Budget Resolutions

Andrew Lewin Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Jeremy Hunt]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I profoundly disagree on the way the Government are choosing to do that. By expanding the welfare bill and expanding the number of large families living in poverty, they are making the root causes of poverty worse and not better.

The Chancellor says that there is a growth plan, but it was very difficult to discern it at all in today’s Budget. We know, for example, that raising public sector productivity to private sector levels would add 0.4% to annual GDP growth. We know that proper planning reforms would add 0.4%, that proper welfare reform would add 0.3% and that getting energy bills down properly would add 0.3%. We know that AI could dwarf all that, according to Microsoft and Accenture, potentially adding 1% a year.

We got none of that today. Instead, we had a Government arriving in office saying that they wanted “Growth, growth, growth” without knowing how they were going to get there. Growth needs a plan, not a soundbite, and it is that lack of a plan—or even a guiding philosophy—that has resulted today in a Budget that damages growth, damages investment, damages jobs and, most tragically of all, damages opportunities for young people, of whom there will shortly be a million not in employment, education or training.

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is a respected Member of the House, but I think it is really important that we reflect on the facts. Both the Chancellor and the OBR announced today that growth is up from 1% to 1.5% this year. The right hon. Gentleman talks about having a plan on planning reform—a subject I am very interested in. Why then did his party abstain and not back our planning reforms?

[Sir Jeremy Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we should look at the facts, which are very clear: the OBR upgraded growth for this year, and then downgraded it for every single year of the forecast thereafter. The overall size of the economy is shrinking as a result of the measures taken by the Chancellor in the previous Budget—and, I am afraid, made much worse in this Budget.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to go further on planning reform, but I do not think we have had any plan from the Government for the really substantive changes that would align incentives between local communities and national Government when it gets to things like planning approval for big infrastructure projects. I would cheer from the rafters if we heard that from the Chancellor, because it is urgently needed.

Can the Government please not tell us that everything is going to be fine just because they are not the evil Tories? That is what I think is most disappointing of all, because those terrible Tories got inflation down from 11% to 2% and saw 4 million new jobs in the economy, as opposed to nearly 200,000 fewer. They grew the economy faster than France, Germany, Italy or Japan, and they attracted more greenfield foreign direct investment than anywhere in the world apart from China and the United States.