Contribution
Context is everything, and the context for this Budget can be summed up in three letters: ABT. It stands for “anyone but the Tories”, or “austerity, Brexit and Truss”. Both explain the composition of the House of Commons; it is a result of the damage done by those things. Their combined impact is that households in this country are £11,000 worse off every year than they would have been had we continued on the trajectory we were on in 2010, when Labour last left office. Policy mistakes by Liz Truss led to a £1,200 hike in interest payments. Interestingly, the market reaction to what the Chancellor said today was very positive; the only downward spike was when the Leader of the Opposition stood up. That speaks volumes about what the markets have made of the Budget today.
The contrast between ABT and now is quite stark. The situation is completely different from what the deputy leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), has just tried to tell us it is. He of course supports all three of those Tory measures, although they had the disastrous results that I have outlined. By contrast, business investment is up over this Parliament. Public and private investment have jointly increased, under the partnership in the industrial strategy. That includes £14 billion of public money to secure the success of Sizewell C. We have had five successive interest rates cuts. We have had wage rises and the highest G7 growth forecast—upgraded by the OBR—and, of course, borrowing is down, which is not what the hon. Member claimed.
My constituency stands to benefit enormously. I will put in a bid to be one of the pioneers who gains a neighbourhood health centre. I am pleased that Southport was mentioned, but I want one in my constituency. In fact, I want more than one, but I will start with one: the Maghull health centre. We already have £1.3 million pledged from developer contributions, but Maghull stands ready to be a pioneer of the NHS neighbourhood health scheme. Could the Chancellor please get the integrated care board to play ball? High Pastures, my GP surgery, has already taken advantage of the modernisation fund, which is very welcome.
In the Liverpool city region, £1.6 billion has been announced for a new fleet of buses for the newly franchised network. Members will be familiar with the Manchester Bee Network, but the Liverpool A network will of course come along shortly—well, that is what Steve Rotheram says, anyway. It will link to John Lennon airport, and to Everton and Liverpool football clubs.
On energy, my Energy Security and Net Zero Committee asked the Government, in one of our recommendations, to consider moving the surplus in the investment reserve fund of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme to its members, and I am very pleased that the Chancellor has listened. A friend of mine—he and his wife are both pensioners—messaged me today to pass on their thanks to the Chancellor and the Treasury team. I know those thanks will be replicated by other Government Members—and, I hope, some Opposition Members—speaking on behalf of their constituents.
There is the very welcome decision to cut energy bills by £150, recognising the energy company obligation failure of the last Government, under which 97% of scheme participants were worse off as a result of the scheme. The price cap should fall significantly in April as a result of what the Government have announced today on energy bills. We also have an extra £1.5 billion for the warm homes plan, taking the total to £14.7 billion. I strongly recommend that the Treasury and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero make the most of the money, and ensure that it is used as widely as possible, so that we have proper insulation and reduced energy usage.