Budget Resolutions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I will impose an immediate five-minute time limit after I call Sam Carling, who has a six-minute time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on keeping one of their manifesto commitments, because their manifesto said, “Change”—it is just that no one realised that would be all that was left in the British public’s pocket when it came to it. I would like to give a second congratulations to the Chancellor, because I gather that she has won an award: best Dubai estate agent for 2025. We know that 250,000 people have now emigrated from Britain because of the impacts of her Budget. I expect she is now going for the next award in 2026.

More importantly, this seems to be a Labour Government who are caught between trying to do things on purpose or by mistake. At the last Budget, they were up front that they were going to tax education for the first time. They did not realise that what they were actually going to do was put up taxes on hospices, pharmacies and GPs—that was all missed. Now a new Budget has come forward, and I call it the “ball of wool Budget”. Why? Because for the first time in history we have had this ball of wool unravel time and again, for weeks upon weeks, until it was finally spun into a yarn that we were supposed to believe, but the British public have seen right through it. It is unparliamentary to use the term “liars”, but I think I can use “Pinocchio”, and I think the Prime Minister and the Chancellor may well fall into that category.

Rest assured, people in Leicestershire and up and down the country see right through this Labour Government. They see what this Budget was all about: trying to placate the Back Benches, and how? It is through £40 billion of tax rises in the first Budget and £26 billion of tax rises in this one. Don’t just take my word for it, because even if, before the last Budget, we believed in the fictional black hole, which was then disproved by the OBR, the Chancellor went on Sky News after that Budget and said:

“We’ve now wiped the slate clean… It’s now on us…we’ve set the spending envelope on the course for this Parliament, we don’t need to come back for more. We’ve done that now”.

She went on:

“there’s no need to come back with another Budget like this, we will never need to do that again.”

Yet here we are with £26 billion more tax on the British public, yet we still have weak growth, high inflation and no living within our means.

The Chancellor has even broken her own manifesto commitment, which she has admitted, because in the 2024 Budget she said from the Dispatch Box:

“I have come to the conclusion that extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people. It would take more money out of their payslips. I am keeping every single promise on tax that I made in our manifesto, so there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax and national insurance thresholds beyond the decisions made by the previous Government.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2024; Vol. 755, c. 821.]

Yet, one year on, she said from the Dispatch Box last week:

“I am asking everyone to make a contribution.”—[Official Report, 26 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 393.]

I need to tell the Chancellor that being asked for a contribution is not the same as being told, which is what this Government are doing. What would happen if someone tried to refuse, saying, “No, I’ve paid my fair share”? My constituents say, “I’ve done enough,” but they cannot just say no. They will get a fine or, worse, a criminal record and go to jail. So let us deal with the semantics and say what it is: a naked choice to increase tax on the British public.

In the run-up to the election, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) was prophetic in what he said. We were not listened to, and I understand all the reasons why. He said, “A Labour Government will tax your holiday, your house, your GP, your pharmacy, your flights, your car, your pension, your savings”—have I missed anything? They have taxed charities, and even milkshakes—tax, tax, tax. The public have seen what a Labour Government have done. They were told about it, and they have seen it twice in a Budget. When it comes to the next one, I hope they will remember that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

The hon. Gentleman may have meant to evade the rules with his reference to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, but he did not. I advise him to withdraw those comments.

[Dr Evans]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. Whether it was the reference to either being a liar or Pinocchio, I withdraw them both.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

There will be an immediate four-minute time limit after the next speaker.