Budget Resolutions

Steve Race Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to speak in the debate on behalf of my constituents in Exeter. This Budget is a welcome break from 14 years of policy uncertainty, fiscal incompetence and austerity for our public services. It starts to put this country back on a firm footing, rebuilding the foundations, and investing in communities and places like Exeter. Exeter people have had a tough few years. The inflation they experienced as higher mortgage costs, higher rents, higher energy prices and higher food prices was made worse by the last Government’s catastrophic and incompetent financial management, and yet we have no apology from the Conservative Benches.

Exeter has huge potential as a thriving economy. Indeed, Exeter is the economic driver of our region, with a gross value added of around £6 billion pounds. It sits at the heart of a travel-to-work area of over 470,000 residents. Exeter is home to a world-class research-led university, and we have a best-in-class further education college and good secondary schools. We have the Met Office and the Exeter Science Park, and we are home to further cutting-edge research, including one of the UK’s supercomputers. However, Exeter has been held back over recent years by a Tory Government that have not invested in public services and our economy in the way we need to succeed. That changes with this Budget.

I am particularly pleased that this Budget commits the UK to an R&D budget of £20 billion, which will mean Exeter and the UK remain at the forefront of scientific innovation. From climate change to land management, healthcare to biotechnology and beyond, Exeter is already a hub for scientific research, but we can do even more.

I listened to my residents on the doorsteps in the Newtown area of Exeter at the weekend, who were really pleased about the investment in our NHS. From long waiting lists to our lack of NHS dentistry services and closures of community pharmacies, my residents have been affected by the huge strain the NHS has found itself under in recent years. I am pleased that this new investment in the NHS budget will begin to fix our local NHS, though people realise that will take time.

While the secondary schools in Exeter do not suffer from the awful RAAC crisis, because every single one of them was rebuilt under the last Labour Government, I know how important the new funding will be to schools around the country. Investing in our education settings is important. I will be supporting the excellent Exeter College as it seeks to grow its campus, to continue to deliver exceptional education to young people in Exeter and across the south-west.

Having a healthy, well-educated city, with opportunities to work in the high-tech sectors of the future is vital to our future economic prosperity. I close by welcoming that this is a Budget that recognises that reality, and also recognises that the south-west region, and Exeter in particular, has huge potential and will play a significant role in the growth of the UK economy in the future.