Richard Fuller

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken a part in the debate over the last four days, in particular the more than 40 Members who have spoken in the debate today. If I may, I will mention the contributions made by a few Members on the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) talked about the important issue of protecting the green belt. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) said that this was one of the most centralising Budgets, despite the rhetoric. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) made a beautiful speech about looking for a chair for his wife, and talked about the delivery charges that penalise people in rural areas. My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) talked about the importance of business confidence and the fact that it has been in negative territory under this Government for seven months. My hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich and Evesham (Nigel Huddleston) talked about the importance of job losses because of Labour’s decisions and made the absolutely true point that if Labour MPs understood economics, they would not be socialists. The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) made an important point about competition for grid connectivity in his constituency, which is a matter of importance across the country. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) made a reference to John Lennon, which was a cultural reference about two centuries more modern than I was expecting him to make! We heard a series of excellent speeches from Members on the Conservative Benches and some interesting speeches from Members on the Government Benches, trying to pick through parts of the Budget to talk about. Let me point out the speech by the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare), who is also the Chair of a Select Committee. In her speech, she demonstrated what is best about the Select Committee system. Yes, she is a Labour MP, but she stands up for all MPs in the way in which she holds this Government to account. There has been a consistent message from Members on the Conservative Benches: that this Budget has left the British people facing higher inflation, higher interest rates, greater borrowing and more debt than was promised last year—that this Budget will leave families worse off, not better off. May I welcome the Chief Secretary to the Treasury? Here we are—two working people. Did I get that right? This was a Budget of “fiddly” bits, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It was a “nothing” Budget, according to the CBI. It was “remarkable for its lack of action”, according to the Resolution Foundation. It was, “big in size but small in ambition”, according to the Institute for Government. They are not wrong. The most surprising aspect of this “kick the can down the road” Budget is that the debate managed to last four days. After four days of debate and a week of scrutiny, the abiding sense is that this was a Budget of missed opportunities: a missed opportunity to demonstrate that we are serious about defence; a missed opportunity to get people off welfare and into work; a missed opportunity to spell out the tough decisions needed to curb public spending, eliminate the deficit and cut our debts; and a missed opportunity to support young people wanting to fulfil their potential but finding it hard to get work or worried about their debts. Even the Prime Minister sees this Budget as a missed opportunity, lamenting that it is not “ideal”. I mean, how bad does a Budget have to be for the Prime Minister to disown it before we have even voted on it? Now we have it from Labour MPs themselves: this Budget is as bad as Liz Truss’s Budget—that is true. But the point is that Liz Truss’s period in office was short, sharp and over in a moment. The problem with this Labour Government is that the pain is long, and we are still stuck with it. On defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) spoke yesterday of the genuine threat of war. Just days ago, the Government told us to prepare for war in 1,000 days, but at the Budget the Chancellor said that he needed more time to work out how to fund defence. Let us get this straight: the commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence was a matter of principle for the Chancellor in the summer, but, by this Budget, it had become a matter of inconvenience. How can anyone trust his words? The Chancellor says that he has a target for 3%, but he has no commitments and no plans. The Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), called that “lamentable”, and he is right. However, in opening the debate on Thursday, the Defence Secretary said that he did not care—that he did not care about the views of the Chair of the Defence Committee. What an arrogant dismissal from a Minister who is barely 15 weeks into the job! No one in this Parliament has a monopoly on wisdom, least of all the Defence Secretary. The OBR says that spending will increase by over £100 billion, to exceed £430 billion by the end of the forecast period, but the Budget contains no plans to bring the ballooning welfare bill under control. The Chancellor seemed confused and a little lost. In his speech last Wednesday, he said: “As the Prime Minister and I have both said, we will bring down the welfare bill, and we will do it in a Labour way.”—[Official Report, 28 October 2026; Vol. 792, c. 311.] The next day on Radio 4, when asked whether the welfare bill would be reduced before the next election, the Chancellor said, “There will be a reduction in the benefits bill. We’ll do that in a Labour way.” That seemed pretty clear, but the Chancellor was then forced to clarify that when he said yes, he really meant to say no. He said that it was “not correct to say that we’re going to bring this welfare bill down in this parliament”, so there we have it—the Labour way to cut welfare is “Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but yeah.” As the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), said, it is a “Little Britain” farce from a “Little Britain” Chancellor. As the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), said on Thursday, the UK Government’s finances are walking along a cliff edge. With our national debt at 100% of GDP and with the Government continuing to tax and borrow more, he was right to do so. You do not help the disadvantaged in our society by dodging hard choices and going broke; you make their lives much harder. A Budget that ignores the warning signals and buries its head in the sand is a Budget that is deliberately increasing the risk to those least able to cope. Rather than cut borrowing, Labour plans to borrow nearly a quarter of a trillion pounds more over just the next two years, costing every British household an extra £476 per year in additional debt interest. That is not smart, and it is not fair—not to this generation, and certainly not to future generations. The Chancellor praised his “fiscal discipline”, but he knows that he is standing on quicksand. Let us be clear: by voting through this Budget, Labour MPs are voting for real-terms cuts to the schools budget, the prisons budget and adult social care—it is there in the documents, in black and white—but they will not vote for real-terms cuts elsewhere. They do not have the backbone for tough decisions. The Chancellor will have to start work on how to raise taxes yet again to fill the £49 billion hole in his finances. The British people should be under no illusion—a fourth tax-raising Labour Budget lies ahead, with massive tax increases to fund Labour’s addiction to borrowing, big government and more welfare. This Budget is not a fair Budget. It raises taxes on savers for being prudent and reducing their dependency on others. It raises taxes on people who rent out their properties so that someone else can have a roof over their head. It snatches away tax relief for people who start a business—not to become a billionaire, but because it is their passion and they want to create a small nest egg for when they retire—and it introduces new taxes at a time when the tax burden is already far too high. A Conservative Government would not shirk their responsibilities to make big decisions. We would take the hard decisions to reduce welfare, improve the productivity of public services and cut back on overseas aid and the size of the civil service, with 50p of every pound saved going to reduce our deficit under our golden economic rule. That is a Conservative plan for governing now, with a team who have deep experience of the world outside politics and a leader with the backbone to see our country through to a more secure, more prosperous and fairer future.