Budget Resolutions
Ben Goldsborough Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
When we stood for election, we promised change—real change that would improve life for people in every part of this country. This week’s Budget moves in the right direction, but if we are to renew Britain, we must be willing to go further. There are measures worth welcoming. Ending the two-child cap will lift around 1,270 children in South Norfolk out of arbitrary disadvantage, and clamping down on illegal activity on high streets, such as minimarts, barbershops, vape shops, nail bars and car washes, will protect honest traders and restore confidence.
We must not, though, allow the good news to distract us from the deeper truth: delivering genuine renewal demands deeper reform. On the NHS, reform must be real, not just rhetorical. Too much of our healthcare system has been shaped around elderly care alone, yet under-30s with serious mental health conditions, and over-50s facing obesity or musculoskeletal disorders cannot be left behind. Without genuine innovation in prevention and rehabilitation, the NHS cannot remain both compassionate and sustainable. Partnership with the private sector must therefore play a role—not ideological outsourcing, but practical collaboration that cuts waiting lists and expands capacity. Labour is uniquely placed to deliver that in a way that strengthens the NHS rather than fragments it.
Welfare reform must also return to its original purpose: helping people to rebuild their lives and get back into work. A modern system should be humane and empowering, not defined by complexity, stigma and delay. If we want to reduce the long-term welfare bill, early intervention and smarter support are essential. Growth underpins all that. If we want world-class public services, we need an economy that can pay for them. That means reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens in sectors that give Britain the global edge. Finance, for example, faces layers of regulation that stifle innovation. A party that is serious about renewal cannot shy away from bold deregulation where it is justified.
Tax choices must be part of this honesty. The Chancellor has ruled out rises in income tax, VAT and national insurance for employees—a decision that protects working people at a difficult time—but that also means that the tax burden will inevitably rise later in the Parliament. We owe voters the honesty to say so.
Our pubs are vital to rural life and to South Norfolk’s villages. Pub landlords rightly tell me that supermarkets have an unfair advantage on alcohol pricing. Pubs are responsible places; they create community, support young workers and act as informal safeguards against harmful drinking. I urge the Chancellor to explore creative VAT options for high-street institutions.
Finally, after 13 months campaigning for fair inheritance tax treatment for farms, I welcome progress, but it does not go far enough. The forestalling clause traps farmers who may not have five or seven years to wait, including those who are terminally ill. That is unfair and unjust, and it threatens the foundations of our food security. Labour can once again be the party of rural Britain, but only if we protect the family farms we depend on.
This Budget makes progress, but progress alone is not enough. To deliver the change we promised, we need deeper NHS reform, a modern welfare system, bold deregulation, honest tax decisions, support for our pubs and high streets, and fairness for rural communities. That is the spirit in which I will continue to fight for South Norfolk.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ben Goldsborough Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Ed Miliband
I made a comprehensive statement to the House on this last Thursday, and the grounds for the decision are these: first, there is the question of fairness, and secondly, there is the question of the cost of the transition and what would happen in the meantime. We need investment in our clean energy infrastructure, and we need investment in growth. I believe that our way—reformed national pricing—is the right way forward.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is why the strategic spatial energy plan will set out where we need our energy infrastructure, so that we can have a planned system that matches power needs and infrastructure at least cost to bill payers and taxpayers.
Renewable Energy Projects: Community Benefits
Ben Goldsborough Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I have quite a bit of energy infrastructure going on in my constituency, be it the proposed Norwich to Tilbury line, the East Pye solar farm that has just been announced or the Ørsted battery energy storage site to the north of my constituency. To say that this debate is not hypothetical for my residents—it is very much a reality—would be underselling the matter. We have talked about community benefit and community wealth-building, but that is not something my constituents are happy to hear. They want to hear the word “compensation”. They do not want to hear the word “hosting”, because, at the end of the day, a pylon is not being hosted; it is being placed in their back garden.
It is important to remember in this debate that we live in a wasteland of regulatory framework for compensation. Individual businesses that take on such projects to grow their own enterprises—don’t get me wrong; they are private enterprises and there to make a profit—must work within a regulatory framework to make sure they are held to account and made to pay for the local people who have to face those developments in their area.
We have seen locally that the National Grid, for example, provides its own funding and grant-based system, but funding is not granted to individuals; it is only general. It takes into account such things as social, economic and environmental benefit, but those are judged by the National Grid’s own criteria. That is not something for which the National Grid is held to account, and it does not ensure that local people have a say over what is coming back to them.
The situation becomes even direr when we talk about solar farms. The industry body is responsible for setting out guidance on what should happen to all member bodies within it. Again, that creates an issue where those residents in areas considering having infrastructure in their back garden do not feel heard. They do not feel that they are being listened to in terms of what they want and where they need it. We want to drive towards net zero and we need to drive forward with the industrial upgrade to our national grid, but we end up in a situation where we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, putting people off our future development towards being a green superpower for the rest of the world to follow.