Autumn Budget 2025

Lord Kempsell Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kempsell (Con)]

My Lords, this is quite rightly a wide-ranging debate and there is much to deal with when it comes to the Government’s handling of the economy, so I will confine myself to two points. One is an area that has been very gracefully elided and skated over by so many noble Lords on the opposite side of your Lordships’ House: the question of the process, rather than the policy, that led up to this Budget. Surely the distinctive nature of the Budget event was the chaotic handling of the process around it. The pre-Budget period was marked by briefing, counter-briefing, leaks, press conferences and indeed market speculation. It became—I think noble Lords will agree—a national embarrassment.

Even if we put aside the OBR’s error, an accident that is now being employed as a smokescreen by the Chancellor, we now know that, ahead of the Statement, a very large number of savers withdrew money from their pensions. For many, that was a one-off, irreversible financial decision. I refer noble Lords to the Financial Times this morning, where professional wealth managers are quoted at length on this. One said that there have been “elevated withdrawals from pensions” as a result of concerns and speculation about the removal of tax-free cash. They said that this led to

“hundreds of millions of pounds of additional outflows from our business”.

Another professional wealth manager said that people act on speculation and, if they take money out of their pension prematurely, they have damaged their pension going forward. People’s pensions have been damaged due to the speculation.

I previously served as a special adviser in government. I know exactly how the briefings and press conferences emerge. Usually, they are political chaff that can be ignored as tomorrow’s chip paper, but not in this case. We know without doubt that the political and media activity of Ministers and special advisers ahead of the Budget drove market speculation to sky-high levels, leading to real-world financial consequences for savers. So I ask the Minister: when the Treasury undertakes the investigation that I know the Chancellor has ordered into Budget leaks, will that investigation also include consideration of the deliberate media strategy in the run-up to the Budget? It was clearly planned, followed and designed by the department, including the sudden breakfast TV appearance by the Chancellor as the prime example.

Secondly and in closing, I turn to the excellent speech made by my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington. He adumbrated with great insight and with clear thought the difficulties that are now faced by the most struggling families in our country after this Budget. As one of the youngest Members of your Lordships’ House, and an aspirational one at that, I add that this Budget did nothing for young aspirational people across the country. We have the freezing of student loan interest rates; the tax threshold freeze; job creators and entrepreneurs who create entry-level jobs all over the country leaving as quickly as planes can carry them; the costs of employment going up for the youngest workers; and indeed the ballooning welfare budget. None of that is good for young strivers—the ambitious young families who want to build careers and wealth. So I ask the Minister: how will the Government correct their course for the youngest in our country?