Budget Resolutions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Stepney) (Lab)]

This Labour Government are rebuilding our economy, rebuilding our public services and addressing the cost of living pressures that our constituents face. This Budget will make a huge difference to my constituents’ lives, thanks to the cuts to energy bills, the freeze on rail fares, increases in the living wage and action to tackle child poverty. Inflation is coming down, and forecast interest rates are also coming down. Growth is forecast to rise this year, and business investment is forecast to rise over the course of this Parliament.

We inherited a dire situation, with public services on their knees, chronic under-investment and a fiscal black hole. For 14 years, Tory Governments presided over austerity, stagnant wages, the chaos of leaving the European Union, and the Liz Truss mini-Budget fiasco that sent markets into a panic, mortgage rates soaring, and inflation rates to over 11%. The cost of leaving the EU is now estimated to be far more than previous estimates: a recent report by Stanford University found that Brexit is reducing the UK’s GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. That report also found that investment has reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment has reduced by 3% to 4%, and productivity has also reduced by 3% to 4%.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way at such an early stage in her excellent speech. She has talked about the impact of austerity on the country’s finances; I would add that austerity has had a huge impact on productivity, particularly in my constituency, where we have seen 13-hour waits in A&E and year-long waits for appointments. Does my hon. Friend agree that that means people cannot go back to work, which affects their productivity?

[Rushanara Ali]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. That is why it is vital that we rebuild our public services and invest in our national health service, to ensure people are able to contribute to our economy.

We also inherited a mountain of debt, with the previous Conservative Government having borrowed £1.5 trillion between 2010 and 2024. The fact is that austerity, Brexit, covid and Tory economic mismanagement have left our economy in peril, and our constituents are suffering the consequences in the form of rising prices and flatlining wages. For the poorest and most disadvantaged, the cost of living crisis has been a daily struggle for years. The Trussell Trust distributed approximately 60,000 food parcels in the 2010-11 financial year. By 2024-25, the number had risen to 2.89 million. This is the poisoned inheritance that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is tackling, so of course she had to make tough choices with the hand that she had been dealt.

The decisions made in this Labour Government’s second Budget to lift 450,000 children out of poverty, help families with the cost of living and enable record investment to be made in our NHS will help a great many children. In my constituency, the scrapping of the two-child cap will lift more than 6,000 children out of poverty.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali]

I am going to make progress, as many colleagues want to speak.

The minimum wage and the living wage are being increased to support the lowest paid. The 250 new neighbourhood health centres, which are part of the shift towards the prevention of ill health, will help to tackle stark health inequalities.

More widely, in less than 18 months this Labour Government have secured three landmark trade deals, with £150 billion of inward investment from US companies, which is a solid vote of confidence in Labour’s economic plans; investment in the jobs of the future, in AI and green technologies; and clean energy projects set to create 400,000 jobs by 2030. That is thanks to the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, who has led the way on this agenda, in the last Labour Government as well as this one. We should be proud of the five cuts in interest rates since Labour came to power, and for the first six months of the year the UK was the fastest-growing economy in the G7.

As has been pointed out, wages have been growing faster than inflation. Real wages rose by more in the first 10 months of this Government than in 10 years under the last Conservative Government. I am especially proud that 3.5 million workers are receiving a pay rise worth £1,400 this year because we have boosted the national minimum wage. We are investing in the health of the nation, with 5 million extra NHS appointments—double what was promised. We are investing in housing, with a record £39 billion for the social and affordable homes programme, and we are investing in young lives, with free breakfast clubs in primary schools as well as 30 hours of free childcare.

This Budget is delivered in tough times, after years of under-investment, low productivity and stagnant wages. The decisions that have been made will deliver on our manifesto pledges, ensuring a stable economic platform, investment in our economy and a fairer society. For many children, this Labour Budget will deliver the opportunities that are desperately needed instead of obstacles, and the chance of a better life.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.