Budget Resolutions

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I love the enthusiasm among Government Members, but it reminds me of that story about the emperor’s new clothes, with them all simpering over the Chancellor while ignoring what is before their eyes. I understand why they want to believe in levelling up, but after 11 wasted Tory years, they are not levelling up. Our economy and public services are facing terminal decline. After 11 years, households across the country are facing a collapse in living standards. High inflation, rising taxes, low growth, falling living standards and crumbling public services are not indicators of levelling up; they are evidence that the Government have lost the plot.

This Budget does not address the childcare crisis. It disproportionately penalises women. It continues to ignore those self-employed who have been excluded and cast adrift. It punishes those working hard by crippling them with national insurance increases, council tax rises, unaffordable mortgages and a combination of shortages and higher food bills.

We need to grow our economy if we are ever to pay properly for decent public services without taxing people out of existence, but the Chancellor’s ambition is to return education spending to the level that he inherited in 2010. He is taking us back, not forward, wasting time when we should be taking the necessary steps towards a high-value, highly skilled, productive and green economy. As those missed opportunities mount, so the façade becomes harder to maintain. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have hit on a good slogan, but they are completely naked when it comes to taking the necessary action.