Naushabah Khan

I begin by expressing my gratitude to the Chancellor for her clear commitment to transforming the lives of my constituents. Over the past few days, she has set out a plan for investment in major infrastructure and to rebuild our public services. For the people outside the Chamber, the real significance of this Budget is far more personal; it represents a long-awaited acknowledgment of their struggles with the relentless cost of living. After 14 years of austerity and Tory-manufactured poverty, they finally see a Government who are willing to repair the damage that has been done. The people I meet every day do not live in £5 million homes. Particularly in the Gillingham part of my constituency, their reality is starkly different: they have energy bills they cannot hope to meet, school uniforms they struggle to afford and the constant challenge of trying to provide a decent life for their families on a shoestring budget. One in three children in Gillingham lives in poverty and one in 10 households struggles with fuel poverty. According to the most recent indices of multiple deprivation, my constituents live in neighbourhoods ranked in the bottom 10% most deprived nationally. When the Leader of the Opposition stands in the Chamber and dismisses vital cost of living support for hard-working families as a Budget for “Benefits Street”, the families I represent are not surprised. It is exactly that kind of disdain for the most vulnerable that shaped our fiscal landscape for 14 years, leaving ordinary people in desperate circumstances. It is this Labour Government who are finally taking them out of that cycle and restoring fairness and dignity. I welcome that the Government are making essential transport more affordable and more reliable. The freeze on regulated rail fares is not simply a headline. For middle-income commuters travelling from Gillingham or Rainham, it means keeping hundreds of pounds a year in their pockets. Combined with targeted infrastructure upgrades, this Budget begins to reverse the chronic under-investment that left many towns disconnected and disadvantaged. When I go knocking on doors over the coming weeks, I can tell my constituents that we are cutting their energy bills by hundreds of pounds, freezing rail fares and prescription charges, and keeping fuel duty low. I can tell them that we are raising the national living wage, increasing pensions and taking their children out of poverty. The Conservatives may think that this is a Budget for “Benefits Street”, but I say that it is a Budget for many working families who have carried the burden of austerity for over a decade. It is a Budget for the 2,860 children in my constituency whose quality of life is about to drastically improve. It is clear to me that this Budget is about more than short-term relief; it is about laying the foundations for long-term stability and fairness. That that is why I will be backing it.