Budget Resolutions

Oliver Ryan Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on a tremendous Budget despite a remarkably difficult inheritance. We have kept our promises: change is here, and it cannot come soon enough. Today’s Budget set out firmly the foundations of sustainable economic growth that will benefit towns, cities and villages across our nation. The Chancellor’s proposals laid down the central groundwork for addressing inequality, investing in our areas and the NHS, and tackling the housing crisis, full-throatedly supporting growth. These are critical steps towards a prosperous Britain, including Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield—a goal that we can all get behind.

Investment in our education system is critical for our future. Indeed, I am hugely proud that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is prioritising education in this Budget. There is more money for teachers, support staff and breakfast clubs, £300 million for further education, and a further £1 billion for special educational needs—a critical injection of cash, and an investment in our future.

I am glad to see that this Budget is centred on real priorities: supporting working people, fixing the NHS and rebuilding our country. We are paying down the overdraft that the Conservatives built up. I still find it the height of irresponsibility that they spent the country’s emergency reserves three times over on what was essentially electioneering, and now they have the brass neck to lecture us about financial responsibility—when they turn up, that is. They did not fund the bus cap or the new hospital programme, and they did not disclose their shenanigans to the OBR. They did not fund our prisons and, disgracefully, they did not fund the compensation schemes for infected-blood victims and the sub-postmasters. They did not even fund day-to-day spending; they left us with a £126 billion in-year debt interest payment, just to stand still. It was short-termist and unsustainable.

I am glad to hear that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will not only cut the deficit, but bring us into surplus in just a few years’ time. During the election, the Conservatives made promises that they had no intention of keeping. By making promises and failing to fund them, they were playing politics with people’s lives and services, which could only end with the grotesque chaos of a Prime Minister stood in Downing Street in the rain and calling an election that he hoped he would not win. Otherwise, people would have asked him to deliver on what he said he was going to do. He ran around signing cheques, knowing they would bounce.

For too long, working people have borne the weight of failed policies, from Liz Truss’s rising mortgage rates to billions of pounds lost to inefficient projects. Labour’s plan provides a clear choice: continued stagnation, or real change with Labour. I congratulate the Chancellor on the massive £22.6 billion increase for NHS day-to-day spending—the largest increase in capital spending that we have seen since 2010. Labour is back, and the NHS and my residents are happier for it.

Labour understands that revitalising Britain requires sustained investment in schools, hospitals, industries and infrastructure. Burnley exemplifies the transformative power of such investments. As part of the north-west industrial cluster, companies such as Safran Nacelles, AMS Neave and BCW Manufacturing contribute billions of pounds to the UK economy, provide thousands of jobs and export to over 100 countries worldwide. Supporting these local industries is essential for building a strong, resilient Britain.

It is clear that this Budget is about the future, not the past, but I want to put on record my disdain for the levelling-up, “Hunger Games” agenda of the last Administration. The last Labour Government rebuilt Burnley town centre, built St Peter’s Centre, built Burnley college, rebuilt every school in Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield, brought the University of Central Lancashire to Burnley in order to make us a university town, and invested in our town centres, particularly in the public realm. Contrast that with 14 years of being ignored since 2010, apart from the large, game show-style levelling-up cheques that contributed only to a roundabout and a cinema. I am glad to hear of all the commitments that the Chancellor has made today, particularly on levelling up, and I am glad that we will now get a long-term plan for the towns fund.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Vicky Foxcroft.)

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.