Mr Toby Perkins

I would like to start by saying how happy I am, after 14 years in this place, to finally be responding to a Budget from a Labour Chancellor. That that Labour Chancellor is also the first woman to hold the position is a source of tremendous pride to me, and to many of us on the Labour Benches. This is a Budget that will begin the long task of national repair and renewal after 14 years of steady decline. If anyone was left in any doubt about whether the Conservative party might have some useful insights to offer, this debate should have ended that misconception once and for all. First, we had the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), who was the Conservatives’ Minister for common sense—no wonder they lost. Then we had the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), who they got rid of because he was not right-wing enough. We know that the Conservative party will not be able to help us, so we must crack on alone, and the truth is that we have a huge amount of work to do. The right hon. Member for Tonbridge did say one thing that I agreed with: that in order to get growth, we need private sector investment. Of course we do—prior to coming into this place, I ran my own business, and this whole Budget is predicated on getting growth and working with the private sector to do so. All our plans for energy development require consistency so that the private sector can invest. Nobody disputes that, but what we also need is public services that work. As someone who has employed people for most of the last 25 years or so, I know that you do not get a good workforce if your staff are living in poverty. It is not progressive politics to say that we are supporting people to be in work if they have to visit the food bank on the way home. We need an economy that works for everyone, and this Budget strikes the right tone. We have a proud history of coalmining in Chesterfield, and its legacy can be found to this day. I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has ended the historic injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, with more than £1 billion being returned to 112,000 former coalminers—the right decision. I am sad to say that I have the dubious honour of representing a constituency that, under the Conservative county council, was dubbed the pothole capital of the UK. We are very glad in Derbyshire that the Government will put in an extra £500 million to tackle the scourge of potholes, and I hope that Derbyshire county council will now start filling in Chesterfield’s countless potholes. The increase in the national minimum wage, or living wage, is another policy that will support economic growth. If we give money to people who have nothing, they will spend it in our economy. If huge inheritances are passed on, as the Conservatives want, that money is not spent in the same way in the economy. There are issues for some family farms, and those need to be explored, but the vast majority of farmers will not be affected. Conservative Members mentioned James Dyson, who is a brilliant inventor, but why did he suddenly find such attraction in buying up huge amounts of farmland? They should pull the other one. The Budget makes a start in getting our country back on the road to growth, repairing the appalling damage that has been done to our national health service, supporting the army of carers who also support our NHS and, finally, ensuring that at the very bottom of our economy we start to make work pay.