I am sure we have all been there. Expectations heightened. Excitement building. Curiosity piqued. And then – to prove the maxim that expectation is often better than realisation – you feel deflated. left with a sense of ‘is that it?’
Now, while it is true I was nursing a heavy head cold, I really could barely keep awake during the recent Budget. I have seen more dynamism in a bowl of last week’s trifle. No vision. No ambition. No soaring heights. No prospect of a Promised Land of milk and honey. What did we get?
Some ‘breathing space’, two reviews and a route map to reform. The breathing space would be welcome were it not for thefact that it is the Government itself that has been depriving people and business of air, taxing and regulating the life out of anything that moves.
Just look at the figures. Since 2024, prices under Labour have risen 7.3%. Energy bills are up £367pa. Diesel is at its highest level ever. Taxes are up to a massive 38.5% of GDP – an additional £66bn of tax rises since 2024 (Rishi Sunak did warn us). Labour is taking a breathing space removing £238bn in additional taxes over those predicted at the start of 2024.
Now, I am a fair man. If there were tangible dividends to see then we might think the pain was worth the gain. But the key indicators are all moving – or have moved – in the wrong direction.
Unemployment up 276,000. Payroll now has 171,000 fewer jobs than July 2024. Close to a million young people not in work, education or training. Inflation, which hits all of us everyday and is therefore one of the most, if not the most pernicious economic burden, has been above target for 24 months in a row. Our national debt stands at £3trillion and the cost of servicing that debt continues to climb as the UK looks an ever-riskier investment bet. Let me be clear: I take no joy or satisfaction in setting these figures before you. They are devastatingly bad for every household and family in North Dorset. Playing around with the Triple Lock will hurt those who are retired. Failure to address student finance will hurt our young. Assistance for gas customers is to be welcomed, but there was nothing for the thousands who must use heating oil.
The Budget did not even hold out the hope of changes to funding rules that would see rural areas secure a fairer slice of funding. As it stands, rural policing, schools and local government secure less money per head of population than urban areas. That is demonstrably unfair, and that is before you factor in that the delivery of public services in rural areas costs more.
With regard to defence (defence of the realm being the first duty of Government), we were given a welcome headline figure of 3% of GDP by 2030, but absolutely no idea how it will be met. All of this is supposed to be announced in the Spending Review … I am quite sure Russia and anywhere else that wishes us ill will have the decency to hold off until then!
Kemi Badenoch is starting to tell the British people some home truths, and the public is understanding of the messages. We simply must start living within our means. The State needs a good autumn prune. The Government needs to get off the backs of wealth- and job- and tax-creating business. Government tries to do too much and, in consequence, seems to do little well. Welfare has become an entrapment of the spirit rather than a protective safety net. Put simply: too much money is spent on people who do not benefit from it.
It only further entwines them in a cat’s cradle of welfare from which there is no incentive to escape. We Tories are speaking up about this. Labour and the Budget? As silent as a Novice Trappist Monk.
Simon Hoare, MP for North Dorset
