Budget Resolutions

Debate between Oliver Ryan and John Hayes

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

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

This Budget sets out a serious and responsible direction for our country’s future and speaks directly to the needs of people in Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield. It supports families and workers, puts the public finances back on stable ground and backs the businesses that are the backbone of towns like ours.

Crucially, we are already seeing real, measurable progress for Britain after 14 years of incompetence, failure, stagnation and rampant inflation. Growth has been upgraded to 1.5% this year and wages have risen faster in our first year than during the last decade the Conservatives were in power. For people in towns like ours, those are not abstract statistics; they are the difference between treading water—constant struggle—and finally feeling as though we are moving forward again as a community and as a country.

Families in my area have felt the squeeze more than most. I hear weekly about parents monitoring the thermostat hour by hour, commuters worried about every fare rise and households whose disposable income has simply evaporated with the cost of living. I welcome our plan, which gives people real relief right now: £150 off energy bills next year, rising to £300 for those who need it most; more support; more homes insulated and more homes built in towns in our constituencies; a freeze on rail fares, petrol duty and prescription charges; and, for our NHS, the largest reduction in waiting lists in almost 20 years, in addition to 250 new neighbourhood health centres, 5.2 million more NHS appointments and care brought closer to home, with more doctors and nurses.

However, it is not just short-term support that matters; it is long-term renewal. We are maintaining the highest levels of public investment in 40 years, because our constituencies cannot rebuild on the foundations left behind after austerity and the chaos of 14 years of Tory Britain. Better transport connections, stronger and better-funded local services, investment in skills and young people, and higher-paid, quality jobs—these remain the building blocks of renewal in Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield.

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Ryan]

I will not, because of time.

We are doing all that while paying down the national debt and getting into surplus—something promised several times by the Tories but, as far as I am aware, never done. We are doubling the fiscal headroom, which is a momentous achievement—something we are probably not shouting about enough—and taking responsibility for the public finances after the rank mismanagement of the previous Government.

For too long, the welfare system that we inherited left working families too poor to eat and wrote off hundreds of thousands of people as too sick to work without offering them proper support. Indeed, when the shadow Chancellor was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the welfare bill soared by £33 billion, and he put an extra 229,000 people into the welfare system. The welfare bill doubled during the Conservatives’ time in office, which is bad for our budget, our communities and the people they wrote off. We are finally putting that right.

We are addressing poverty at the same time by scrapping the two-child limit, which is lifting 450,000 children out of poverty nationally, including a huge 5,170 children in Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield. We are guaranteeing jobs for people under the age of 25, ending long-term youth unemployment and ensuring that no young person is abandoned.

I am conscious of time, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want to make a point about support for businesses. We have not only maintained Government capital investment plans, but made sure that we will lower permanently business rates for local employers and multipliers for our high street. We are doing this to create a stable and long-term approach for businesses.

We are taking important steps such as relieving stamp duty on the first three years of new UK-listed companies for larger entities, which is our invitation to the world to do business here. That will have a direct effect on our competitiveness. We are putting in place more support for manufacturers in places such as my constituency, where energy bills have swelled over the last 10 years. We are extending capital allowances for business assets and leasing, and we are extending tariff suspension and support likewise. This will help some of my area’s largest employers to grow. In addition, we are extending NICs relief for those who hire veterans. Our measures include ISA reform to encourage investment into quite sizeable businesses. I am also interested in the call for evidence on firms with scale-up potential, which will end next year.

All these steps will create growth for the economy and help my constituents, and I greatly welcome this Budget.