Budget Resolutions

Noah Law Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Member care to remind us how much the NHS strikes cost under his Government’s watch?

[Stuart Andrew]

Well, we did not spend tens of billions of pounds in pay rises just for the same old problem to come back. There should have been proper reform, and conditions for those pay rises, but the Government did not make that happen, and here we are again.

The NHS Confederation has also warned that local services cannot continue to absorb the costs of ongoing strikes by the BMA without consequences for patient care. I pay tribute to frontline staff, who have been trying to keep everything going. I remind the Secretary of State that we have the answer: ban doctors from striking, like the Army and the police, and introduce minimum service levels, using the legislation that our Government passed. That would protect patients and taxpayers, so why won’t he do it? Labour’s Employment Rights Bill will make things much worse, because it reduces the vote threshold for calling a strike, and there will be no minimal service levels.

In addition, the Government have shown that they cannot stand up to the unions. By pushing up inflation, the Budget will make it harder to reach pay settlements across the rest of the NHS workforce. Even an additional rise in NHS pay of just 1% of what the Secretary of State included in his pay review body evidence would create another £1.5 billion hole in his budget. Is he confident that he can head off wider industrial action with a 2.5% offer, especially given that benefits are rising much faster under this Government?

The OBR has also raised the unknown risk of increasing drug prices. My understanding is that the spending review assumed that spending on branded medicines would rise by 25%—or £3.3 billion—between 2025-26 and 2028-29. In winding up, will the Minister clarify what happens when the negotiated price costs more than what was assumed in the spending review? The rest of the money is surely intended to be used to deliver more care and to cut waiting lists, so are frontline services at risk?

--- Later in debate ---

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

On the subject of today’s debate—investment and renewal—may I express my delight at the establishment of a local, publicly owned investment fund for Cornwall? It is only by investing in the SMEs and supply chains that underlie our most promising industries that we will ensure that the benefits of growth are spread throughout our communities.

After a longer period of frenetic fiscal debate than I can remember, I would say that we have landed on the consensus that investment is needed to turn our country around and that, where revenue needs to be raised, it must be done in a way that is beyond a shadow of a doubt progressive and does not impact substantially on the finances of working people. I thank the Chancellor not just for going the extra mile for Cornwall, but for ensuring that we are putting more pounds in the pockets of working people and allowing them to get on with their lives by cutting their energy bills, freezing prescriptions and the cost of rail travel, and—as I have argued for many times in this place—protecting pensioners on low incomes from the effects of fiscal drag.

I welcome the fact that some of my calls for farmers, and the calls of rural colleagues, have been heard, although we all know that we must go further to match the intended spirit of the reforms and that those businesses that just happen to be based on agricultural land should pay their taxes like everyone else. We also need to ensure that we put family farms on the best footing possible to invest in the future of our food production.

Some of the best return on investment we can get comes from investing in our NHS, as we heard so eloquently from the Secretary of State at the start of the debate. In fact, investing in our NHS can sometimes yield gross value added returns of over £10 on every pound spent. The same is true of investment in early childhood education. I very much welcome the prioritisation of those things in the Budget.

In August, I set canny young economists the research challenge of squaring the very tricky circle of a tax policy that is efficient, pro-growth and progressive. Delivering on each of those is no mean feat at a time of global instability and during this most prolonged period of weak growth, gifted by the last Government. I commend the Chancellor on her management of those trade-offs and for delivering a Budget that will allow the UK to grow faster than its peers, and one that is truly a Labour Budget.