Budget Resolutions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

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[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

Gravesham is one of the youngest boroughs in Kent, but it is the fourth highest in the south-east for young people not in education, employment or training. Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming the youth hubs on our high streets in Gravesham, so that young people can find a way back into education, employment and training?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Before the Secretary of State responds, more than 84 Members are hoping to speak, so every minute we can give Back Benchers will go down well.

[Angela Rayner]

Noted, Madam Deputy Speaker. I really applaud what Gravesham is doing, especially for its young people.

The strategy is backed by £125 million to transform derelict buildings in our high streets, £65 million for community ownership funding and £10 million to deliver high street rental auctions. Alongside this, we are cracking down on illegitimate and illegal businesses, giving councils powers to limit vape shops and adult gaming centres, and reforming licensing.

The state of our town and city centres says so much about us, who we are as a country and whether we are on the right path. Getting our high streets back on track is a crucial step to giving Britain hope again. But this strategy is just one part of our plan to make people proud of their local area. Alongside it, we have confirmed plans for a new No. 10 North priority projects programme. This will unlock homes, jobs, investment and long-term economic growth, with No. 10 North working directly with new strategic authorities. The Budget will also accelerate the delivery of priority projects in West Yorkshire, the West of England and South Yorkshire. These include investment to expand the Leeds College of Building to accommodate over 2,000 new learners, crowding in around £350 million of private investment into Bristol Temple Quarter, and match-funding incubator space in the Don Valley Corridor.

We will continue to support growth in London, as one of the world’s most important cities, working with the Mayor of London to bring forward improvements to the transport network and towards a global city productivity plan. More widely, we have also confirmed that all 20 strategic authorities will be eligible for funding in the new co-operative development programme. This £10 billion programme is the biggest Government-backed boost to co-operatives for decades and shows how we are meeting our commitment to our sister party to double the size of the co-operative economy.

In the years ahead, we will continue to deliver the £5.8 billion Pride in Place programme, putting local residents in charge of change across almost 300 neighbourhoods. This month, we will see the next major milestone of the programme as we reach the deadline for phase 2 neighbourhoods to submit their 10-year plan. We will continue to work with the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, confirming at the Budget the investment in the Edinburgh-Glasgow central belt, funding for the expansion of the M-SParc science park in Anglesey and of Cardiff Parkway station, and the £7.5 million of investment to grow AI and cyber industries in Belfast.

Our plans for good growth will shape the future of this country, but we also know that people need breathing space right now. Alongside radical reforms to reduce bills in the future, we have also announced a series of measures to tackle the cost of living and help make everyday life easier. We know that rising energy costs are going to be tough for a lot of households this winter. That is why we are removing VAT and standing charges from bills, freezing fuel duty and providing £100 per household for energy payments in council tax bands A to D in England. The measures are supporting up to 80% of households in England, and local authorities will get a discretionary fund of £100 million to provide further support to households most in need.

On top of that, we have taken action to make groceries cheaper by cutting import duties; increased the living wage and the minimum wage; extended parental leave; and ended the carer’s allowance cliff edge. We brought in higher tax-free mileage rates and boosted support for nurses, and we are making sure that pensioners in receipt of the full state pension will not have to pay tax.

Britain is a kind, caring nation where people take pride in looking out for each other. In 2026, in the world’s fifth-richest economy, everyone should have a roof over their head. That is why we will make sure that by Christmas this year everyone sleeping rough will be offered a route off the streets. Earlier this year, I announced £442 million for a new rough sleeping programme to meet that milestone. Support off the streets should not just be for Christmas, though, so we are almost doubling that figure with £432 million to keep that offer going for the next two years. That means continuing to help people off the streets, while preventing people from returning and giving them the support that they need. That is why we will make sure there is wraparound support for those people as well.

The Budget makes progress towards our commitment to deliver the biggest boost in council house building since the post-war period. We have announced that we will extend the preferential borrowing rate for councils on top of the £1.5 billion that I mentioned earlier. Our message to local leaders is, “Get ambitious, and we will back you all the way.”

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s planned AI tool, Assist, will be available to all councils in England by the end of 2027. We also announced the Your First Home scheme to help around 70,000 first-time buyers to get on the ladder. Good growth in every postcode is not just about fairness; it is the simple point that Britain is at its best when every area of the country can play its part. I am proud of this Government’s action, I am proud of our history, and I am proud of this Budget. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Because so many colleagues wish to contribute, Back Benchers are on a five-minute speaking limit.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The Government’s commitment to children and young people is clear in the scale of the education reforms they are bringing forward, from the restoration of early years services through Best Start family hubs to the expansion of childcare, the roll-out of free breakfast clubs, curriculum reform, special educational needs and disabilities reform, technical and vocational qualifications from the age of 14, work experience, social media regulation and apprenticeships. It is the Education Committee’s role to scrutinise the detail of the Government’s policies and their delivery, but there can be no doubt as to the scale of their ambition for children and young people across our country.

