Budget Resolutions

Max Wilkinson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Just this weekend, The Telegraph reported a secret plot to reverse Brexit by taking this country into a customs union with the EU. Sign me up for that, because we would generate plenty of investment and renewal if we did. If only that were the case. As everyone on the Government Benches and in this House knows, there is an alternative to some of the pain in the Budget. The Labour party knows that it does not really need to hike taxes on hard-pressed households or batter businesses. There is a better way.

Depending on which economist we ask, the impact of Brexit has been a hit to GDP of as low as 4% or as high as 8%. What is the Government’s answer? A deal with Europe amounting to a boost to GDP of about 0.3% and a trade deal with India amounting to about 0.13%. Let us not forget the deal with Trump’s America that might be worth something or not very much at all, yesterday, today or tomorrow, depending on how well the President’s Happy Meal is going down.

Those piddling trade deals are used as evidence for not pursuing closer integration with the economic bloc that covers 41% of our exports and 51% of our imports. Such freedoms we have gained: the freedom for Britain to punch itself in the mouth for ever while Reform and the Conservatives tell us that the pain we feel is the sweet taste of freedom champagne and liberty oysters. At least the Government now acknowledge that there is a problem, but the delusion continues while they argue that anything other than the obvious is the solution.

What is the result of that delusion? British businesses are mired in post-Brexit regulation. The cost of living is up, the size of the state has ballooned, much to the annoyance of the Conservatives who told us it would get smaller, tax is at record levels and our economy is more vulnerable to international shocks. We are all poorer, apart from the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who is not here but whose profitable grift continues.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. May I just point out that the hon. Member might like to withdraw the choice of word he used to describe the actions of the hon. Member for Clacton?

[Max Wilkinson]

He is making a lot of money on social media, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am happy to clarify that.

To compound the problem, we have the sort of Budgets that this Government are giving the nation. Last year, they decided to make it more expensive for businesses to employ people. The Government also tell us that their No. 1 priority is growth but persist with needless and harmful trade barriers and increase the cost of employing people. That is at best absurd and at worst a dereliction of duty.

A short time ago, deep into the weeks of endless leaks and speculation, I met concerned local businesses. They wanted the Government to do something to ease the tax burden, to tread carefully when raising minimum wages—they did not say they were against them, though—and to make it easier for their businesses to grow. The opposite has happened. Despite the spin applied last week, here is the feedback. Edward Anderson, who runs three pubs in Cheltenham, tells me his combined business rates for the three premises will increase by £27,000 a year from April. Andrew Coates tells me that the rates across his three premises will rise by £34,500, on top of the impact of the minimum wage rises costing him £25,000. Why?

On occasion, those of us who ask the Government difficult questions about sensitive and divisive matters are shouted down and told we are ignoring the problem. On this matter, it is the Government who are ignoring the problem, and Ministers know it. Without properly dealing with the consequences of Brexit by striking a new trade deal with Europe—a customs union leading to single market access and stronger realignment in future—this country will continue in the slow lane. If this Government continue to be wilfully ignorant of the impact of their actions on the private sector, this country will continue in the slow lane. If the No. 1 priority for this Government truly were prosperity, they would unleash the opportunity of a trade deal with Europe and make it easier to do business here.