Budget Resolutions

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray), although I suspect that we will have slightly different assessments of this Budget. In my view, this is a thin gruel of a Budget, and with its 98 measures tinkering at tax and spending, it is not un-reminiscent of Emperor Nero in Rome, fiddling while it burned. This is ultimately a Budget of delay: it kicks the big decisions into the long grass; it is anaemic in terms of its assessment and forecast for growth; and it quite simply does not set out a compelling vision for our economic future. That inertia has a cost, which is obvious in two areas.

The first area, of course, is defence. We are living in an increasingly unstable world. It is negligent—a failure of a duty of government—not to properly fund our armed forces. A consequence of having a plan for a road map to 3% of GDP is that there is no strategy whatsoever. I am afraid that the absence of that plan, from this particular Chancellor especially, does nothing to enhance his credibility in front of the British public and the markets. The second area, which I will touch on briefly, is welfare. I will touch on it briefly because there was barely any mention of it in yesterday’s Budget, and yet welfare spending is predicted to go up by £19 billion this year, and total welfare spending is anticipated to be £431 billion by 2031-32. That is utterly unsustainable.

I want to concentrate on a particular hidden tax measure in the Budget. It is buried in section 6.147 of the Red Book, but it has enormous implications for those who are self-employed and pay their tax under self-assessment. I am one of those individuals, from my historical earnings at the Bar and my aged debt. Under the new proposal, individuals will pay their taxes perhaps on a monthly or quarterly basis—it is unclear yet—and some 50% of tax returns will almost certainly be brought forward in terms of when they are paid. The obvious effect for the Treasury is that receipts in year 1 will increase by £1.3 billion and by year 3 that will be £1.8 billion. However, it will be ruinous for the individuals concerned because they will end up paying tax on issues that they have not yet received. It does not reflect the seasonality of payments and it is, quite frankly, a rather silly policy that has been cooked up by those who have no understanding of business at all.