Budget Resolutions

Steve Race Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), and a great pleasure to speak in this Budget debate. I direct Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

This is the second of what will be many Labour Budgets that will help this country to rebuild our public services, rebuild our public finances and bring down the monumental national debt. That is all at the heart of delivering long-term economic sustainability, growth and fairness, which is our great task after 14 years of Tory and Lib Dem mismanagement. I want to speak about the two issues closest to my heart as the MP for Exeter—the start-up and scale-up economy, and child poverty in Exeter.

Today, over 1,000 start-ups are active across the south-west region, and our start-ups are growing not just in volume, but in value. The average venture-backed start-up in the south-west is now worth £11 million. Moreover, five of the UK’s top 50 start-up constituencies by funds raised are in the south-west: Bristol Central, Filton and Bradley Stoke, Bristol East, Bath and, indeed, Exeter. That amounts to 10% of the national total in a region that is too often overlooked.

What is most exciting is what comes next. Half of our start-ups are at the seed stage, brimming with ideas and ambition. These are the major employers and major innovators of the future. These are the businesses that will supercharge Exeter’s economy and help deliver economic sustainability and prosperity. That is why I was really pleased to see changes in the Budget that will support new businesses in my constituency to start up and then to scale up, helping them to raise capital, attract talent and stay competitive here in the UK.

First, the significant expansion of the investment limits for both the enterprise investment scheme and the venture capital trusts means that from April 2026 companies will be able to raise much larger sums, with annual limits doubling to £10 million and lifetime limits rising to £24 million, and even higher thresholds for knowledge-intensive companies. That means that more ambitious ideas can be funded right here in Britain, particularly in sectors such as green engineering, AI, biotechnology and fintech—the sectors that will power the next decade of economic leadership in this country.

Secondly, the Budget strengthens one of the most powerful tools for fast-growing firms: the ability to attract and retain the skilled people who make innovation happen. By expanding the enterprise management incentive scheme—increasing the employee headcount eligibility to 500, and raising the asset and share option limits—we will ensure that starters can continue to offer meaningful equity to their teams as they grow. This gives scaling companies the firepower to compete with big employers to keep talent in the UK, and to ensure that workers share in the success they help create.

Together, the reforms send a strong signal that Britain backs bold entrepreneurs. We want the next global success stories to start, scale and stay right here in the UK and in Exeter. Indeed, just today one of my contacts in the start-up world said that entrepreneurship was at the heart of the Budget in a way that has never been seen before.

I want everyone in Exeter, no matter their upbringing, to know that they can achieve their potential by working in start-ups, scale-ups, or elsewhere in the economy and public services. That is why I was pleased that the Budget rightly put fairness at the heart of our national mission. Nowhere is that mission more urgent than in the fight against child poverty. Child poverty is not a statistic on a page. It is children in Exeter whose parents are going without meals so that they can eat. It is a family making impossible choices—heating or food, rent or clothes. As one of five children who grew up in a council house, I know what it is like when every penny counts. Nationally, more than 2.7 million children were living in poverty last year, which is 22% of all 0 to 15-year-olds. That is more than one in five children across the UK. We all recognise that that is not only unsustainable, but morally indefensible and a catastrophic consequence of 14 years of Tory and coalition government.

In Exeter today, around 3,000 children aged 0 to 15 live in relative poverty. That is 19.9% of all our children—one in five. Earlier this year, I convened a local roundtable in Exeter with charities, schools, housing providers and health leaders, and we asked the hard questions. Where are families slipping through the gaps? How do we redesign support so that children are not left paying the price of economic insecurity? The message was clear: child poverty is family poverty. It is not isolated to any one Department. It cuts across the housing system, the labour market, childcare and education. It affects health, mental wellbeing and lifetime opportunity.

I am proud that this Government are not looking away. We are tackling the barriers that families face head-on, right across the Government, through the expansion of free school meals, funded childcare and beyond. That is why I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to lift the two-child benefit cap—a long-overdue change that will raise 450,000 children out of poverty. But I know that we will go further, which is why I have been engaging with Ministers on the creation of the child poverty strategy, so that we take a whole-Government approach that tackles the causes and not just the symptoms, because simply raising benefits is not enough. I want every child in Exeter to break away from intergenerational poverty, and to succeed and fulfil their potential in life through their own work and achievements.

We have already started the process of rebuilding hope and opportunity for young people. I have spoken before in this Chamber about the gutting of Sure Start, which was one of the most transformational programmes of the previous Labour Government. I am delighted that we are restoring Sure Start-style services in communities across the country: evidence-led family-centred support that helps children keep thriving from the very beginning. For my city, these services are not an optional extra; they are foundational. If we want children to arrive at school ready to learn, healthy, safe and confident, this is how to do it.

The Budget recognises that fairness is not something that trickles down; it is something we build. Exeter children need us to build it now. They waited too long under the last Government, who simply failed a whole generation. We must ensure that the circumstances a child is born into never limit the life they are able to lead. I am therefore proud to support the Budget, and proud that the Government are choosing to put our children first.