Budget Resolutions

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this Budget debate. I am reminded that in 2005, whenever Tony Blair was seeking re-election for an historic third term as Prime Minister, he celebrated the fact that this country had enjoyed 40 quartiles of economic growth. If anyone cares to think about that, they have to realise that that economic growth commenced two years before he commenced as Prime Minister. I say that because often in this Chamber all we get from our Government is complaints about what the Opposition could or should have done when they were in government, and an Opposition who chide the Government for some of the choices and pressure that they face. However, there are those of us in the Chamber—and, more importantly, in the country—who can look clearly at some of the economic challenges and missed opportunities.

It has been right in this debate that we have heard that a Government who promised not to raise tax on working people raised £40 billion in last year’s Budget. It is right to reflect that this year, having said that that was a one-off, £26 billion will be raised from this Budget. It is right to reflect on the pressure that that is putting on ordinary people up and down this country. It is right to reflect on the numbers who did not pay tax and who will pay tax—5 million additional taxpayers over the course of five years—and on middle earners in this country, 5 million more of whom will pay a higher rate of tax over those five years. Those are choices that the Government brought forth and that people in this country will have to pay for. This debate on the cost of living should lead to the same questions around threshold freezing or two-child limits.

[Jim Shannon]

In Northern Ireland we have 440,000 children, and 103,000 of them are in poverty. By abolishing the two-child cap, this Government have ensured that those 103,000 children will be lifted out of poverty. The potential is there to do that. Does my right hon. Friend agree that abolishing the two-child cap takes those children out of poverty and makes their lives better?

[Gavin Robinson]

As my hon. Friend knows, we have campaigned on the removal of the two-child limit. We did not agree with the limit; we do not think it is right, and we think it is immoral for families to be placed in that position. We opposed it when it was introduced, and we oppose it today.

When considering the cost of living, let us reflect on the fact that within two years—by 2027—the state pension will be taxed because of frozen thresholds? It will be taxed in 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030 and 2031 because of choices by this Government. We recognise that pensioners should be entitled to and need pension credit to supplement that, but if their sole income is the state pension, it will be taxed, unlike pension credit. That cannot be right, but it is what has been delivered through the freezing of thresholds.

I am happy to engage with the Northern Ireland Office—I am pleased to see the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland here—about some of the challenges that we face in Northern Ireland. I recognise the additional £370 million through Barnett consequentials, although that is not one year’s addition; it covers a period of years with but £2 million in one of those years. The Secretary of State knows that the challenge this year for our Executive is £400 million—that is the current pressure. What is the one thing missing from the Red Book’s section on Northern Ireland? It is any challenge to the Executive; it is any mention of the fiscal framework and those negotiations that need to take place.

I lament the fact that there was praise for our Minister for Finance in Northern Ireland last week, when he talked about the need for revenue raising in our Province but then went on to rule out every significant aspect of revenue raising. Politically, they are not in that space, yet we have to share power with them. That is wrong. I lament the fact that we have partners in government who say, “We need more fiscal devolution; we need more powers in Northern Ireland”, yet they have manifestly failed to use the powers at their disposal. That cannot continue, and I say that there is a role for national Government in those negotiations.

We welcome that there is a potential £150 of support for energy bills in households across this United Kingdom, but there is no detail in the Red Book—my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked the Secretary of State about that earlier, but he was unable to answer. This measure is coming in in April 2026, yet all we have is a notional offer from the Government to support the Executive in creating a system. Can we have confirmation as to whether annually managed expenditure will be made available to ensure that every household in Northern Ireland will be entitled to £150 on the same basis as in England and Wales? Will that extend to oil boilers? We heard about £130 for gas boilers, but 70% of homes in Northern Ireland are fuelled by crude oil.

I hope the Government will respond to those challenges today, because I do not want to be sitting in four or five months’ time with constituents in Northern Ireland saying, “What of that offer of £150?”, only to find that the support has not been there through AME or through central Government negotiations.

On pensions, I welcome the decision taken to provide an index-linked rise to pensions from 1997, but the Deprived Pensioners Association has highlighted that it is only prospective, not retrospective. It has asked for retrospective index-linked pensions and arrears, because far too many pensioners from 1997 and onwards have had their economic wellbeing curtailed in this cost of living crisis, because of the Government’s failure to introduce this change. It must be retrospective, and I would look forward to that coming about.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Heidi Alexander)]

It is a privilege to respond to today’s debate on the Budget. We have heard some excellent contributions from many colleagues, particularly those on this side of the House, and I hope my hon. Friends will forgive me if I do not mention them all by name. I will respond in writing to the specific questions put to me by my hon. Friends the Members for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury).

We have also had some thoughtful and measured contributions from Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) and the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson). It is a shame that some of the other contributions from those on the Opposition Benches can best be described as heavy on indignation and light on contrition. You would have thought that the right hon. Members for Salisbury (John Glen) and for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), as well as the shadow Transport Secretary, had no responsibility whatsoever for the economic inheritance that the last Government passed on to this one. We all know that the last Parliament saw living standards fall, and it is not a record to be proud of.

This Government were elected on a promise of change, which was the demand of a weary public. People were fed up with rising bills and falling real wages, fed up with schools and hospitals that had been cut to the bone, and fed up with trains and buses that they could not rely on. The economy—indeed, the country—felt broken in the very places that mattered most. In this Budget, I am proud that we are answering the public’s call for change, and making the fair and necessary choices to repair our public finances and deliver on the nation’s priorities.

We are cutting the cost of living through cheaper energy bills, frozen prescription charges and frozen rail fares. We are putting record investment into our NHS, bringing waiting lists down and creating 250 new neighbourhood health centres. We are righting a moral wrong by lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, not just through school breakfast clubs and by lifting the minimum wage, but by scrapping the two-child universal credit cap. And we are doing all this while meeting our fiscal rules. After years of decline, this is what rebuilding our country looks like.

[Gavin Robinson]

I understand that the Government want to accelerate their plans to remove the two-child limit as soon as possible, and it may be too soon to get a legislative consent motion passed by the Northern Ireland Assembly. May I ask the Secretary of State to undertake to engage with the Social Security Minister? If there is political willingness at Stormont for this to proceed quickly, perhaps she could do it on our behalf.

[Heidi Alexander]

I will certainly undertake to have those conversations with colleagues.