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<Question HRSContentId="{3418D750-36CE-46C3-B5B5-92DA6384BD80}">3. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{340771E4-2AB6-4E54-89CA-71DF26C5B3F3}">What assessment she has made of the potential impact of reducing the value of thank you payments under the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme on the retention of hosts.</QuestionText> </Question>
With the dropping of the thank you payment from £350 to £100 on 1 January, many hosts find that their costs are no longer being covered and are considering evicting their guests. Hosts and guests are <span id="559" class="column-number" data-column-number="559"></span>being encouraged to move to a lodger scheme using the “rent a room” scheme. I am told that the going rate for a room in my constituency is around £600, and universal credit would pay a lot more than the £350 saved from the thank you payment. In addition, Ukrainian guests would lose the help available from the local authority to move on to a first private rental. All in all, this reduction in the thank you payment looks likely to cost the state more than it might save and to reduce the help on offer to our Ukrainian guests. Will the Minister meet me and local Ukrainian hosts, or would she prefer to think again about the reduction?
The issue of restrictive covenants, raised so ably by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), is also affecting my constituents, some of whom have been extorted out of tens of thousands of pounds. Will the Government give any comfort to the residents who are campaigning so hard on this that the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill will contain provisions to stop this awful practice?
Does the Home Secretary believe that it is fair to change the rules retrospectively for people who are not earning in excess of £50,000 but nevertheless have built careers, raised families and paid taxes based on the settlement pathway that existed when they arrived? Does this not violate the British value of fairness and risk real damage to our economy and our social fabric?
I welcome aspects of this breathing space Budget. Additional investment in council housing, support for rough sleeping programmes and some positive news on business rates with action to revive our high streets are all steps in the right direction. But for many families, businesses and communities, such as those in my constituency, the Budget does not go far enough to address the pressure they face every day, including the brutal cost of living. People in Stratford-on-Avon worry about the future of their local high streets, about heating their homes this winter, and about whether their favourite shop, pub, café or restaurant—businesses that give our towns their character—will still be there next year. That is why I believe that the Budget misses opportunities in a number of important areas. Our small businesses on high streets—the independent businesses that make our towns unique and create jobs for local people—face pressure from every direction. Under this Government, rising employment costs, energy costs, business rates and regulatory burdens are all taking their toll, and empty units are blighting our streets up and down the country. We need stronger powers for councils to bring long-term vacant properties back into use, and more support for the independent businesses that give our towns their character. The business rates discount will help some, but many will be left in the cold. Hospitality is of particular importance to Stratford-on-Avon; one in nine constituents are employed in the sector. That is why I am disappointed that the Government did not go further on VAT for hospitality. A temporary reduction in VAT would have provided immediate help <span id="666" class="column-number" data-column-number="666"></span>to businesses, while helping consumers who are also feeling the squeeze. Businesses in my constituency tell me that a VAT reduction for hospitality would have allowed them to keep the lights on after the busy Christmas period. On fuel poverty, while the payment of £100 is welcome, we know from the Resolution Foundation that 1.4 million low-income households are in higher council tax bands, and they will miss out on that untargeted payment. Will the Minister look at that cohort urgently, so that they do not fall through the cracks? While I am on the subject, council tax is a deeply unfair tax—we know it, and the Minister knows it, and it needs to change. Many households remain vulnerable to high energy costs, which is why I am concerned about the reduction in funding for the warm homes plan. Investing in warmer homes cuts bills and reduces carbon emissions; it is one of the smartest investments that any Government can make, particularly for families and older residents already struggling with the cost of living. The Budget and the Government’s wider plan place considerable emphasis on devolution. Warwickshire is a long way away from a mayor. People in my constituency want local services that are responsibly rooted in the places that they serve. Any organisational devolution must strengthen local democracy and voices, because whether we are talking about high streets, fuel poverty, housing or hospitality, the people closest to those challenges are often those best placed to solve them. For my constituents, the Budget does not go far enough to support small businesses, tackle fuel poverty and help communities thrive.
Two brave Eastbourne families are fighting for improved regulation of supported accommodation, after their respective relatives were found dead in the accommodation that was meant to be supporting them. Will the Minister meet them, and me, to discuss how we can better protect vulnerable people in supported accommodation?
This Budget has around 100 separate measures, but most would never have featured in the previous Chancellor’s Budgets—not because of any particular policy difference, but because they are just too small. It is less “Steady as she goes”, and more “Let this grind to a complete halt.”<span id="670" class="column-number" data-column-number="670"></span> As far as taxation goes, by far the biggest impact comes from a policy that was not even mentioned: the continued freeze on personal tax thresholds. This year alone, it means another half a million people will start paying tax for the first time, and a further half a million will be pushed into a higher tax bracket—all a function of that handy Chancellor’s trick: fiscal drag. Understandably, the Conservatives give the Government an easy ride on this, as it was their idea in the first place. When it comes to welfare, the critical Milburn and Timms reviews have both been conveniently kicked to the other side of the Budget, but the issues that we face are not what people think they are. It has been said so many times that everyone assumes it must be true that millions of people are getting personal independence payment or universal credit health awards for mild anxiety. The appeal of this story is that it makes people think that we can slash social support for vulnerable people and feel morally good about it. Unfortunately, it is just not true. In reality, absolutely no one gets PIP for mild or severe anxiety, or for any form of mental health condition. That is because PIP is not awarded according to condition. Rather, applicants are assessed according to their daily abilities or lack of them—whether they can wash themselves, cook for themselves or manage short distances walking. There is not even a category for mild anxiety. I find it incredible that politicians, including Members who are the welfare spokespeople for their parties, can continue to ask for something that they must know by now is not possible. What chance have we got of making smart reforms to the economy if politicians cannot even get the basic facts straight? While we continue to wait for all the missing parts of the Budget over the coming weeks and months, I urge caution. Welfare cuts are just a right-wing version of the magic money tree. As a proportion of GDP, today’s spend on non-pension welfare is roughly the same as it was in the mid-80s, when a certain Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. At that time, the Defence budget was twice what it is today, so clearly the current level of welfare spend is perfectly compatible with meeting our defence targets, and welfare is not the reason why our defence budget is in such trouble. The peace dividend did not go to UC and PIP; it went to the NHS and pensions. Above all, this is a challenge caused by a general decline in the economy, not welfare. Yes, it is always important to control welfare spend, and I support that, but slashing welfare on the basis of an arbitrary financial target invented simply to raise enough to pay for some dramatic manifesto pledge is not a credible path to anything. What we have is a Budget that does not seek to do anything very much about anything; the real battles have yet to come.