I welcome the announcement in the Budget of the establishment of a new parental allowance for self-employed fathers, partners and adopters. This will enable parents who have previously been excluded from parental leave and pay to have precious bonding time together as a family with their baby or adopted child.

Earlier this year, my Committee published a report on reading for pleasure, which documented the immense benefits it brings children and young people in the development of empathy and compassion, good mental health and wellbeing, language skills and attainment at school. We also highlighted the concerning drop in the number of children and young people choosing to read for pleasure and a range of interventions that are needed to turn the situation around. I therefore welcome the additional £15 million that the Government have allocated in the Budget to increase access to books for young children.

I would add, however, that the most concerning decline in reading for pleasure is seen among teenagers, and that school libraries can play a hugely valuable role in supporting children to sustain reading at secondary school. My Committee has called on the Government to extend their important pledge to deliver a library in every primary school to secondary schools, which could be done with an investment of £15 million. I hope that the Government will continue to look at how that important pledge can be extended.

On examining the delivery of apprenticeships, my Committee noted that children and young people are not provided with nearly enough information about apprenticeships, and that this information often does not come in time for them to properly consider apprenticeships as an alternative to university. I therefore welcome the expansion of the mayoral apprenticeship brokerage pilots, which have the potential to ensure both that employers are supported to offer more apprenticeships and that young people have access to information about these fantastic opportunities in their local area.

I further welcome the increase of £60 million a year for new PE and sport partnerships. This will increase the availability of high-quality opportunities for children and young people to participate in sport and physical activity in school and in their local area, directly contributing to better physical and mental health.

However, the Committee remains concerned about some areas of interest to us that were not covered by the Budget. Our report on higher education and funding raised concerns about the impact of the international student levy on higher education institutions and a lack of join-up between the Home Office and the Department for Education. The Government’s impact analysis for the proposed international student levy now suggests a loss of income to the higher education sector of £280 million —more than £100 million higher over three years than originally estimated. Universities consistently told us that the international student levy would prove to be relatively inelastic to increases in fees, and the impact analysis supports that.

We can be enormously proud of our universities; they are internationally renowned powerhouses of economic growth and anchor institutions in their communities that offer life-changing opportunities to thousands of young people and mature students every year. However, they are facing extreme precarity in their financial sustainability, and it is vital that Government policy seeks to bolster them, not to push them over a cliff edge. I urge the Government to look carefully again at the international student levy to ensure that it is both proportionate and fit for purpose.

My Committee has long raised concerns about the disparity in the treatment of further education colleges and schools with regard to VAT. Further education colleges have a critical role to play in the Government’s important objective of tackling the scandal of almost 1 million young people not being in education, employment or training. Colleges are places of hope, inspiration, support and inclusion where young people can find their passion and gain the skills they need to pursue it, yet unlike schools, they cannot reclaim VAT. Ministers have written to me with a technical explanation of the rules on VAT exemptions, but they are looking at this issue the wrong way round. Whatever the technical justification, the reality is that schools and colleges are not on a level playing field with regard to VAT. The response should not be, “This is what the rules say,” but, “How can we change the system to make the rules fair?”

This Budget represents the Government’s excellent commitment to children and young people, but there is further to go. My Committee will continue to press the Government and scrutinise their commitments.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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[Jonathan Hinder]

I definitely think that the House needs to come back to plan 2 loans. That will become a bigger and bigger issue.

So many of our challenges stem from a lack of quality work in productive industries. We do not talk about the link enough, but high streets are crippled by a lack of good jobs that provide a decent income and give people money in their pockets to spend in their area. Young people are stuck at home, unable to get a place of their own and start a family, and we see the selling-off of British assets to fund a current account deficit.

There is something even more fundamental at play when we talk about reindustrialisation. Sometimes in these economic policy debates we lose a sense of what really matters in life. Why is it that so often those jobs that appear to be the most socially useless are paid the most and those that contribute something so important to our society are often paid the least? If our economy is driving those perverse incentives that push bright young people into careers trading securities—some people call them “BS jobs”—we had better change those incentives, had we not? We need an economic framework that, instead of incentivising rent seeking, incentivises productive, meaningful work, providing people with not just a sense of satisfaction, pride and a good living but something useful to society—imagine that?

I know that this is not easy, but our economy cannot go on consuming too much and producing too little. I urge the Chancellor and his Ministers to ensure that reindustrialisation, which has struck such a chord with the British people, is turned into a fully-fledged plan for national reconstruction.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Father of the House.