Budget Resolutions

Ayoub Khan Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

Again, we are working with local areas to make sure that we progress as quickly as possible. We are happy to engage with local leaders as part of that programme.

As we move towards a local government finance settlement, we will continue working with local leaders to plan and invest for the long term. I am clear that local government is the foundation of the public services on which neighbourhoods and communities rely, which are essential to our wider ambition to rewire the state.

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

I wholeheartedly support regional mayors delivering for local communities. This Labour Government always promote localisation and devolution, but how will the Secretary of State ensure that regional mayors interact and work with local councillors? After all, local councillors are elected to represent their local neighbourhoods.

[Angela Rayner]

Our plans are about making sure that mayors work with local authorities. In fact, in my area in Greater Manchester, we have seen the combined authority have really good pulling power, with our economy doing better than other areas, so we want to see that across the whole nation.

That is why the Cabinet statement on rewiring the state committed to the financial sustainability of local authorities, and this Budget is the next step towards that. The upcoming local government finance policy statement will set out our next steps alongside the rewiring the state delivery plan. Good growth is growth that we can see and feel. We need to draw a line under a decade of drift during which the public realm was seen as sideshow to politics—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) should know about sideshows.

Our high streets are where we catch up with friends for a coffee, and those businesses provide solid jobs at the heart of our communities. Those small moments of joy give us real hope, and that is why our strategy is giving hope back to the high streets. New powers, new funding and changes to the business rates system will provide much-needed relief for thousands of cafés, pubs and high street shops. We are freezing all retail, hospitality and leisure bills in real terms to protect them from above inflation increases for the next two years, and we are lifting the small business rate relief threshold for qualifying properties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)]

Like many of my colleagues, I am delighted with the new Prime Minister’s clear ambition to reindustrialise Britain, which can drive economic prosperity in areas that really need it. My constituency is an example of somewhere that can drive and reap the benefits from this reindustrialisation. In Pendle and Clitheroe we do not trade financial derivatives; we make aeroplanes, furniture, chemicals and cement, and we produce food. Not only does manufacturing make up over a quarter of the jobs, but they are often the best jobs, too. However, the truth is that, as I speak, Britain is still deindustrialising. We are as vulnerable to global supply shocks as any major economy without the sovereign capability in key sectors to look after our basic needs.

I am glad to see the Chancellor deliver immediate relief for households, but in the long run we must not just treat the symptoms of this failed economic model—with fiscal transfers patching up the gaps—but overhaul it entirely. The British economy remains too reliant on the City, foreign money and importing increasingly expensive essentials. True economic security can only come from the British economy being productive enough to convert world-leading innovation and research into valuable industrial output.

I was pleased to see some of the announcements at the Budget last week reflect this challenge, with measures including: serious public investment into productive British industries via the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank; an acknowledgement of the need for cheaper power and protections offered to energy-intensive manufacturers; support for vocational apprenticeships, which is essential for skills development in manufacturing and aligned sectors; and a long-term partnership with Rolls-Royce, whose Barnoldswick site in my constituency provides well-paid jobs for hundreds of my constituents—a reminder that Britain could still be home to world-leading industrial champions in highly competitive sectors.

But there is a lot more to be done. We must be clear about what we mean when we talk about reindustrialisation. The clue is in the name—it is about industry. Reindustrialisation must mean increasing physical production of goods needed at home and abroad. I hope that we will see more detail on how we will achieve this in the forthcoming 10-year plan.

As a short-term measure, I would like to see an expansion of the British industrial competitiveness scheme to a much wider range of manufacturing firms in Britain. We cannot expect our productive sectors to thrive and grow with energy costs as high as they currently are. Over the long term, we must improve our energy sovereignty by making it cheaper to build nuclear power stations urgently and reducing our reliance on gas imports by using our own North sea supply.

I would also urge the Government to include in the 10-year plan an ambitious plan for rebuilding our defence industrial base, alongside a continued commitment to British procurement. Building our domestic capacity for defence and other critical sectors can be supported beyond procurement through investment in equity stakes, taking control of essential inputs, as the Government did with British Steel, and accelerating planning decisions for key sectors.

So many of our challenges stem from a lack of quality work in productive industries. That is not talked about enough.

[Ayoub Khan]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jonathan Hinder]

I am sorry, but I am rushing through my speech.

[Ayoub Khan]

You will get an extra minute.

[Jonathan Hinder]

Go on then.

[Ayoub Khan]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about reindustrialisation. All the different jobs he talked about require students who have degrees. Does he agree that the Budget should have contained something about student loans, because students are suffering at this moment in time?

[Jonathan Hinder]

I definitely think that the House needs to come back to plan 2 loans. That will become a bigger and bigger issue.

So many of our challenges stem from a lack of quality work in productive industries. We do not talk about the link enough, but high streets are crippled by a lack of good jobs that provide a decent income and give people money in their pockets to spend in their area. Young people are stuck at home, unable to get a place of their own and start a family, and we see the selling-off of British assets to fund a current account deficit.

There is something even more fundamental at play when we talk about reindustrialisation. Sometimes in these economic policy debates we lose a sense of what really matters in life. Why is it that so often those jobs that appear to be the most socially useless are paid the most and those that contribute something so important to our society are often paid the least? If our economy is driving those perverse incentives that push bright young people into careers trading securities—some people call them “BS jobs”—we had better change those incentives, had we not? We need an economic framework that, instead of incentivising rent seeking, incentivises productive, meaningful work, providing people with not just a sense of satisfaction, pride and a good living but something useful to society—imagine that?

I know that this is not easy, but our economy cannot go on consuming too much and producing too little. I urge the Chancellor and his Ministers to ensure that reindustrialisation, which has struck such a chord with the British people, is turned into a fully-fledged plan for national reconstruction.