Budget Resolutions

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

Undoubtedly my constituents will be watching this Budget debate closely, asking what it means for them and whether it will sort out the cost of living, fix the NHS and help pay down the national debt. What they will have seen from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and her ministerial team is a Budget with those issues at its heart.

Over 14 years this country experienced the steepest fall in living standards in living memory. The planned rise in the minimum wage next April is just one step towards alleviating those problems for the lowest paid in society. The youngest full-time workers will see a nearly £5,000 pay increase. Coupled with £150 off household energy bills, this Government are literally putting money in people’s pockets. Unlike the Tories and their latest rebrand, Reform, I will be proud next week to back a Budget that backs working people.

There is a simple truth: when workers are paid well, they work better. When working people have more money, the economy grows. I was delighted to hear in the Chancellor’s statement the announcement of the Team Derby initiative, a new roaring engine for the east midlands economy, creating high-paid, good-quality jobs in my home in Derbyshire. For children in Ilkeston and Long Eaton, new free apprenticeships in SMEs will be something to truly aspire to when they come out of school, as good as any university degree.

In Erewash, waiting times for GP appointments are a full week longer than the national average. It is fundamentally wrong that people in Ilkeston do not get the same standard of care as people who live here in London. We need to build a truly national health service, ending the postcode lottery for good. In this Budget, we have 250 new neighbourhood health centres. That will hopefully mean that the days of my constituents commuting into Nottingham or Derby for minor scans or blood tests might soon be over.

To address those who say that we can borrow without end or cut Britain to oblivion, or who think that tax cuts for the wealthy would somehow magic us into economic growth—or, if we ask the Greens, perhaps hypnotise us into physical growth—we already know where those ideas lead. All of those options were tried and tested during the 14 long years that the Conservative party were in control of the Government. It left them in the moribund electoral doldrums where they now find themselves. First, they tried to cut their way out of a recession. Interest rates were a fraction of a percent, yet they did nothing to invest in and grow our economy. The NHS fell to its knees, businesses stopped growing and wages went down in real terms. Even their own Back Benchers—what is left of them—and party members were not happy with their approach.

After 12 years of trying one failed scheme after another, and eventually running out of even vaguely credible ideas, the Conservatives tried something new: they made Liz Truss Prime Minister. I think we all remember how that ended, with the abject chaos of the Truss mini-Budget , filled with uncosted spending commitments, tax cuts for the wealthiest and nothing short of an economic Hindenburg. Who paid the price for that chaos and that economic crash? It was working people—families in Long Eaton, Ilkeston and Sandiacre—with mortgages sent sky high, and in some cases doubling, savings wiped out and inflation run amok.

Who supported that vandalism? While Conservative Back Benchers were pulling their collars, nervously sending furtive glances in the direction of their majorities, who instead gave Liz Truss their full-throated endorsement? It was, of course, the fake patriots and faux defenders of working people at Reform UK. They are fake patriots. Simply put, they cannot love this country if they want to sell it out to foreign billionaires—or Russian oligarchs, for that matter. If they want to charge people money to use our NHS, if they want to cut the minimum wage —taking money out of working people’s pockets, so that it can be given back to their bosses, tax-dodging corporations, millionaires, billionaires or shady party donors—and if they want to see a return to years of dredging austerity, they do not love this country.

This Government are investing in Britain, in its people, in families and in our economy fairly and sustainably. We are on the long road towards fighting back against the cost of living crisis, to make life in this country affordable again. We are getting the NHS back on its feet, cutting waiting lists, ending the postcode lottery and putting healthcare back in our local communities, where it can make a real difference. There will be no more squalid years of austerity, and no more failing working people. This Budget puts working people back at the heart of our economy, and I am very proud to support it.