Rebecca Smith

Absolutely. Of course financial education in schools is important, as is a whole lot of education about life, budgeting and other things, but I am talking specifically about financial education for people in their professional years—in their 20s, 30s and 40s—who will be affected by changes to the ISA rules. They will potentially need help to make sure that they can still save effectively. The last point I will talk about is the electric vehicle pay-per-mile policy, which will have a huge impact on rural communities, as has been said. It will also be a huge disincentive for any non-inner-city community. I represent an urban area on the outskirts of a city and the rural area around it, and a lot of my constituents—aside from the ones who have a drive and perhaps a detached house—are not able to have an electric vehicle. Pay-per-mile will disincentivise people to even aspire to have an electric vehicle in an area where it is a long drive to the supermarket, or to take their child to the swimming pool. I feel that pay-per-mile contradicts the Government’s obsession with electric vehicles. Perhaps they will speed up development of alternative fuels instead. I do not understand how they can dislike fossil fuels but at the same time disincentivise EV transition. This Budget is completely out of step with the public. They wanted lower personal taxes and welfare spending cut. They wanted to see work pay. They wanted to see stamp duty scrapped, business rates abolished for retail, leisure and hospitality, and a £5,000 first job bonus—policies that would have meant tax cuts, and rewarded hard-working men and women—not the increase in welfare spending and the tax increases we have seen today to prop up some nice little pet projects of the Labour Government.