Budget Resolutions

Steve Witherden Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

I joined the Labour party because I believe in equality and justice, and those are two of the values that I use to judge any Budget. Does it create a more equal society, and is the society that it creates more just? Therefore, there are aspects of the Budget that I welcome, such as the removal of policy costs from household energy bills, saving families £150. It is welcome that the parents of 3,730 children in my constituency will be helped by the abolition of the two-child benefit cap and the expansion of free school meals. I welcome the rise in the minimum wage and the living wage.

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that rises in the national minimum wage are among the most important of pay rises because of the money they put into the pockets of the poorest workers in our society?

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He is absolutely right, and that money gets recycled throughout our economy.

I think it is a scandal that more than 60% of people in receipt of universal credit are actually in work—often working two jobs to make ends meet. That is a scandal because it means that those employers are not paying their workforce at a level that we, the rest of society, consider to be enough to live on. We, the taxpayer, are subsidising those companies’ wage bills so that they can pay their shareholders higher profits.

The Budget does not reverse structural inequality or shift the dial on growth. It is also a Budget that whispers when it should be screaming about the catastrophe that will collapse our economy within the next 25 years. Let me talk about the figures that matter and about the budgets that are actually going to change our lives.

Over the past 800,000 years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has varied between 180 and 300 parts per million. During the last 10,000 years—the period of human civilisation—it has varied between 260 and 280 parts per million, which has given us humans a relatively stable temperature and climate. When we started the significant use of fossil fuels in the 19th century, the concentration of CO₂ was at 280 parts per million; today, it is at 424 parts per million.

As a result of those emissions, global mean temperatures have risen by nearly 1.5°C. That is the level that we know gives us only a 50% chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. What does dangerous climate change actually mean? It means the systematic collapse of our economy. It means refugees fleeing parts of the world where life has become impossible because of temperatures persistently above 40°C, drought and failing crops. It means unprecedented societal chaos as supply chains fail and competition for food turns to violence. It means war.

What the Government have failed to understand is that they cannot weigh up the cost of addressing climate change against the cost to the economy, when the whole economy depends on keeping climate change under control, so the first budget we need is a global carbon budget that sets the quantity of CO₂ that we can emit if we are to meet our Paris temperature agreements. If we are to stay below the 2°C threshold, we have only 530 billion metric tonnes of CO₂ that we can release into the atmosphere. That may sound a lot; in fact, it is only 13 years of emissions at their current rate. The budget to stay within 1.5°C is a lot worse: just 130 billion metric tonnes, which is just three years of emissions at today’s level.

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[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

For many people struggling with the rising cost of living, this Budget provides real relief. Above all, the Chancellor has committed to scrapping the two-child benefit cap. That is a testament to the campaigners, who have worked tirelessly for years, and to hon. Members across the House who have repeatedly called for the reversal of this cruel policy. It will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, including around 69,000 in Wales—a substantial achievement.

Other measures are also incredibly welcome. The increase in the minimum wage and the living wage—building on the April 2025 rise, which has already benefited around 160,000 workers in Wales—is a massive move in the right direction to a fairer economy. Reducing household energy bills by an average of £150 per home will bring practical relief to families. For those of us representing rural constituencies, the decision to keep fuel duty frozen is essential to daily life, to work, and to accessing basic and vital services.

I greatly welcome the additional £505 million allocated to the Welsh Government, on top of the largest uplift since devolution, which was delivered at the spending review. That funding will support essential services and investment across Wales.

The Budget takes some initial steps towards wealth redistribution. The council tax surcharge on homes worth more than £2 million, the 67% increased levies on online gambling, and the closure of the loophole that allowed rapidly growing ultra-low-cost platforms to ship goods into the UK tax-free are all sensible and highly welcome reforms and demonstrate success in shifting the national conversation on wealth taxation. However, inequality in the UK is stark, with 20% of people owning two thirds of the country’s wealth.

The very welcome mansion tax is expected by the OBR to raise around £400 million per year by 2029-30, yet approximately £38 billion could be raised through even more progressive wealth tax measures, which some of us on the Back Benches have been calling for, such as equalising capital gains tax with income tax or introducing a 2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million. The depth of inequality we face demands bolder action than what we have seen.

Let me turn to two areas that I believe the Budget does not address. The decision to keep local housing allowance frozen when it is already so far out of line with the true cost of rent will push thousands more people into homelessness and dramatically increase the pressure on the already overstretched temporary accommodation budgets of local councils. Only 1% of properties in Wales are currently affordable to those relying on LHA. With rents continuing to rise, I urge the Government to act before that figure falls to zero.

Let me turn to agricultural property relief. While the adjustment allowing married farmers or widowed spouses to transfer inheritance tax allowances is welcome, it will support only a small number of families. It does not address the serious pressure that APR places on elderly and terminally ill farmers or the serious effect that the APR proposals are having on the mental health of farmers. It does not sufficiently protect family-run farms, our food security, or the livelihoods that underpin rural communities. Much more thought is needed here.

The thresholds remain too low. I have visited family dairy farms, and I know that they have to add up a herd of Friesians, the amount of land needed to graze them, the tractor and other farm machinery, the farmhouse, barns and outbuildings, slurry tanks, and water pumping facilities—Friesians drink a lot of water during milking seasons, and many Welsh farmers are a long way up hills and mountains. We need to tax the Clarksons, the Dysons and other plutocrats more, but not family farms.

I became a Labour MP to reduce poverty, tackle inequality and stand up for my constituents. While the Budget contains very welcome adjustments, we need to go further to address the hardship facing millions across the UK.