Budget Resolutions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) about reindustrialisation, but we will not reindustrialise Scunthorpe in my neighbouring constituency by screwing it with the highest energy costs in Europe, and nor will we reindustrialise simply by exporting our carbon by importing oil. That is why we need to get on with Rosebank.

I came to the House with a load of figures about the rising tide of debt, the tax burden rising to 38% of GDP and the £4.3 billion tax raid on landlords, but we know all those figures. What are we going to do about it? Traditionally, Governments—I have seen so many come and go—get the bad news out first. This Government still have three years to go, but I do not quite know why we have got over 100 tiny policy changes but are not actually fixing the fundamental problems now. We should get the bad news out now.

A colleague told me today that actually the Prime Minister is being very shrewd about this: we live in a TikTok generation, so he can let out a little policy announcement every week to keep people happy and delay decisions. That may be good politics, but is it good government?

We all know that society is breaking down because people feel that some are abusing the system. We had the statement this afternoon about legal and illegal migration, and we know how strongly people feel about that, but in working-class constituencies people feel strongly about so many abusing the system. They feel particularly strongly about young people who are not in work, education or training.

I agree with the Government that we cannot solve that problem with what they call crude benefit cuts, but there has to be some balance; work and training have to be worthwhile. Therefore, we cannot dodge the issue of the amount and level of benefits paid to young people.

I was reassured by the front page of The Times today, which said that the Government are looking at what is going on in the Netherlands. So, great, we will not have crude cuts, but we have got to get these young people into training, given medical help and helped into work. We need them to be not dismissed by the system in a tick-box exercise, filling in paper, but seen by a real person and helped into education or training—or, if they cannot get into that, some form of workfare.

The trouble is that half the benefit bill is taken up with the state pension. For years, I have been one of the few people who has questioned the triple lock. It is amazing how Ministers defend the triple lock, but the moment they cease to be Ministers they say it is unaffordable. The Government have listened to all the economic advice, but eventually the triple lot will have to come to an end. Again, why delay it?

The Government cannot imagine that getting rid of the triple lock will pay for the vast cost of a national care service—the NHS writ large. It would be better to say to pensioners—this is a fair deal, which I think they would accept—that their state pension should, as a proportion of the economy, stay roughly the same. We would not be bankrupting the nation, and the state pension would go up by how much the economy grows every year, which is fair.

If we want to save money, we do not want to delay these decisions till 2030. Surely what we need now is to get old and frail people out of expensive hospitals and into new cottage hospitals. They need not be in “all singing, all dancing”, hugely expensive private finance initiative hospitals. We should have more cottage hospitals where old people can be looked after, in a caring and loving way, and relieve the health service, if we are to save the national health service.

On saving one thing, the average price of a house in my constituency is just £200,000, and what really upsets people is seeing how their whole inheritance, which they want to pass to their children, will go on care costs. Let us go back to the old idea of having a cap on the total amount paid for care.

There is a way forward. I think we can work together to get young people back into work and training, and we can reassure old people that they will be looked after in their old age.