Budget Resolutions

Debate between Sam Rushworth and Andrew Griffith

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

I am pretty sure that at the time, the now Chancellor described the increase as a “jobs tax”, and that is exactly what this is. What we are seeing is not a need to balance the nation’s books on the back of a global supply chain squeeze, higher energy costs due to the war in Ukraine and the aftermath of covid, but a Government coming in with premeditated plans that they did not share with the British people, and setting the biggest-ever tax raid Budget in British history. That is an enormous difference, and business understands it; it can see through this Government.

One of the UK’s leading hospitality entrepreneurs is Luke Johnson, who runs Gail’s, which I believe some of my Liberal Democrat colleagues are rather keen on—they are the party of Gail’s. He said:

“It is heartbreaking that Britain’s proud record of innovation, flexibility and business success is being thrown away thanks to that old knee-jerk Labour instinct of taxing success.”

I agree.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is clear that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the way in which the Budget raises revenue. Does he oppose the £22 billion investment in the NHS, the investment in special educational needs and disabilities education, or the increases in the schools budget?

[Andrew Griffith]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman has a long and successful career in this House, but he will not have very long to wait; if he is concerned about a lack of investment in the NHS, I ask him to sit down with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and ask exactly what the rate of growth will be for NHS spending and departmental spending in the years ’26-27 and ’27-28. Then perhaps he could come back and tell me what he thinks about that level of spending growth.

The Government talk of stabilising the economy—we have heard a lot about that—but this is not a Budget for stability; it is anything but. Let me educate Labour colleagues. There is nothing stable about lowering the rate of economic growth. All that does is create a more fragile and susceptible economy. There is nothing sustainable about a Government changing the fiscal rules after saying that they would not. Even with the potentially unsustainable levels of departmental spend, there is nothing stable in a Government having a razor-thin level of headroom that the OBR quantifies at only £10 billion—just one third of the level that the Chancellor’s predecessor set—to ensure that they remain within the fiscal rules, which they have just made up, by the way.