Emma Reynolds

First, we want to escape the doom loop of low growth and low productivity that we inherited from the previous Conservative Government. Each Department will have to meet a 2% productivity challenge. This is not a cut to departmental spending but a Treasury requirement to ensure better productivity across the civil service. Our Get Britain Working White Paper, which we will announce in the coming weeks, will set out reforms to our jobcentres and will empower local leaders to tackle economic inactivity in their towns and cities. This is backed by £240 million of new funding for 16 trailblazer projects. It is because we recognise that many working people face extra barriers to taking up work or increasing their hours that the Chancellor announced the biggest-ever rise in the earnings limit for carer’s allowance to help carers balance work and caring responsibilities. That is a difference that a Labour Government will make. We will also tackle poverty and help those most in need, which is why this Budget extends the household support fund in England and discretionary housing payments in England and Wales. After conversations with the Trussell Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and many others, we are introducing our new fair repayment rate, which will reduce the cap on deductions from universal credit from 25% to 15% of the standard allowance. This will help 700,000 of the poorest households with children. And because people who have worked hard and saved all their lives deserve security and dignity, we are maintaining the triple lock, which will see state pension rises of around £1,700 over the course of this Parliament. This is the first Labour Budget in almost 15 years. We shun the choices of the last Conservative Government. They chose low growth, low productivity and decline in our public services. We choose investment and growth, restoring economic stability, fixing the foundations, rebuilding the NHS and our other public services, pushing forward with a decade of national renewal, recruiting more teachers, bringing down NHS waiting times, building more affordable homes and, yes, filling more potholes. This is a Budget that makes a choice about rebuilding our public services, rebuilding Britain and investing in vital infrastructure. This is a Budget that invests in the future of our country, and I commend it to the House. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Anna Turley.) Debate to be resumed tomorrow.