Budget Resolutions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I thank the Chancellor for her Budget, and the whole Treasury team for the conversations I have had with them about aid, our high streets and child poverty. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), although we absolutely do not agree on the significance of Brexit. Neither do we agree that the Truss fiasco was a short-lived little incident; its effects have been very long term on my constituents and on the country, and it has made this Budget a far harder one for the Chancellor to agree, but she has risen to the challenge. As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I look forward to looking at the changes in the aid and defence budgets, and I welcome the commitment in the Budget to return official development assistance to 0.7% of GNI in the future.

This Budget is good news for my constituents in Putney, Southfields, Roehampton and Wandsworth town. It has fair taxes that will mean investment in families, strong public services and a growing economy. There is an increase in the minimum wage and the state pension. Businesses will be supported with innovation. Small and medium-sized enterprises will be supported to provide free apprenticeships for under-25s. I have been looking into the impact of the transformation of the business rates system on my high street, and on high streets up and down the country. High streets will be protected through the introduction of permanently lower tax rates for retail, hospitality and leisure properties. That will benefit 3,790 properties in Wandsworth, which is very good news.

I welcome that we will be getting back £400 million from the dodgy covid contracts, and a cut to the cost of living with £150 off energy bills. I also welcome that £18 million will be spent on playgrounds, which are vital because they are places where so many children spend so much time. The increase in plastic packaging tax is good for the environment and for reducing our reliance on plastic, which is made from and uses fossil fuels. I also welcome that £29 million in fines taken from water companies will be spent on cleaning up rivers, lakes and seas—this is all really good news.

I note that the lower Thames crossing is being paid for, but my constituents will ask, “When will the reopening of Hammersmith bridge be paid for?” The bridge is a major London crossing that has been closed for six years. Across my constituency, we look forward to having more conversations about that with the Secretary of State for Transport and the Chancellor.

I will focus my remarks on welcoming the change to the two-child benefit cap. The change will lift 450,000 children out of severe hardship across the UK and will directly benefit 2,310 children in my own constituency. As the Chancellor said, the cost of leaving the cap in place is to the child, but it is also to the public services that they use and to our wider community, and there is a future cost to the economy. It has been eight long years since this cruel and unnecessary policy was brought in, and it has punished families and increased poverty ever since.

I have been on the child poverty taskforce for over a year, championing the work done by the Government to really drill down into what can make the most difference—and it is scrapping the two-child benefit cap. Children must be able to thrive no matter where they are born in the UK, and scrapping the cap will allow them to do so. The policy drove families into severe hardship, as I saw for myself in my constituency. Its removal is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity. It makes sense in every way.

The Trussell Trust’s latest figures have exposed the scale of the crisis. In Putney alone, 5,991 emergency food parcels were distributed between April last year and March this year. That is a 7% rise on the previous year, so there is real need to scrap the two-child cap. It will make a huge difference and will result in the largest expected reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since comparable records began in 1997. That kind of dramatic change in our country is the reason I became a politician—this is what I want to see.

The change will be welcomed not only by the families who are directly affected, but across our whole community. It will mean that more children have a better start in life and that wealth will be more fairly distributed in communities. So many measures in the Budget mean that wealth distribution is going in the right direction, which is what our country needs after 14 long years of austerity. We are now seeing an end to that, and families will see the change and the benefit.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is speaking about the measures that she supports in the Budget. I wonder about her views on the council tax surcharge. I had a quick look at the websites of estate agents in her constituency, and I can see that dozens—if not hundreds—of properties will be affected by the council tax surcharge. Does she support the measure and what is her message to her constituents who will have to pay that extra tax?

[Fleur Anderson]

It is estimated that about 4% of homes will be affected in my constituency. I have really looked into this matter, and the surcharge being added to their bills is a fair way of redistributing our tax. This surcharge applies to a very small number of people who are able to afford it. What do we get in return? A fairer society, better public services and the NHS, which people will be using. We get all those benefits in return for a minimal surcharge that will be fairly distributed. Doing this through council tax, instead of in the other ways that were talked about, is fairest.

Across the many changes in the Budget, we are looking for good things for our families, for businesses and for hard-working people. We are looking to make their lives better, bring down their bills and increase income. The increase in skills is such a necessary part of this Budget. This is a welcome Budget for Putney, for London, and for the country.

[Several hon. Members rose—]