Budget Resolutions

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood). I am glad that things are going so well in his constituency; I wish it were the same in Batley and Spen.

Today’s Budget was an opportunity to get Britain back on track, to unlock our great potential and to begin the important work of getting Britain’s future back. Sadly, however, this Budget failed to address the deep-rooted economic challenges that we face, and the Government have to accept some responsibility for that, in particular for the chaos of the past five years, when we have seen five different Chancellors. Such political instability is damaging, to businesses, families and communities.

To be fair to the current Chancellor, he has the unenviable task of trying to tell people that everything is going to be okay, when for many people that is just not how they feel. Many people are struggling to make ends meet. People who work full time are having to use food banks and, everywhere they look, things are just not working, whether that is the buses or the trains, getting support for their children with special educational needs or with their mental health, or accessing a doctor or dentist.

So many people in my Yorkshire constituency tell me that they feel significantly worse off than they did 14 years ago. If I mention levelling up, they often simply laugh. I hear of the daily sacrifices that people make, the hard work people put in, but the feeling is that this hard work and sacrifice is just not paying off. They see a Prime Minister who has implemented 25 tax rises since 2019 alone, giving us the biggest income tax burden for decades. They know and feel that this economy is just not working for them.

People want to see and feel real change, but I know that they will be sorely disappointed to hear this Budget that will not even scratch the surface of the challenges they face. Like people across the country, families in Batley and Spen have faced a tough couple of years. The disastrous mini-Budget of 2022 saw their mortgage repayments and their weekly outgoings, including the cost of their food shop, spiral out of control. One family I spoke to recently, where both parents work full time, have to find an extra £350 a month for their mortgage. The national insurance cut will simply not cover that, meaning that they will have to sacrifice paying for precious family activities or will not be able to pay for their kids to go on school trips.

That is the reality for many people, as a result of the political choices of this Government, who remain intent on blaming everything and everyone else for their mess. The Government cannot pretend that the Conservatives’ mini-Budget was anything other than an economic disaster, for which we are all now paying the price. Ministers may celebrate that inflation just about halved last year, but the reality for families in Batley and Spen is that food prices went up by 7% last year and are still rising today, while our economy has now dipped into recession. Regularly in this place, we rightly pay tribute to the dedicated volunteers who give up their time to run our increasing number of food banks, but it is not acceptable that over the past decade we have somehow managed to normalise their existence, as though food banks are something to be proud of.

It is not just families that are feeling the pinch; small businesses in the towns and villages I represent are finding it incredibly tough. I recently met local landlords and landladies who face increased overheads, which they simply cannot pass on to customers and consumers who have their own cost of living pressures. Some local pubs have already closed, and more are under threat.

I will turn now to the pressures on local authorities, about which we have seen much in the news over recent days. Kirklees Council has lost over £1 billion of funding since 2010, and is facing unprecedented financial pressure. The Government must take responsibility. Indeed, if the Conservatives had kept Labour’s funding formula, Kirklees would currently be in surplus. Instead, like many other councils, Kirklees is having to make cuts worth almost £50 million just to balance the books, so once it has fulfilled its statutory obligations on education, refuse collection and social care, it faces the impossible dilemma of choosing which leisure centres, libraries, town halls, mental health services or registry offices to close. The impact on my constituents is devastating. Luckily, we have managed to save Batley sports and tennis centre, but the battle for Cleckheaton town hall and other vital local services continues.

The Budget should have ring-fenced money for sports and leisure facilities, libraries and town halls. Those things are not nice-to-haves; they are essential parts of our community infrastructure, and we need them to keep the population fit and healthy, reducing long-term pressure on the NHS. They are the key to happy, healthy and well-connected communities.

More broadly, local government funding needs fundamental reform. The current funding formula is not fit for purpose and means that local councils face either extreme hardship or potential bankruptcy, no matter which party controls them. Local government is often the most direct interaction that people have with politics, and it carries a huge burden in ensuring that local services work for residents. Failing to fund those services properly is causing a backlog of issues that we will eventually have to pay for anyway. The current situation is unsustainable and does not make economic sense, so I ask the Chancellor and the Levelling Up Secretary to urgently reform the funding formulas to ensure that adequate funding reaches the areas that need it most for basic services, which are the glue that bind our communities together.

The Budget was a missed opportunity to begin the work of rebuilding Britian, reforming our communities and unleashing our potential to get our future back. After years of financial and economic pain, it was an opportunity to reset and get our economy working for our communities again. Instead, all we got were a few tweaks, a couple of gimmicks and a few shiny announcements designed to distract from the flatlining economy, which is the fundamental issue impacting people daily across the country, including in Batley and Spen. I sincerely hope that the shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), will be delivering the next Budget in a few short months, to deliver the change that we so desperately need to get Britian back on track, rebuild the relationship with our local authorities, and get our economy working once again for families across the country.