Just recently, the finance minister, Rachel Reeves, presented a Labour Party budget. People have been asking for Labour’s purpose and principles to be more distinctly expressed. By way of the decisions made – a shift to a fairer tax system, targeting wealth to pay for addressing child poverty, quality public services and the cost of living – we have clearly demonstrated what we stand for.
That’s why Labour MPs cheered in the Commons, and it’s why we are up for the fights to come. And it’s why the cries from the right began right away.
The primary division in British politics is yet again on the economy. On the one side Labour, who want to reform it so it helps everyday working people, and on the opposite side, our opponents, who support the current system and the failed doctrine of the past. We must now take on, and prevail in, the debate.
The Tories were given 14 years to fix things and instead, by every standard, they got much worse. Their ideological austerity and trickle-down economics – tax breaks for the wealthy, reducing investment (leaving us with poor productivity and wages), and failing to support young people after the pandemic – didn’t work.
Quality of life dropped by the biggest amount since records began, child poverty reached record levels, NHS waiting lists in England were the highest on record, wages remained flat, a housing crisis took hold, young people affected by Covid were abandoned. The record of failure continues.
A single budget alone can’t fix everything, so Labour has a long-term plan for rebuilding and for restructuring the country. And we have to go out and keep making the argument for why our approach will yield benefits.
During the Tories, welfare spending significantly increased. As did child poverty, because they failed to tackle the root causes: low pay, high housing costs, deep inequalities in education, health and regions. The state is forced to paying more to manage the effects instead of the cure.
That’s why we are constructing more social housing than for a generation, raising wages and new rights for workers, massively boosting investment in infrastructure and new industries, getting waiting lists down and bringing down the costs of childcare and energy as we pursue clean power.
This is also the reason we are completely justified to use this budget to remove the two-child benefit cap.
For eight long years, since it was enacted, poorer families with children have endured from a cruel social experiment that was marketed as fair for working people when it was the opposite. Most of the families affected by it have a parent in work.
It’s done nothing but push 300,000 more children into poverty – which, ultimately, costs us more, as well as being callous and unethical.
From experience from my own constituency – where over 5,000 children will be raised out of poverty as a result of abolishing the cap – the actual impact it’s had. Children wearing low-cost wellies as school shoes, children going to bed hungry and cold, living in cramped, mouldy homes, parents this Christmas relying on food banks for a simple meal or small gift for their kids.
I also see the impact on schools, teachers, social workers, doctors and charities who are already stretched but have to divert time and resources to supporting children who are living with the results of severe deprivation.
Just one in four pupils from the poorest families achieve five good GCSEs, compared with nearly three in four among affluent families. This predisposes them for the challenges they face during their lives: missed potential, financial struggles and poor health. Children who were raised in poverty are more likely to be jobless or poor as adults.
Confronting child poverty isn’t just a ethical duty, it is a future-oriented strategy. Poverty costs the economy significantly more than the three billion pound cost of lifting the two-child cap, or expanding free school meals.
This is the reason we acted promptly in the budget, despite the very difficult economic context. Every day with this cap in place sees over a hundred additional children pushed into poverty. The effects of lifting it will not occur overnight either, so acting early in the parliament was crucial.
The cap was a symbol to 14 years of failed conservative ideology. Now it is gone.
We, as Labour, can also be clear that these initiatives are being funded in a fair way – from a new gambling levy, closing tax loopholes and a new “mansion tax”.
Fairness and purpose – that’s how we will win the battle of ideas. This budget is a definitive statement that we gained the election as Labour, and will govern as Labour. As I repeatedly said during my campaign to become deputy leader, we must reclaim the political platform and set the agenda more forcefully about what’s really wrong with the country and how we are repairing it. We’ve certainly done that this week.
So let’s keep hold of it and win this fight about how we will renew Britain and address the entrenched inequalities impeding progress.
Elara is a seasoned gaming journalist with a passion for slot mechanics and player strategies.
