Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Sarah Owen Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab) [V]]

Healthcare for everyone, rich or poor, paid by us all through our taxes, not charity: 73 years on from Nye Bevan’s vision, our NHS workers are still breaking the mould and smashing records with the vaccine roll-out. The joy as people receive their vaccine—a step closer to hugging loved ones—should be a reminder of just how special our NHS is, but it was forgotten by the Chancellor. The NHS was missing from this Budget. It was a missed opportunity to rebuild our country into one that is not just wealthier, but healthier as we recover from this crisis.

If the last year has taught us anything, it is that levelling up our country cannot stop at Tory MPs in marginal seats pointing at a new train station platform or a motorway bypass. We need to wake up and realise that no country where life expectancy is eight years longer in parts of the Chancellor’s constituency than in parts of mine is one that is being levelled up.

The crisis has exposed yawning inequalities and the virus has exploited them, while 11 years of cuts to the NHS and the public sector have left us defending ourselves in a health war with shields made of bin bags. We all know that having a secure job makes someone less likely to get seriously ill, but while Luton has seen some of the highest job losses, we have thousands of businesses, self-employed people and entire industries, such as aviation and events, that have been completely forgotten by this Government.

Tory Chancellors tell us at every Budget, dewy-eyed, that these are tough and difficult decisions, but for over a decade their decisions have ended up costing our country so much more in the long run, not just financially but in terms of people’s health and wellbeing. These decisions have led to people in Luton enduring increased levels of in-work poverty and child poverty, to the extent that in this country one in five schools now needs its own food bank.

This Budget was missing so much, and it had all the depth of the Chancellor’s Instagram and all the sincerity of clapping nurses all the way to the food bank. This was the moment to finally invest in communities that had been forgotten—in our schools, in our NHS and in ending the inequalities that are holding our country back. It is time to prove that levelling up goes beyond posing in a high-vis jacket. After a year of sacrifice by people in Luton North, let us invest in areas based on need. Let us support businesses and high streets to recover. Let us bring more skilled jobs to Luton. Let us invest in making people healthier, and let us start by giving health and social care staff the pay they deserve. Our healthcare heroes deserved better than this Budget. The people of Luton North deserved better than this Budget.