Budget Resolutions

Kevin Bonavia Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

We can exchange quotes, but the hon. Gentleman might want to—[Interruption.] Let me respond. He can go and check the quotes of the most respected energy economist in the country, Sir Dieter Helm, who says that the Government’s plan is locking people into higher bills for longer. One of the fundamental problems we have in this country is that energy costs are too high, and the Secretary of State is locking people into those higher prices for longer. If the Government truly want to cut bills for everyone, they should use our cheap power plan.

Do you know what is extraordinary, Madam Deputy Speaker? The Government have come up with a package that costs the Exchequer more, cuts bills by less and does nothing to cut energy bills for struggling businesses. Food bills are up. Rents are up. The costs of holidays are up. Energy bills are up. That is cost after cost after cost because of the Government’s policies, and they want a round of applause for moving a fraction of those costs off energy bills and straight on to people’s tax bills. Only people with the Labour party’s grasp of numbers could think that that is a good deal. The Secretary of State says that there is an affordability crisis, but he does not explain the cause; the Government are the cause. That is before we even get to tax.

Taxes on student loans, taxes on income, taxes on saving, taxes on housing, taxes on driving, taxes on pensions, and even taxes on taxis—if Labour could, it would tax the air that we breathe. Taxes are rising more in this Parliament than in any since the 1970s. The freeze in income tax thresholds means that the average worker on £35,000 a year will lose £1,000 in tax by the end of the decade. That is an extra two weeks they will be working, not to feed their family but to pay for Labour’s benefits bill.

Let us be clear. When the Government say that they are asking for a contribution, they are not asking, are they? It is not like anyone can say no. I do not know whether there has ever been a more irritating formulation of words than that phrase, which we have heard so much over this weekend.

There will be so many people out there who will look at this Budget and think, “Why do I bother? Why do I get up at 5.30 am? Why do I work overtime? Why do I barely see my family? Why am I going to pay more tax for people on benefits who are not working those hours?”

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady says that people will pay for people on benefits, but some 60% of those people on benefits are working. Does she not agree that we are supporting people into work?

[Claire Coutinho]

Let me make this point to the hon. Gentleman. The average person on benefits in work is working 20 hours, sometimes less. Why should a family with kids who are not well off and are working 40, 50 or 60 hours a week be worse off than a family on benefits working far fewer hours?

I quit a job in the City to go to work for the Centre for Social Justice and work with people fighting poverty, and I have worked with struggling families in some way since I was 16. It is not compassionate to make welfare pay more than work. It is not a helping hand; it is a trap.

The Government should also talk to the many couples who have put off having children or stopped at one or two children because they cannot afford it. Younger brothers and sisters simply will not be born. Those missing children are a personal tragedy for every couple who are having to make that choice, but there will be more of those decisions, because the Government are loading more and more costs and taxes on to hard-working families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)]

This Budget shows that after years of decline, this Labour Government are building a stronger and more secure economy, one that works for working people in Stevenage and the villages across our constituency. We are beating the forecasts, with growth upgraded to 1.5% this year and wages rising faster in our first year than in the entire first decade under the Conservatives. But this is all for nothing if working people cannot see and feel positive changes in their day-to-day lives. That is why this Budget makes the fair and necessary choices to cut the cost of living, renew our public services and bring stability to the economy.

For families in Stevenage, the cost of living has been a real pressure, so I welcome the measures that will put money back into people’s pockets, with £150 off average energy bills, rising to £300 off for those who need it most, alongside freezing prescription charges and, for the first time in 30 years, freezing rail fares. That means that commuters travelling from Stevenage or Knebworth will not see the annual hike that they endured year after year under the previous Government. Take, for example, one of our fantastic young apprentices from Airbus who wrote to me before the Budget asking the Chancellor to consider a rail freeze to ensure that he could afford to do the job he loves.

When working people call, this Labour Government answer. We are cutting NHS waiting lists, with 250 new neighbourhood health centres and millions more appointments, and we are freezing prescription costs. For Stevenage, where the Lister hospital serves not just our town but the surrounding villages, this investment in our infrastructure and in our patients is vital. We are doing all that while reducing borrowing every year so that interest rates—already cut five times since the election—can keep falling, helping families with mortgages and businesses with investment.

Let’s deal with the nonsense we have heard from the Opposition Benches. We have been told that this is a Budget for “Benefits Street”, that Labour is hiking taxes to pay for welfare and that borrowing is spiralling out of control. Here are the actual facts: borrowing will fall every single year of this Parliament, moving to surplus by 2028. That is fiscal responsibility, not the chaos of unfunded tax cuts that crashed the economy under the last Conservative Government. Scrapping the two-child benefit limit is not a handout; it is an investment. A child growing up in poverty is less likely to work as an adult and earns 25% less by the age of 30. Lifting 450,000 children out of poverty is both morally right and economically smart.

On taxes, the biggest changes fall on those with the broadest shoulders: high-value property owners, landlords who pay less tax than their tenants and online giants who have dodged their fair share for too long. Compare that with the Conservatives, who now talk of £47 billion of spending cuts, hitting working people the hardest and still leaving public services crumbling—they have some cheek, after 14 years of doing just that. That figure would be the equivalent of firing every police officer twice over. Reform’s fantasy economics, with billions of cuts and no plan as to where they fall, would mean complete, unbridled chaos. That is why we need a sensible Labour Budget. That is what we have, and that is why I will support it tomorrow night.