The Chancellor has promised growth in every postcode, but those of us in the south-east could be forgiven for thinking that the Government have forgotten us altogether. Take London out of the equation, and the south-east, and Sussex in particular, does not seem to be part of the Government’s infrastructure strategy at all. While London has the <span id="643" class="column-number" data-column-number="643"></span>highest per capita public transport investment in the country, by contrast the south-east has the lowest of any English region, at 11% below the national average. Where I live in Newhaven, nothing stands out more than the A259—the main coastal road that runs the length of East Sussex, passing through Seaford and Newhaven, as well as serving the hugely popular Seven Sisters country park, which attracts visitors from around the world. The road is vital to the local economy. Department for Transport figures show that more than 19,000 vehicles squeeze along South Way in Newhaven every day, which has a massive impact on neighbourhoods and businesses. The traffic system, designed in the 1970s, is now fundamentally failing our coastal communities. Newhaven is a strategic port and Seaford is a town of over 25,000 residents that attracts tens of thousands of visitors to its beautiful beach and serves as a major access point to the famous Seven Sisters cliffs. The road is a critical artery for our area and, like all coast roads, it is hard to expand it in its current location. In 2023, a multi-year major road network study recommended a package of upgrades, including safety improvements to junctions like Bishopstone Road. The county council submitted its business case to the Government to fund the upgrade package, but that is where it stopped. Will the Minister say whether the Government will commit the money necessary to get the A259 finally moving, and press the Reform-Conservative administration at East Sussex county council to get on with funding immediate improvements, like the Bishopstone Road junction, to boost roads in our area? The Chancellor has said that he wants more houses to be built as a result of this Budget, but building more houses without the necessary infrastructure is a road to nowhere. I am very clear about this: it is not reasonable or fair to ask residents in my community to just accept more and more housing, while they watch their roads clog up and their public services deteriorate and while they cannot get access to a GP. Take Ringmer, a beautiful village in my constituency, where over 1,600 new homes have been proposed as part of the district council’s local plan process. It is worth noting that the village currently has only 2,000 households. I have heard Ministers refer to people in villages like Ringmer, who are concerned about how their communities can possibly cope with so much new housing, as nimbys. That is grossly unfair and frankly insulting. If we want house building and growth, the Government need to offer communities a fair deal, not call them names. Housing plans must be led by need. Too much house building is just waved through and sometimes it is not even built at all. If the Chancellor wants to build Britain, he needs to invest in roads, schools, health facilities and public transport to make the new houses and the communities in which they are built truly sustainable, otherwise we are just building problems for the future. This Budget contains many warm words. However, the residents of Lewes, Seaford, Newhaven, Polegate and our local villages will judge it based on what actually changes for them.
Now that the Government have withdrawn plans for local government reorganisation in Devon, the law still requires councils such as North Devon to change from a committee system to a cabinet system by June 2027. Six months have been lost and the Secretary of State can grant only a year’s extension. Can the Minister tell us whether councils such as North Devon will be given extra time or extra funding to help make that change?
<Question HRSContentId="{B453A442-4B79-4DD2-9492-A31115B72FBC}">15. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{03B199A0-B081-4EBF-9767-968E45E570E0}">What assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for local authorities in rural areas.</QuestionText> </Question>
Shropshire council is in receipt of exceptional financial support following 16 years of disastrous Conservative mismanagement and a settlement from the Government that reduces its central allocation over the next three years. The issue for the council is that any council tax rises it opts for in future will cover only the repayment terms of that exceptional financial support, and will not allow for any financial restructuring. We are clearly in an unsustainable situation, so will the Minister meet me to discuss the terms of the exceptional financial support?
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, although I confess that I would rather see the social media companies give way and accept ways of cleaning up their act, rather than young people having to give way and lose their access. He mentioned the checks, and passports and driving licences will be required. Does that not disproportionately disadvantage poorer households, which are less likely to have those documents?
It is a pleasure to serve the Committee with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond, and to continue the almost daily tradition of meeting the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, in these Committee Rooms. The Liberal Democrats support the principle of directing interest payments towards tenants and the schemes that they want to see for their communities. The 9,000 private tenants in Taunton and Wellington would very much like to see the proceeds of these profits being directed in that way, although we do not see any guarantee in the order that the funds will be ringfenced for the use of private tenants. Paragraph 5.6 of the draft explanatory memorandum says it is an “expectation” that “The Secretary of State would use the funds received towards programmes or activities that benefit tenants in the private rented sector”. Paragraph 5.8 says, as an example, that the Secretary of State could require funds to be “used to fund a programme supporting vulnerable tenants.” We would like to these funds to be ringfenced, so that they are used for the benefit of tenants and do not disappear into some Treasury coffer. At this stage, without that guarantee, we have difficulty supporting the order.
The increase in starts is welcome, but the Government’s package of reforms was designed to increase consents. The most recent quarterly figures show that although consent applications are down, the rate of granted consents remains high at 88%—that figure is over 90% when councillors are involved in making the planning decisions. Does that not show that taking away powers to make decisions on major applications—those of over 150 homes—from councillors through the NPPF has made no difference whatsoever to the number of consents? Will the Government give those powers back to councillors, who support over 90% of applications when they come to committee?
The Minister clearly did not hear: I referred to the removal of councillors’ powers to make decisions on applications relating to over 150 homes, which happened at an early stage of the year. Moving on, the warm homes grant has come in for cuts. We have now discovered that not only is £1 billion being cut from the scheme, but an extra £1.5 billion will be cut from the loan system that goes towards those warm homes. How will people get the renewable energy and efficient homes they need if the scheme is being dismantled in this way?
