Mr Gagan Mohindra

I start by welcoming the fact that this is the first Budget presented by a female Chancellor. The House should be proud of that. I also send my thanks to the Prime Minister for acknowledging the former leader of the Conservative party and his heritage as a second-generation Indian. This place is symbolic not just here but around the world. I am going to shift tone, if I may. [Laughter.] The Budget is incredibly punitive for small businesses. I come from a small business background, and I applaud those who are brave enough to set up their own business. A lot of the time, those small businesses are one-man bands, reliant on family members or friends to support them. Today, I probably would not set up a small business, because off the back of this Budget we have destroyed ambition in our country. The Budget absolutely feeds into supporting public sector workers, but as Sir James Dyson said in The Times today, how can we encourage the entrepreneurs of tomorrow to start their businesses today? Politics is about choices. My party spent the summer trying to convince the electorate that Labour was going to raise their taxes—we thought that it was, and indeed we told the public that. The Budget raises taxes on working people, on pensioners, on wealth creators and on farmers. I think that farmers and the NFU knew there would be an issue when only 87 words of the Labour manifesto referred to farming. The Budget sends a message that ambition is something not to foster. With regard to the tax burden, we see an increase in capital gains tax and inheritance tax, the removal of stamp duty support for first-time buyers and the unfreezing of income tax bands. This is a Budget that penalises ambition. I am conscious of time, so I want quickly to focus on three local issues in South West Herts. On defence spending, I am lucky enough to represent Northwood NATO base in my constituency. While I applaud the Government’s investment in defence and supporting our Ukrainian allies, I gently point out that the Budget will actually see a decrease in the percentage of GDP spent on defence, let alone a pathway to spending 2.5%.