Budget Resolutions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist). I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) in paying tribute to Sue Holt. I was in Strasbourg with her only a few weeks ago when she was taken ill. It was a great shock to all of us to learn what had happened to her.

I want to cover measures in the Budget that relate to my constituents, the Home Affairs Committee and my constituency, but I realise I have limited time so I will race ahead. It is pretty quick on the Home Affairs Committee side of things, because there was not very much in the Budget about such matters. In fact, there was only one mention in the speech: £15 million over three years for a misogyny prevention fund. We are yet to see what that actually involves, but I worry that priority is being given to perpetrators. Where is the money for victims? A victim-centred approach to violence against women and girls is essential. The Government have already said that £1 billion needs to be spent on tackling violence against women and girls during the life of the strategy, but the Red Book states:

“the government is prioritising £55 million of funding over two years to accelerate delivery of the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.”

Again, £55 million out of £1 billion does not sound too much.

On issues that were not mentioned but relate to home affairs, the Committee is conducting two inquiries at the moment. I am interested in the work that the Government are doing on apprenticeships and so on, but I urge them to look at the work the Committee did with Demos—a piece of deliberative democracy—looking at the public’s attitude to work-based immigration. They will find really interesting insights on the need to prioritise upskilling UK workers to take job vacancies, not just looking overseas to fill those roles.

The Committee is also doing to a piece of work on the impact of serious and organised crime on local neighbourhoods. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon made some really interesting comments about the high street. It is the case that we have seen the hollowing out of the high street, and the measures that the Government have taken on national insurance, business rates and so on have left a vacuum that is being filled by organised criminality. That is filling our high streets in a way that is inappropriate and that we do not want, so I urge the Government to deal with that issue.

Moving on to issues that affect my constituency, I welcome the £100 for A to D council tax payers. We have a disproportionately high number of properties in bands A to D in Staffordshire Moorlands, so more people will be affected by that than in some other constituencies. However, there was nothing in the Budget for those who rely on heating oil, and they will not benefit from the abolition of gas standing charges. Those people really do need help; the price of heating oil is hideous and, as we come into winter, the numbers that have been quoted to fill a tank of heating oil are astonishing.

Again, I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon in commenting that there was nothing about hospitality and tourism. As the Member of Parliament for Alton Towers and other great local attractions, including the Peak Wildlife Park, I know how much they welcomed the reduction in VAT over the summer and how much they want to see that made permanent. There was also nothing for farmers in the Budget. It would have been very heartening if the Chancellor had mentioned something about the family farm tax, to give farmers the respite that they need.

The Government tell us we need to have local government reorganisation in order to benefit from many of the measures in the Budget. As I said following the Minister for Local Government’s statement earlier, if we are going to have a mayor, we do not need to reorganise the structure of our local government as well. Let officials and councillors spend their time and effort on delivering services and let the mayors have the strategic overview. That would be a much better approach.

The Peak Cluster project proposes to enable the cement industry to continue in the Peak district through carbon capture, with plans to transport the carbon to Morecambe bay. This is of great concern. How much carbon is going to be emitted in building the pipelines that will go underneath the Peak district, Cheshire and other areas to get out to Morecambe bay, where the carbon can be put into an empty gas field? Surely, it would just be better to allow the cement industry to continue producing cement in as clean a way as possible in the United Kingdom, without the need to build the pipeline, with all the environmental damage that will cause.

I welcome the comments around new battery storage, and solar farms needing to be connected to the grid to start with. That is a measure that many of my constituents will welcome.