For a long time, big tech companies in silicon valley and China have dictated what it is like for children to grow up in the UK. On self-harm, chatbots are often integrated into social media, and some of them give unregulated medical advice. Sometimes, people with eating disorders learn about low-calorie diets or how to access weight-loss drugs. Does the hon. and learned Member agree that any regulation on social media companies must include chatbots, whether they are integrated into social media or stand-alone?
<Question HRSContentId="{8269437C-66A5-4279-8EF6-BE499C446581}">T1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{75CF2F87-1DBD-4C01-A7FA-3EBE2CE540A4}">If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.</QuestionText></Question>
The Housing Minister promised me in January that we would see protection from fleecehold exploitation in this Parliament. The Government are running out of time. When can my constituents in freeholds expect unfair service charges to be properly regulated?
The Chancellor called this a “breathing space” Budget, but it seems only to be breathing space for the Government to put off the hard decisions. It is not a breathing space for my constituents, with frozen tax and student loan repayment thresholds. It is not a breathing space for my local businesses: the rise in employer national insurance contributions has not been reversed, there is no emergency <span id="674" class="column-number" data-column-number="674"></span>VAT cut for hospitality to help our high streets, and on business rates, which I have repeatedly raised in this House, the Budget just tinkers with a system that needs wholesale reform. The Budget is not a breathing space for farmers. There is no change in the family farm tax. The cut to fertiliser tariffs will make little difference when, as the NFU has pointed out, much already arrives tariff-free. I am disappointed that the Budget does not treat food security as national security. The Budget is not a breathing space for local transport users. In a Budget that mentions the north repeatedly, the west barely gets a look in. South Gloucestershire is mentioned once—a brief reference to a mass transit system that we have been hearing about for decades and that is unlikely to touch our rural villages. A £1 bus fare cap and discounted rail fares would have helped families in the short term, and investment in rural transport would help them in the longer term. The west of England is a growth engine outside of London. It deserves more ambition than that. The Budget is not a breathing space for energy bill payers. Suppliers forecast that the price cap will rise by around a quarter in January. Although welcome, the £100 for this winter and the promise of scrapping gas standing charges in the future do not touch the sides. Scrapping the standing charge will save people just £45 on average—and only those who actually use gas. One in five properties in Thornbury and Yate is heated by oil. Those households have no price cap at all, and there is nothing to ensure that the removal of import tariffs on kerosene is passed to consumers. The surest way to bring down bills is to insulate homes and move people off volatile oil and gas, so why is there a £1 billion cut in the warm homes plan? What of the promised growth? When will we hear about plans for new nuclear at Oldbury? The outcome of Great British Energy Nuclear’s review was promised this autumn. If data centres that meet the new British data centre covenant are to get priority grid connections, then, given the problem with providing nuclear connections, where is the grid capacity for new homes to meet the Government’s own housing targets? Where is the investment in skills in the rural west of England so that our local young people can access the technical jobs available? This Budget is a missed opportunity to provide real breathing space for our constituents, our businesses and our economy.
When my grandfather Lieutenant Austin Coghlan, a naval officer, served in the battle of the Atlantic, he did not expect to survive. That he did was in no small part due to the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, who diverted convoys away from U-boats. In the process, the codebreakers invented the world’s first computer, Colossus, which powered the economic development of the post-war world. The spill-over effect from military technology to civilian use is one of the most powerful forces for economic growth, and we can use it now. Many have said that there is not much that is transformative in this Budget, but that overlooks the Chancellor’s decision to invest up to £5 billion in dual-use military technology through the British Business Bank and the National Wealth Fund, and to borrow jointly with our allies through the multilateral defence mechanism. I have called for that for the past two years on the Treasury Committee, so I am grateful that the Government and the Liberal Democrats have embraced that policy. Academics now recognise that the economic dominance of the United States has been powered by public research and development, especially in defence. In my Budget speech last year, I called for £5 billion more on public research and development, so that we spend the same share of GDP on that as the US does. The £5 billion in this Budget, while over four years, is a start.<span id="652" class="column-number" data-column-number="652"></span> Public investment in research in universities and laboratories is powerful because it de-risks the cost of developing new technologies, and enables private investment to take that research forward in start-ups. The London Business School’s Paolo Surico has found that innovation that is funded by the Government, but taken forward by the private sector, generates productivity and growth that is eight times larger than innovation taken forward by the private sector alone. More borrowing is of course a concern in the current fiscal environment, but as the Government have correctly identified, borrowing jointly with allies can remove most of the credit risk. The latest academic research enables us to forecast the returns with confidence. If this programme was scaled in increments of £2 billion a year annually over the next 10 years, it could lead to: growth finally returning to pre-2008 levels, transforming living standards; a debt-to-GDP ratio that is 2 percentage points or £60 billion lower; and meeting our NATO defence spending commitments. British politicians in the 1930s were labelled the guilty men, because they failed to prioritise defence over the deficit. My grandfather’s generation paid the price. As a reservist, an infantry officer and an MP, I want to ensure that our generation does not.
On growth in every postcode, the Chancellor seems to have forgotten the people in Ely and East Cambridgeshire. There was nothing in the Budget and no funding for the Ely junction improvements, which would increase capacity on that rail line for freight and for passengers and make it more reliable. There was nothing to reduce rail fares, which are getting out of many people’s reach. There was nothing to help the county council with the phenomenal cost of mending our soil-affected roads. It estimates the cost to be £500 million, an amount that no county council can find. It is roughly 10 times its annual budget for road repairs. We have roads that, over <span id="662" class="column-number" data-column-number="662"></span>this summer, actually had no earth underneath them any more, and when people go out to repair them, they instead have to close the road, because there is no earth on top of which to repair it. On buses, it is great that we have capped bus fares, but many of my villages do not have buses at all. There was nothing in the Budget about improving bus routes and getting more buses. There was nothing on the A10. The money for that has been removed, and nothing has been put back in the Budget. So is growth really for every postcode? Not for mine. As for the farmers, who had that catastrophic sustainable farming incentive process that closed within hours, there is nothing for them. There is nothing to recognise the problems they had over this long, hot, dry summer. We need to back our farmers. They are in my postcodes, and they feed all of us. On the breathing space, there are some good things in the Budget to help people with the cost of living, but not for people on heating oil. I have had a letter from a young mum who tells me that she has to find £650 just to buy the minimum amount of oil that can be delivered, and that would not last her the winter. She cannot ask for money from the crisis and resilience fund, because she had that back in the spring, and she has been told she cannot ask again. Yes, she will probably get £100 in January, but she needs £650 now. To add insult to injury, the Chancellor has cut the budgets for helping people get away from their dependence on oil heating, so I cannot even be sure that all my constituents can take advantage of moving on to heat pumps or other technology. At the very least, will the Chancellor please look again at how he can help people on oil central heating, because they desperately need it this winter, and please can we not just tell them to eat gherkins?
