Graham Stuart

I have very limited time, so forgive me but I will not. It matters because the Chancellor has a nearly £3 trillion debt to service, and because trust is everything. Because the policies that are being implemented and the promises that were made by the Chancellor are at such variance, the markets—unlike in any other western nation, I believe —have put a higher and higher cost on borrowing for this country. That has very real-world impacts. Investors from Beverley to Berlin need to believe what the Chancellor says. After all, “credit” comes from the Latin “credo”, meaning “I believe”. If that belief falters, borrowing costs rise and more of our taxes go to paying lenders instead of funding the priorities of the British people. When trust goes, growth goes. Investors hesitate, businesses hold back and families feel the pinch. The Chancellor appears to have learnt nothing from last year’s Budget of broken promises. It was a Budget that brought higher unemployment, fewer businesses and lower growth. She did not learn from that first exercise. As the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) pointed out, the weakness of the jobs tax is not just that it will hurt growth; it does not even raise much money. It was peculiarly poorly thought through. This year’s Budget repeated more of the same. The British people know that the way to tackle the cost of living is by getting people into work, not increasing the number of people on welfare; and by creating opportunity, not dependency. But Britain has a Chancellor who talks about helping working people while making it harder to work, to save and to succeed—and throwing the OBR under the bus while she is at it. That is not a vision for the future, and it is certainly not leadership; it is fantasy dressed up as policy, and the people of Beverley and Holderness can see right through it. Labour came to power promising change. Unfortunately, change has been delivered, but it is not what we were promised. We have 280,000 more people on the unemployment register, more than 200,000 businesses have closed, and 5,000 people are signing off sick every single day, because of the decisions made by this Labour Government. People are angry about the impact of Labour policy, but my constituents tell me that they are particularly angry about feeling misled. I hope I have shown my own candour in addressing my earlier error, for which I apologise again. Can we Members of this House try to speak honestly and accurately, and not gaslight or mislead?