Charlie Maynard

This is a Budget driven far more by political calculation than by the economic realities that the country faces. The Chancellor has an enormous majority—on paper, at least—and the country desperately needs change, but we now have a second Budget in which the Government have failed to demonstrate that they have any big ideas to get the economy moving. However, before I go into that, I want to focus on some positives. I welcome some of the announcements that the Chancellor made last week, which will help households that have been struggling with the cost of living. Lifting the two-child benefit cap will be worth up to £5,000 a year to each of the more than 500 families in my constituency who have been impacted by the cap. Too many children and families have been trapped in poverty because of the decision to impose it and the Government’s previous stubborn decision to keep it. I just wish that this had been done a year ago, and I give my commiserations to the brave Labour Members who lost the Whip after standing up for a policy that their party now finally accepts. I also welcome the Government’s action to cut energy bills by removing the renewables levy, which is something that we Liberal Democrats had been calling on the Chancellor to do. It will make a difference to families struggling with sky-high fuel bills. However, I wish that the Government had gone further, rather than removing just 75% of the levy and only for three years. We were proposing to fund the renewables obligation instead from a windfall tax on the excess profits in the banking sector that have resulted from quantitative tightening—something that would have happened now, unlike the deferred taxation that the Chancellor is proposing, which may or may not happen. Both those changes will make struggling families’ lives a little easier, and are very much welcomed. Similarly, doubling remote gaming duty—something we have also been calling for—is clearly a sensible move. It is one way to raise much-needed revenue without increasing the burden on hard-working families, but it is comparatively small, raising only £1 billion a year. The sad truth is that these are all small wins in the context of the huge challenges we face.