The Chancellor said in his speech last week that people were looking to Government “not to solve all their problems but to give them a bit of breathing space”.<span id="vol792_col304" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="304" data-volume-number="792" data-external-id="D4B71A13-44AC-4127-9B51-E65739BB69CB">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 28 October 2026; Vol. 792, c. 304.]</span> That may be partly true, but I think it demonstrates the lack of ambition that sits behind this Budget. The Government should be solving the systemic problems in our economy, or at least making a much more serious attempt to do so than we saw last week. Those problems are at the root of why so many families are struggling to make ends meet and so many businesses are failing. When the economy is as damaged as it is, when public sector debt sits at 104% of debt to GDP—according to the International Monetary Fund—when productivity is decreasing, when consumer confidence is down and when housing costs continue to rise, I think it is the Government’s job to do something substantial towards solving the country’s problems. Make no mistake: the various incremental measures that the Chancellor announced, such as those on household energy bills, will be welcome, but they are not sufficient to “move the dial on growth”, in the words of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. As bigger, more difficult decisions are kicked down the road for another time, what my constituents want to know is how they are to absorb another year of no real earnings growth, while mortgage increases are coming down the pipe on the back of a likely Bank of England rate rise this week. My constituents want to know that the public services on which we all rely are safe, and they are not. My constituents want to see genuine hope for a future with better jobs and more opportunities, and they want to know that our food supply is secure and our rural economy will be supported. Across the board, however, this Budget was too unambitious, and ducked the big decisions that our country is crying out for.<span id="657" class="column-number" data-column-number="657"></span> Let me give two examples that could “move the dial”. First, the Chancellor’s speech was silent on Britain’s relationship with our biggest trading partner, the European Union. Our country prospers when fair, dynamic markets for goods, services, capital and labour operate effectively. If the Government are serious about our economy and want growth, they should get on with opening negotiations for our country to rejoin the EU now. Secondly, if we are serious about getting our national debt under control, we must look at reforming our fiscal rules. Why? Because they do not work. That is demonstrated by the fact that for the last 25 years there has not been a single year in which tax receipts exceeded spending. Our fiscal rules front-load spending in the early years, and difficult decisions—as epitomised by last week’s Budget—are put off, frequently to the other side of an election. There are good international examples from which we can learn. Other countries, such as Switzerland and Sweden, do this better. I therefore urge the Chancellor to take steps to rejoin the EU, and to establish a cross-party commission exploring more prudent fiscal rules.
The Government have now baked the £20 million-a-year second homes council tax premium into their core funding; but business rates loopholes, which were increased in the recent Budget, make those payments easily avoidable, so that revenue cannot be relied on consistently. Will the Minister meet the six Cornish MPs to ensure that Cornwall benefits from the second home council tax premium?
Does the hon. Member have any examples of how the age of a child could be proved if that child had never been on social media? How would a tech company that, theoretically, <span id="284WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="284WH"></span>would not know their information, be able to verify the child’s age without effectively using some form of digital ID by the back door?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank all hon. Members in this Chamber; I found myself nodding along extensively during other Members’ contributions. I absolutely support banning children from accessing harmful social media. The Liberal Democrats have long called for decisive action in this space. The Government joined us in those calls earlier this year, announcing proposals for a social media ban, but it has been many months since the initial announcement, and we are still not entirely sure what to expect. That uncertainty over what a possible ban will look like may be driving many of the concerns of those who signed this petition. What we know so far is that the Government have plans for an Australian-style ban; not only is that vague, but the Liberal Democrats have concerns that an Australian-style ban will ultimately fail in its role to reduce the harms faced by children online. As we have heard from other hon. Members, after a few months of the Australian ban, early data suggests that it has had a limited impact on prohibiting young people from accessing social media. On top of that, the Molly Rose Foundation found that among children aged 12 to 15 who had social media accounts before the ban came in, more than half said that the ban had made no difference to their online safety. I would add that, while my children are too old to be affected by the ban, I was often a very busy and tired single mother while they were being raised and using social media, and I totally understand the points being made about the possible unfairness and social justice issues with a blanket ban. This is important because, as we know, the message of this petition is not that children should keep access to harmful content; it is that a ban could cut young people off from safe spaces. For vulnerable children, online communities can often be a lifeline. A blanket ban risks cutting children off from that support. If the Australian evidence is anything to go by, the Government’s proposals could take away those positives without making the online world any safer. A few weeks ago, I met pupils from a local primary school, Peasedown St John, here in Parliament, and they shared similar concerns. In the Q&A session with a class of six and seven-year-olds, the first question was: “Are you going to ban social media?” When I asked what they thought, they told me, in six and seven-year-old terms, that they wanted inappropriate content restricted, but that they still wanted to use educational platforms. Even at that age, they recognise that different platforms carry different levels of harm, and I must admit that I agree with them. This is exactly the nuanced approach the Liberal Democrats have been calling for. Unlike an Australia-style ban, the Liberal Democrats would assess and regulate platforms based on the harms they cause, with film-style <span id="288WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="288WH"></span>age ratings reflecting that harm. Platforms that cause the most harm would be closed to children—but, if a tech company did the work to redesign the platform, removing addictive algorithms and harmful content, that form of social media could possibly be accessible. Unlike a fixed ban, that would give tech companies a reason to change. It would preserve safe spaces for young people to talk online and make safety part of the design of these platforms rather than an afterthought. While we are considering safe spaces, I appreciated the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) that there has been a deterioration in alternative spaces—practical, real-life spaces—for young people to go to over the past 10 or 20 years. I notice that the excellent campaign group Make Space for Girls has been making the point that specifically for young women and girls—particularly as the nights draw in—it is unclear where they will be going to spend their time. The hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) also made the point that rural communities particularly face this challenge. As someone who represents a semi-rural community, I know that many young people simply do not have anywhere to go if they are not going to be on their phones. I am not saying that that makes it right that they are on their phones, but it poses a challenge when that phone use is suddenly cut off. The Liberal Democrats are also clear that protecting children online should not come at the expense of privacy. Several constituents have asked me to attend this debate; again, they are not in favour of children accessing harmful content, but their concern is that a ban may effectively require a form of digital ID to be enforceable. The Liberal Democrats have always criticised plans for mandatory digital ID, and we will properly scrutinise any regulation of social media to make sure both that it is effective and that it safeguards personal privacy. I am wholeheartedly in support of a ban on harmful social media, but I think that this debate has allowed us to raise important questions about what a ban should look like. I will therefore finish with a few questions for the Minister. Do the Government believe that the best way forward is still a harms-based approach to banning social media? Can we still expect to see a ban by spring 2027? If so, could the Minister lay out exactly what we can expect to see, and confirm that any regulation will always prioritise privacy and that the House will have the opportunity to scrutinise any proposals?
