A fair budget that cuts the cost of living
- Bristol South
- Nov 26
- 2 min read
Today, Rachel Reeves delivered a budget that cuts the cost of living for ordinary families, continues to cut waiting lists in our NHS and gets our national debt under control.
The average family will save £150 per year on their energy bills thanks to cutting failed Tory insulation schemes, £40 on fuel by forcing petrol forecourts to share real time prices and extending the 5p cut to fuel duty, as well as keeping prescription charges frozen under £10, extending the bus fare cap, freezing regulated rail fares, increasing the National Living Wage to £12.71 per hour from April and keeping Labour’s commitment to the triple lock, with the state pension set to rise by 4.8% next year.
Under Labour, there have been 5 interest rate cuts, and this budget will help to reduce inflation even further, taking pressure off working people and their bills all while wages have risen more since Labour were elected than under 14 years under the Tories.
I am also delighted that the Chancellor announced that she will make training for apprenticeships for under-25s free for small and medium sized businesses. Too few young people in Bristol South get the opportunities they deserve, and this Labour Government is not standing by. I have held a Jobs and Apprenticeships Fair in Hengrove for the last 9 years and it is fantastic to see a Labour Chancellor backing young people in places like Bristol South.
As the Chancellor said in her speech, child poverty brings with it a terrible cost and no policy in this country has driven this more than the Tories cruel two-child benefit cap. This policy pushed children into poverty and was a failure on its own terms; it didn’t change the size of families and didn’t reduce the amount we spend on welfare. In fact, welfare spending increased by £88 billion under their disastrous mismanagement. The cap punished children through no fault of their own, stunting their life chances in pursuit of a cynical Tory gimmick. The Chancellor has rightly announced its abolition from April next year, lifting 450,000 children out of poverty in the process.
This is a budget that asks those with the broadest shoulders to contribute the most, making our system more fair so that people are not paying more tax on work than on wealth, taxing high-harm industries like online betting, and supporting the high street by giving 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses a cut in their business rates funded by charging giant warehouses, like those operated by Amazon, more. We will also stop online retailers undercutting our high street by scrapping a tax loophole for foreign e-commerce platforms and have already clawed back £400 million from dodgy Tory contracts during Covid.
The Chancellor has delivered a budget with fairness at its heart, and which puts the needs of ordinary people front and centre by bringing the cost of living down and committing to the investment in the public services that we rely on every day. Cutting child poverty, backing young people with more opportunities, funding neighbourhood health centres across our country – these are Labour choices, fair choices that will put our economy on a secure footing.
