Sarah Olney

I share the bemusement of my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) that we on these Benches are being called the “other Government”. I puzzled over that for a little while, but perhaps, based on recent opinion polls, the shadow Minister was reflecting how the Liberal Democrats are now more likely to form the next Government than the Conservatives. The stones being thrown from the very fragile glasshouse of the Conservative party are astonishing, given its appalling mismanagement of the economy and the dismal inheritance that it left behind. Its record is a dispiriting picture of low growth, high interest rates and a record fall in living standards. For years the Conservative party took people for granted. Our constituents saw this reflected in their mortgage payments, the hike in their energy bills, and the prices they paid for their weekly shop. Under the last Administration, public services were left crumbling, and the Tories’ pitiful Brexit negotiations saw reams of red tape introduced, causing untold damage to businesses across the country. We know that the Labour Government have inherited a mess, and we know that the cause of that mess is a legacy of reckless economic mismanagement left behind by the previous Government. But that cannot be allowed to serve as cover for measures that damage business or cause suffering for the vulnerable in our society. Labour’s autumn Budget has not worked. The national insurance jobs tax will damage small businesses and lower people’s living standards, and it undermines the Government’s own ambitions for growth. People endured years of Conservative mismanagement, which is why this new Government should be doing far more to grow our economy, create new jobs and improve living standards. We know that the Government had tough decisions to make, but instead of hiking national insurance, cutting disability benefits and squeezing departmental budgets even more, they should be showing far more ambition in growing our economy, which is the best way to raise tax revenue and boost living standards. That is exactly why we have been urging Ministers to ignore the naysayers in the Conservative and Reform parties and to urgently negotiate a new, bespoke UK-EU customs union. When it comes to taxation, the Government should look to raise revenue in much fairer ways, such as asking social media giants and online gambling firms to pay their fair share. That is the right way to repair our public finances and boost public services—not short-sighted cuts that make things worse for people.