The hon. Member is absolutely right—that was poorly worded. I should have said, “Alongside the safety of children, we should be prioritising privacy.” I thank him for allowing me to make that clarification. Finally, on 8 September, the Government also announced legislation to enforce device and app-level restrictions to stop children taking and sharing nude photos of themselves. Could the Minister tell us when we will see that come into force? The Liberal Democrats want to protect young people from online harm. We believe that the only way to do that successfully is through a harms-based ban on social media. I hope that the Government will today agree.<span id="289WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="289WH"></span>
The right hon. Lady has said that she wants to ensure that there is good growth in every postcode and has referred to the business rating system, but in the Budget the Chancellor extended the tax loophole available to holiday lets in postcodes in Cornwall and other tourist areas. Is the right hon. Lady aware that billions of pounds are handed out to second-home owners who flip their properties to holiday letting in order to take advantage of a tax loophole? Would it not be far better to invest that money in social housing for local people in desperate housing need?
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett). She refers to the fact that this is a Labour Budget, but I want to highlight how it does not contribute as I would hope it would—of course, good growth in every postcode is a good thing—to combating widening inequality. I am not sure it lives up to what I believe the Labour party argues for. I submitted early-day motions 939, 940 and 963, which provide constructive proposals to the Chancellor on addressing widening inequality. They were constructive proposals, as one would expect me to provide. The Conservatives want to focus on the benefits bill, and of course we should, but they do not seem to want to focus quite so much on the benefits bill of tax benefits for the wealthy. It is that area that I wish to concentrate on most. Some 23% of the Government tax take—£217.5 billion —is available in tax reliefs, as Treasury Ministers know full well. The Treasury Committee has identified that 80% of those tax reliefs have never been publicly costed or evaluated. I hope the Government will look at these matters. I will come on to one on housing in a moment. The Secretary of State referred to my private Member’s Bill, which is up for debate on Friday 13 November. It addresses both the need for first homes before second homes, and need before greed in the planning system. I hope that Labour Members will come along to support the Bill. What concerns me in particular is the business rates relief system. The Red Book, on page 130, refers <span id="664" class="column-number" data-column-number="664"></span>to the availability to small businesses of rates relief for the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. That includes, of course, holiday lets. The problem is that, because holiday lets have invariably been second homes, people have flipped their property from council tax to business rates, applied for small business rates relief and then paid nothing at all. The Government have extended the valuation from £12,000 to £18,000, which has then made a larger group of people, who are wealthy enough with their second properties, now able to take advantage of this particular loophole. In areas like mine, with large numbers of second homes, we would like the half a billion pounds that has gone from the taxpayer into the pockets of second home owners, to be put into social and affordable housing. It is driving inflation in the system and creating further inequality. I do hope the Government will look at this issue again, think again and address it.
I cannot begin without congratulating the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali) on her speech. I know her constituency well, and she is a distinguished former colleague of mine on Camden council. I am here today to speak about council housing. The Government’s priorities are still not right on this issue, despite the Chancellor explicitly naming in his Budget speech the loss of more than 2 million council homes since the 1980s and the Prime Minister’s focus on rough sleeping. We have millions of people waiting in overcrowded homes, rented homes that they cannot afford and temporary accommodation that councils cannot afford. That goes well beyond a crisis. What have the Government given us in this Budget? We have new money, with £1.5 billion added to the pot for councils to bid on for affordable home building. In paragraph 5.4 of the Budget, the Chancellor says that that will help to build potentially 10,000 more real council homes over the next four years. That is not terrible, but in paragraph 5.5 in the same document we get £4.7 billion for the Government’s new version of the Help to Buy scheme. The Chancellor explains that that will support private, profit-making developers to sell an extra 20,000 new builds. I presume that is without expecting developers to cut their prices or profits—it is possible that they will increase them. I note that the Government plan to collect some small fees from the house builders, but I assume that they have been agreed with them. I also note that one impact of the previous Government’s Help to Buy scheme was to keep house prices rising out of many people’s reach and to boost profits and profit margins for developers, as the recent Government evaluation of the scheme concludes. Can Ministers tell us whether £4.7 billion for loans that they do not expect to be paid back for many years to support 20,000 extra private sales by developers really represents better short-term or long-term value for the public purse than £1.5 billion to enable 10,000 new build council homes? That is three times more funding out of the door for just twice as many new homes. Even under the Government’s broad house building target, is that really the best use of public money? It may not be that simple, so I ask the Government to give us their workings on these choices, especially if I am wrong in my assumptions. Can they commit to publishing, for comparison, the Green Book assumptions and appraisals for each of these investment decisions, and the time it takes for money to move out of their loan scheme and back into it? We need much more investment in real council housing. We need “buy the supply”—the funding of acquisitions. I cannot see why the Government are not putting together an equity loan scheme for councils to help them buy the supply, instead of going with another help to buy scheme, just as the last Conservative Government did.
