Budget Resolutions

Tom Rutland Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

It is a little over a year since we had the first Labour Budget in 15 years, and since that Budget, many of my constituents in East Worthing and Shoreham have felt the benefit in some way or another. They include the 20,000 people no longer waiting for treatment and getting on with their lives, benefiting from a 15% fall in hospital waiting lists at my local trust since the election; the children at Holmbush primary academy, one of the schools in the early adopters scheme for a free breakfast club, who now start every day prepared, focused and equipped to make the most of their school day; the parents benefiting from the additional free childcare, freeing them up to get to work; and the thousands of workers across Adur and Worthing benefiting from the boost in the minimum wage and wages more broadly, which have increased more in the first year of this Government than in the first decade under the Conservatives.

Now we have our second Labour Budget of the term, a Budget focused on giving people across the country a helping hand with the cost of living. Let us contrast that with the Tories and Reform, who have both promoted their ideas to return to the days of austerity, as if we were not already having a hard enough time trying to tell the difference between them, with another three former Tory MPs having joined Reform just today. But let me tell the Tories on the Opposition Benches and the Tories with Reform masks on over there—oh, what a surprise, they are not there—that when we stood on a promise to change this country last year, we meant it, and I am determined not to let my constituents down by allowing their failed ideas to creep into Government ever again and distract from the very real job of giving our country its future back.

On the other side, we have the Greens accusing us of austerity. They should welcome the record investment in clean energy that this Government are making, including expanding the Rampion wind farm off the coast of my constituency. Unfortunately, their record of ultimately opposing green infrastructure when push comes to shove— or when shovels come to ground—in their constituencies suggests that when it comes to the climate, all they have to offer is hot air. So let me tell them something, too.

In this Budget, we are not returning to austerity, because austerity would not lift 450,000 children out of poverty, but this Labour Government will. Austerity would not expand free school meals to 3,200 children in my constituency, but this Labour Government will. Austerity would not cut £150 off the average energy bill, but this Labour Government will. Austerity would not freeze rail fares, fuel duty and prescription charges, but we will, just as we will cut NHS waiting lists and support the 3,500 small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency with fully funded apprenticeships. Austerity would not rebuild this country, but this Labour Government will.

We will do all that while adhering to our fiscal rules and cutting the national debt over the course of this Parliament. That discipline and stability are important, not just for addressing the amount of interest the Government pay on their debt—to be clear, there is nothing progressive about spending £1 in every £10 of taxpayers’ money on debt interest—but for the cost to individual families. We on the Labour side of the House know that when a Government choose populism over realism, or the economics of fantasy over stability, it is working people who pay the price—those people whose mortgages soared after Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, leaving them scrabbling around to find the extra cash to keep the roof over their heads. As a result of this Government’s determination to deliver economic stability, those mortgage rates are now coming down, with interest rates already cut five times by the Bank of England since last year’s election, saving the typical family £1,000 a year. With this Budget forecast by the OBR to reduce CPI inflation by 0.4 percentage points next year, we can hope for further cuts to interest rates soon.

We are under no illusion: there is more to do. But this Budget is another key step in turning the page on the chaos left by the previous Government. Guided by our Labour values, we are putting the priorities of the British people back at the heart of Government policy and, by doing so, giving working people the stability and investment in the future that they deserve.