Budget Resolutions

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Bill Esterson

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

Forgive me; I am going to make a little progress.

That is not all of it. This Budget looked hard at fixing the very real political problems faced by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister today, admittedly, but it also looked hard at how they can simply inflate the balloon today; there was nothing about tomorrow. We can see that in the way that farmers are being taxed; it is deliberately punishing investment. We can see it in the investment figures; despite the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) claiming that there has been investment in this country, the investment figures in the UK per capita show a 4% increase. Okay, that is an increase, but the figure is 22% in Canada and 79% in the United States. This is not real growth or serious investment. Sadly, we see the knock-on effects. The right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, said that there was investment in start-ups. Well, I wish there was, but all the decisions made by this Government have convinced anybody with any entrepreneurial spirit to go either to Abu Dhabi, where they are filming some new version of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” with British workers who have fled this country, or to the United States, which at least has the capital to invest in start-ups.

All we see is a continuation of the Blair-Brown model of increasing nationalisation of savings—that creeping control that we see spreading over pensions and the insurance market. It has left 60% of our savings in bonds, and only about 40% in equities, which contrasts remarkably with Australia, Canada and the United States, which have 20% in bonds and 80% in equities.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for quoting me, but when backing Liz Truss to be leader of the Tory party he said:

“I have no doubt that we will move with determination to make this country safer and more secure.”

Does that not rather undermine any claim of credibility he makes?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will tell the hon. Member the honest truth: Liz Truss was wrong, and I made a mistake. That is the reality; that is what happened. But here is the difference: it is true that what she did put pressure on the economy, but this Chancellor has increased debt to the highest-ever levels and the cost of borrowing to the highest in the G7.