The hon. Lady is doing the House a great service. My late sister Joan was a hairdresser. She did an apprenticeship of exactly the kind the hon. Lady describes at the London school of hairdressing—before I was born, actually. She was proud of the skills that she acquired and then used for many years, but in recent years there has been the emergence of some extremely strange and, I would argue, dodgy barber shops, largely foreign, that I suspect have much less to do with hairdressing than with many other nefarious purposes.
It is worth reflecting on three things. As we have very little time, I make just one comment about welfare. It is necessary for the Government to reduce <span id="650" class="column-number" data-column-number="650"></span>welfare spending, because we can see what the Government’s own forecast says will happen if they do not do so: debt and borrowing will be higher in every single year. That is hugely down to the fact that the growth in welfare spending is running out of control. I was astonished that the point was avoided during the Budget, and then we had confusion when the Chancellor went on the radio the following morning and said that welfare would be reduced during the course of this Government. He was overridden by the Treasury, which said, “No, it won’t, and he didn’t say that,” but he did. That is the confusion. I do not doubt that the Chancellor wants to reduce welfare spending, but it appears that he will not be able to. The main thing I want to say is that this Budget has not been good for working families, middle-income earners, and those who bother to save. It is really hard on them. Tax is at the highest level on record; the tax burden will hit a historic high next year of 37% of GDP, nearly 38%, and will surge to over 38.6% by 2031. Growth next year has been cut from 1.6% to 1%, and as a result of this Budget, real household disposable income per person is forecast to fall by 0.8% this year. Those are stark figures, figures that economists have produced in their forecasts. The effect of that is to give Government fewer choices. I want to talk about defence, which is important because the threat we face now—from China and North Korea, from Iran and Russia, all linked together along an axis of totalitarian states—is astonishing. That means that our defence spending needs to rise. Every other Government in Europe is raising defence spending. We used to be the leader on this; they would all look to us, but not any more, because we have avoided raising our defence spending. Even the defence review will not take place until well into next year, and who knows what will happen next. This is a failure of the Government—an opportunity that has been missed. To quote Helen Miller, the economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Budget “feels like lots of fiddling, short-term things, new complications—a ‘new entrepreneurs allowance’, ‘starter ISA’…etc. I don’t hear a clear, coherent vision or a simplification of tax system”, which is necessary. The reality is that this Budget was an opportunity missed, and future generations will look back at this moment and say, “Where were you? Why didn’t you take the decisions that were necessary?”.
I was disappointed that the Chancellor did nothing to change the gift aid rules, which would have helped the Bridgwater carnival and many other community organisations and charities. The Bridgwater Guy Fawkes carnival is the most magnificent spectacle. It is Britain’s oldest carnival and the largest illuminated carnival in Europe, and it is taking place on Saturday. Like so many good causes, the carnival raises much of its funds in small cash donations, often loose change collected in a bucket on the night, yet it can only claim gift aid for a maximum of £2,000 on those small donations—a figure that has not been increased for 10 years. Will the Chancellor please consider increasing the limit? That would make a huge difference to organisations that collect so much of their funds in small cash donations. Despite making so many changes in his Budget, the Chancellor has not reinstated the listed places of worship grant scheme, which his predecessor abolished. This means that communities who worship in a listed building, such as the parish of St Andrews in Burnham-on-Sea, will have to bear the full cost of VAT on the repairs that their historic church requires. The scheme that replaced the old one is less generous and has a capped budget. We should cherish our beautiful listed churches and take care of them for future generations. I will continue to press the Chancellor to renew the scheme in full, to make sure that our congregations are not charged an extra 20% for vital repairs. There are 98 separate measures in the Red Book, and many of them will further complicate Britain’s already byzantine tax code. Do we really need a new founders’ relief from capital gains tax? We are told that it will be for “qualifying founders of high-growth, innovative companies”.<span id="659" class="column-number" data-column-number="659"></span> That perhaps sounds good for a Labour tax relief, but would it not be better to lower the rate of CGT for everyone, rather than add another carve-out for accountants and lawyers to argue about? Britain needs lower tax rates with fewer exemptions, not additional complications that drive up the cost of compliance. The fundamental problem that Britain faces today is simple: we are running out of money. Unless we change course soon, every other problem will become harder to solve. Our national debt is now £3 trillion, and every year Labour is adding tens of billions more. At a time of international uncertainty, we must spend more on defence, but this Government cannot do so because they refuse to cut welfare. We need a plan to cut debt, fund defence and get Britain growing again.
If everything is going so well, why is Britain paying more to borrow money than any other country in Europe?
May I say that it is a genuine pleasure to follow the excellent maiden speech of the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali)? As a West Ham fan, I understand that it is the optimism that kills you; she is a Spurs fan, so after last season, I think I will leave that there. I congratulate her: it is not easy to follow in the footsteps of a Prime Minister and to fight against the leader of another national party. As she pointed out, the racial attacks on her in the lead-up to that election were absolutely disgraceful. I am sure that the vast majority of people in this House stand in solidarity with her. I wish her a successful career in this House; I am sure that she will be a great asset to it. Today’s debate is about growth in every postcode, but I will focus on the genuine threat of war to this country. The Budget does not deal with the defence issues that must be addressed. We could carry on saying that we have a plan to have a plan, and kicking things down the road, but that would be to hide from the reality of what is going on in the world. Just today we saw a cyber-attack <span id="637" class="column-number" data-column-number="637"></span>that destroyed hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of frozen and refrigerated stock across at least six European countries. We know that such cyber-attacks are taking place every day, yet we are still delaying the real investment that needs to take place. I was recently in Australia with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. In Australia, inflation is 4%, cost of living is the No. 1 priority and 55% say immigration is too high, yet the Australians have decided to invest in defence. In the 1980s, they felt that their geography gave them the security, and now they have recognised that it does not. They are in the process of doubling their navy, with three air defence destroyers, six frigate submarine hunters, 11 general purpose frigates, six large missile barges and eight launching vessels to protect army capability. Of course, with AUKUS, they also have a built-in 50% contingency. Germany is going to have 15 extra frigates by 2035, Finland is going to have four new corvettes by 2035, and Norway is going to have five new frigates, six new submarines and 28 standard vessels by 2035, yet we say that we are aiming to get to 3.5% by 2035. I have said this before, and I will say it again: targeting a percentage of GDP is false and wrong. The target was only brought in to satisfy the Americans in 2014. Plenty of us have a lot of complaints about President Trump, but at least he got European countries spending. As far back as Eisenhower, the Americans were saying that Europe needed to spend more on defence. George Bush made such a speech in 2007, and Barack Obama made one in 2014 when the target came in. What really matters is article 3. Everybody talks about article 5 and defence. If article 5 is triggered, nations have a choice as to what they contribute to collective defence. Everybody thinks that America will pile in with its troops, tanks, planes and warships, but it could simply say, “We will provide the intelligence,” and that would satisfy article 5. Article 3 states that a country must be able to defend its borders for three weeks. NATO is a reinforcement. We simply cannot carry on saying, “We are going to do a defence investment review in a year’s time”—not actually investing in a year’s time, but doing a review! I welcome today’s news that double shifts might be done at the dockyards to produce more frigates, but that should be happening now. In the time I have remaining, let me say this. I said before in this House that when we cut spending from 5% of GDP—that level was just a consequence of what we needed to spend—the 3% went into health and welfare, and that it would be a brave politician who stood up and said that we should cut those things, especially welfare, to invest in defence. Well, that is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition is now saying. The time has more than passed. The threat of war in this country is on the horizon. We do not want it to happen, so we bury our heads in the sand and say that we can delay the spending. That cannot carry on. The threat is imminent.
