Income Tax (Charge)

Warinder Juss Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

The Chancellor’s Budget last week finally ended the Conservative party’s austerity. It is a Budget that fixes the foundations to deliver real change, by fixing the NHS, cutting hospital waiting lists, reforming public services and rebuilding our country.

As the Chancellor said, this Budget is about “investment, investment, investment”. This Labour Government are investing over £25.5 billion over two years in the NHS. That will cut waiting times, so that patients do not have to wait longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment; provide 40,000 extra appointments; put in place new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, building capacity for more than 30,000 additional procedures and over 1.25 million diagnostic tests; and provide new radiotherapy machines to improve cancer treatment.

We are investing in NHS technology and digital, to run essential services and to drive NHS productivity improvements, freeing up staff time. We are providing a dedicated capital fund to deliver upgrades to GP surgeries, boosting productivity and enabling the delivery of more appointments.

We are investing £26 million to open new mental health crisis centres. At last, we have a Government who are committed to tackling the root causes of mental health problems and to supporting people to remain in work and to return to work.

We are supporting social care through at least £600 million of new grant funding to be able to increase local Government spending, alongside an £86 million increase to the disabled facilities grant to support more adaptations to homes for those with social care needs, thereby reducing hospitalisations and prolonging independence.

This Government are cutting down barriers to opportunity for all by increasing the core schools budget by £2.3 billion, supporting the recruitment of 6,500 teachers in key subjects and tackling retention issues, to prepare our children for life, work and the future.

We are providing a £1 billion increase to improve SEND provision and to improve outcomes and an additional £300 million for further education to ensure that young people are learning and developing the skills they need to succeed in the modern labour market, which will help the City of Wolverhampton college in my constituency. We are increasing investment in children’s social care reform, and it is great to see a real-terms funding increase for local government spending.

We are taking all of these decisions, while also taking tough decisions on spending and welfare, eliminating fraud and error in the welfare system—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Baggy Shanker.