating support service can benefit from it, but we have been let down by the lack of emergency support to help councils like mine with the unsustainable cost of temporary accommodation, as so eloquently described by the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi).

Eastbourne also needs services at our local hospital, where I was born, to be protected. I welcome the NHS investment announced in the Budget, but I am disappointed that the status of investment in our hospital via the new hospitals programme has still not been confirmed. This means that local mums, who in many cases are having to travel more than 20 miles to have their babies, are still unclear about what investment their hospital will get.

Our significant population of local pensioners and I have pleaded with the Government to review their decision to remove the winter fuel allowance from many pensioners who need it. It is unacceptable that those calls have been ignored.

Our local businesses need additional support to thrive, yet the increase in employer NICs will make it harder for them to survive—especially many of our hospitality businesses, which I am proud to represent as a patron of the Eastbourne Hospitality Association.

Eastbourne’s WASPI women, led by Angela Boas, deserve compensation, which was missing from the Budget. Eastbourne’s SEND families, supported by advocates like Kate Humphries, must benefit from the £1 billion SEND funding that was announced.

Overall, the Government have made progress, but they must go further to reassure my community that they will deliver for Eastbourne on all the counts I have described. Failure to deliver will leave my town more vulnerable to the vice of great hardship, and more exposed to the venom of populist predators.