The Chancellor’s big phrase in this Budget has been “breathing space”. It has been said time and again, but it is utterly false, because the Chancellor has not given businesses any breathing space at all. There is no breathing space <span id="672" class="column-number" data-column-number="672"></span>on employer national insurance. Labour’s job tax stays exactly where it is, punishing employers for yet another year. There is no breathing space on wages. The national living wage has actually gone up by 3.9% from April, on top of the Employment Rights Act 2025, with nothing announced to help employers meet the costs. Even the Office for Budget Responsibility warns that these policies will seriously damage job creation in this country. There has been no real breathing space on business rates. The Chancellor says that he is freezing business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure in real terms, but the British Retail Consortium has rightly pointed out that this is just “smoke and mirrors”. This is not breathing space at all. This is our businesses being stifled yet again by this Labour Government. I ask the Minister: what are their ambitions for British businesses? It seems evident from this Budget that they do not have any. They are taxing our British businesses again and again. All this matters because it is impacting my constituency, which is full of hard-working people. I think of the independent shops on Cavendish Street and Low Street fighting to keep Keighley a thriving place, as well as the cafés, boutiques and family businesses on the Grove and Brook Street in Ilkley, and those businesses right across Silsden, Steeton and Riddlesden and our wider area who are working incredibly hard. The pubs, the tradespeople, the hairdressers, the start-ups—they are all hard-working people, yet this Government think that employers in those small independent businesses are not workers. They put out that narrative as if those employers need to be taxed more. Let me tell the House about one of those businesses, which I visited just yesterday. The Turkey Inn in Goose Eye is a pub that is much loved by locals and visitors alike, and I called in there last night to have a meal. The owners of that pub are grafters. They produce excellent food that is second to none and they support our local community with many local activities. They do everything right, working day in, day out to support the community, but yesterday, on the back of this Budget, they announced that they were cutting their opening hours from seven days a week to just four, and they were clear about why. In their own words, they said: “With no measures in the budget to help small hospitality businesses and local pubs like ours, we must take this step”. That is the verdict not of a politician or of a Labour think-tank but of hard-working people in my constituency who have been impacted by this third Labour Budget. The Turkey Inn is not alone. I speak to pubs and small independent businesses every single week in my constituency and they are telling me the same thing. Labour is not on the side of our hard-working businesses, and that is impacting them. This Labour Budget has not provided any breathing space at all. This Government must wake up and listen to our small and medium-sized businesses, who are the backbone of our communities and our local economies, because they are pushing them to breaking point. If the Government do not wake up and listen, I fear for all of them. A simple policy of tax, tax, tax on our businesses with more regulation is stifling those businesses, not helping them thrive.
I want to thank Nick Coombes from my office for his help on this speech. Unsurprisingly, I am disappointed by the Chancellor’s first Budget. From a new Administration who spent a by-election and leadership campaign claiming that they had all sorts of plans and ambitions to fix the economy after the previous Labour Administration constantly talked us down, we have a “do no harm” Budget that does decidedly little to help pensioners, fund our armed forces, support young people or back the businesses that are essential to creating jobs. The tax burden has continued to rise above record levels; inflation has not been at the 2% target since before the first Budget of this Labour Government; and the welfare bill is set to go up by another £60 billion—and neither the Prime Minister nor the Chancellor is willing to commit to reducing it in this Parliament. As the Leader of the House has said, we are now spending more on debt interest than on the Army and schools combined, which is clearly wrong, especially when we face some of the biggest and most rapidly evolving threats since the cold war. Yet the Chancellor, who resigned as Defence Secretary over the previous Administration’s refusal to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP, has delivered a Budget that has deferred the difficult choices necessary to keep our country safe until next year, in favour of the Prime Minister’s plan to prioritise social security over national security.<span id="668" class="column-number" data-column-number="668"></span> Young people are already struggling for support to get into education, employment or training. The increase in employer national insurance contributions, and now the further increase in the minimum wage, will make young people even more expensive for small businesses to hire, while pushing more and more workers into higher tax brackets. This was the Chancellor’s first opportunity to take bold steps to correct the errors of the previous Labour Budgets, and to provide support for businesses and entrepreneurs, which would have been a notable break from the massive tax hikes and regulatory burdens that have so far fallen on businesses under this Government. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor needed to use this opportunity to take drastic action to slash the size of the state, and to get Britain working again—to support those who are working, and to encourage into work those who are not working, but who are able to. My constituents are happy to support those in genuine need, but this Labour Government have come back every year for more money from the same hard-working people they promised not to raise taxes on to fund an ever-increasing welfare state. This “do no harm” Budget has led to the worsening of the OBR forecasts on inflation, economic growth, unemployment and living standards, and has left my constituents disappointed. I hope that the Prime Minister’s 10-year plan and the upcoming spending review have some much-needed good news and serious economic support for businesses and young people in South West Hertfordshire.
