Dr Neil Hudson

The theme of this year’s autumn Budget was said to be one of hope. It raised our hopes akin to the title of a “Star Wars” film, yet for many of my constituents in Epping Forest, and indeed for families and businesses across the country, that hope has been sorely dashed. I have huge respect for the Chancellor, who is a deeply honourable man. He resigned as Defence Secretary, calling for 3% of GDP on defence spending by 2030, but sadly, even his hopes for this clear commitment and plan have been dashed by this Government. In Epping Forest we are fortunate to have fantastic local businesses, restaurants, cafés and pubs, yet many are struggling to stay afloat under this Labour Government. It is deeply regrettable that this Budget did not take up the sensible proposals from the Conservatives on scrapping the family farm tax and family business tax in full, abolishing inheritance tax on family homes and scrapping business rates for 250,000 businesses nationwide. One thing my constituents in Epping Forest will have noted was the Chancellor’s talk of a British data centre covenant. Many of my constituents are rightly concerned about the implications and environmental impacts of AI data centres, including the proposal in Loughton, with major concerns about their huge water and energy usage. Also, a speculative and completely inappropriate proposal is being worked up for a data centre near Chigwell that will threaten our precious green belt. Many of my constituents have reached out to me, alarmed by the Chigwell proposal and by the fact that it comes in the context of a Labour Government who have outrageously taken away large planning decisions from Epping Forest district council and who are arbitrarily and spuriously moving to reclassify green belt as grey belt in order to achieve their development targets. We have seen this, too, with inappropriate large-scale housing developments being proposed on green belt in Theydon Bois and around Epping, and with solar developments on farmland between Thornwood and Epping Upland. I urge the Labour Government to do the right thing, listen to my Epping Forest constituents, leave our green belt alone and pull the plug on these damaging top-down policies and inappropriate developments.