The hon. Member highlighted the statistic that around £550 million will be potentially raised in interest. How much of that interest does she think would be appropriate to go into the investments that she has outlined, given that we do not have any numbers for what we are supposed to be approving? As the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington, said, this is in effect a blank cheque.
Going back to the threshold point, can the Minister give any indication of what level interest rates would have to reach to trigger this, based on the Department’s calculations in crafting this statutory instrument? If it is a windfall from high interest rates generating additional revenue, what general ballpark does the Minister think interest rates would have to be at to trigger this?
I thank the Minister for giving way; he is always very generous with his time. Could he provide us with some examples of what MHCLG could use this money for to support renters? He has not listed any yet, and obviously there are none in the SI. I am a bit concerned about where this money is going to be used.
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank all Members from across the House for their contributions tonight, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) and for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra). I am also grateful for the very thoughtful contributions, particularly on welfare spending, from <span id="685" class="column-number" data-column-number="685"></span>my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and from my constituency neighbour and the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I particularly enjoyed his contribution. Most of all, let me congratulate the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali) on delivering her maiden speech. I gave my maiden speech in a Budget debate, and it is a hard thing to do. I still remember how nervous I was, and I can tell her that it does not quite go away, I am afraid. I enjoyed her speech, which was excellent, and I know that her constituents and her family will be very proud to see her sat where she is. I wish her the very best for the future. It is a genuine pleasure to close this day of the Budget debate on behalf of the official Opposition. Ironically, this has been billed as a “breathing space” Budget by the same people who have taken all the air out of the economy. The British people do not just want a breather. They want to get on, and there is little in this Budget for them. The subject of today’s debate is growth—a subject that was apparently chosen voluntarily by the Government. That is interesting, because paragraph 2.48 of the OBR’s assessment of this Budget clearly says that next year’s growth has been downgraded to 1%—cut by a third. The Chancellor said that this Budget would deliver “growth in every postcode”, but the OBR has read it and found that there will be lower growth across the country. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> I have got to know the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Dan Tomlinson), who is chuntering away, and I know that he is about to stand up and say that the OBR has upgraded growth for this year by 0.1%. That is great, and I am delighted for him, but in March 2024, the OBR did not expect growth under a Conservative Government to be 1.2% this year. It expected the Conservatives to deliver 2% in 2026, so I am afraid to say that the OBR has downgraded its growth expectations and projections for this year, too. The Secretary of State, who was very energised, said that the Government have cut business rates, but these are the guys who inherited high-street relief at 75%, cut it to 40% and then abolished it altogether. Under pressure from high-street businesses across the country, they are handing a little bit back and think it is all fine. It is like a burglar returning your TV and asking for a thank you. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley was absolutely right to highlight that point. Then there is the high-street bank tax. This is a tax on lending, mortgages and the high-street branches that people rely on in constituencies across the country. I thought this Government wanted to see more bank branches, not fewer, but fewer branches is exactly what will happen. The Minister is probably going to stand up and claim that this Budget is delivering for working families on the cost of living, but that is not the whole picture, is it? Living standards this year, across every postcode, are set to fall under a Labour Government, but it is okay because they can all live off cheaper gherkins. The Government do not like to hear this, and no doubt I will be accused of talking down the economy, so let me be very clear: I talk up my country, but I talk <span id="686" class="column-number" data-column-number="686"></span>down this Labour Government. I am not the only one; there are plenty of us. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the Budget has “very little that will move the dial on growth”. The CBI said that the Budget “lacks the bold moves that would have made it easier for firms to invest, hire and grow.” The British Retail Consortium said costs will “keep climbing as the Chancellor failed to provide the breathing space he promised.” Even the Government’s friends in the Resolution Foundation said the Budget “did not rise to the scale of the challenges”. Do not get me wrong: I do not believe that the Government are bad people. I just do not think they have any grasp of basic economics and reality. Just this weekend, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove said, we heard that they do not even think that employers are working people. In all of this, let us spare a thought for poor old Keir Starmer, who must have been sat watching the TV on Lord Alli’s sofa and wondering, “What was it all for?” The new Prime Minister booted him out with a story of transformation, almost revolution. After years and years of trying, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) finally becomes First Lord of the Treasury, and we all eagerly awaited his first Budget—his first chance to mould the country to his Mancunian grand vision—but what we got was the same old Labour: higher taxes, no action on welfare, and no real answers to the challenges facing our country today. This is continuity Keir without the mandate. Tinkering with little policies like the £2 bus cap is not going to keep us safe from Putin. It is not going to take a family out of poverty; it will just get them to the bank branch, which is closing, near the house that they cannot afford, with a mortgage that they will not be lent. When will Labour learn? It does not have to be this way. Instead of fuelling a rise in unemployment and overseeing a spiralling benefits bill, the Government could reduce costs to businesses and cut the regulatory burden. We could get people off welfare and into work. We will happily work with the Chancellor in the national interest, if only he is brave enough to stand up to the Members chuntering behind him. Nothing has changed—not the tax hikes, not the welfare bill, not the excuses. All that has changed is the person holding the microphone. I accept that the Prime Minister has been busy. We have watched him bounce from the Downing Street desk to the “Gogglebox” sofa and back home to Manchester. We know his favourite crisps, but we do not know his plan for the economy. He is a TikTok Prime Minister who chose a Chancellor on a tuk tuk. He has had a ride, and now he has taken the British people for one, too. A Chancellor who, for some reason, carried a miner’s lantern to the Labour party conference is now leading the economy down a dark tunnel, with no plan to get out. Back during the days of the coup, the Prime Minister told us, with a nauseating dose of cheddar cheese, that he wanted “hope in every heart”, but we got a hand in every pocket, with tax at record levels, debt higher, debt interest higher and youth unemployment spiralling. This is not just a missed opportunity; it is a dereliction of duty.<span id="687" class="column-number" data-column-number="687"></span>