Rishi Sunak MP: Budget Response Speech

Madam Deputy Speaker, on the day he took office, the Prime Minister said he wanted to restore trust to British politics “with actions, not words”.

Well today, his actions speak for themselves.

With a Budget that contains broken promise after broken promise. 

And reveals the simple truth that the Prime Minister and Chancellor have not been straight with the British people. 

During the election, time and again, we Conservatives warned that Labour would tax, borrow and spend far beyond what they were telling the country. 

And time and again, they denied they had any such plans. 

But today, the truth has come out.  

Proof that they planned to do this all along. 

Because today's Budget sees the fiscal rules fiddled. 

Borrowing increased by billions of pounds. 

Inflation busting handouts for the trade unions. 

Britain's poorest pensioners squeezed. 

Welfare spending out of control. 

And a spree of tax rises they promised the working people of this country they would not do.  

National Insurance. Up. 

Capital gains tax. Up. 

Inheritance tax. Up. 

Energy taxes. Up. 

Businesses rates. Up. 

First time buyer stamp duty. Up. 

Pensions tax. Up. 

They have fiddled the figures. 

They don't like it Madam Deputy Speaker. 

They don't like it but this is the truth.

They have fiddled the figures. They have raised tax to record levels. 

They have broken their promises. 

And it is the working people of this country who will pay the price. 

Now the Chancellor and Prime Minister have tried to say and tell you that they had no choice.  

But be in no doubt: their misleading claims about the state of the economy are nothing but a cynical political device.  

Today's situation is a world away from the genuinely bleak legacy we Conservatives inherited from the last Labour government.  

The Chancellor forgot to point out borrowing one pound in every four they spent.  

Debt rising every year.  

And unemployment at 8 per cent. 

Now, I understand the Chancellor's shameless political motivations;  why it suits her to cook up a false justification for her agenda.  

But today the OBR has in fact declined to back up her claims. A fictional 22 billion pound black hole. 

It actually appears nowhere Madam Deputy Speaker  

And it is deeply disappointing that she has politicised the independent OBR, that should be above party politics. 

But as she now knows, her playing politics has done real damage to our economy. 

She talked about being a Bank of England economist.

The Bank of England's former Chief Economist has said: 

Labour's approach has generated “fear and foreboding and uncertainty” amongst consumers, businesses and investors. 

The rhetoric of this Chancellor and this Prime Minister damaging the British economy for political purposes. 

Now, you only need to look at the facts to see that the Chancellor's claims about her economic inheritance are nonsense. 

Labour inherited an economy with inflation back at its 2% target, mortgage rates being cut and unemployment low. 

And Madam Deputy Speaker, when we left office: the United Kingdom was the fastest growing advanced economy in the world. 

And when it comes to the public finances, not once has the Chancellor acknowledged that we took the right decision to spend half a trillion pounds to protect the British people from the impact of Covid and Putin's war. 

And let me remind you - not only did the party opposite support all those interventions – they wanted us to go even further. 

When I had to take the tough choices to fix the public finances afterwards, the Prime Minister and Chancellor opportunistically opposed me every step of the way. 

So, I will take no lectures from those two about difficult decisions. 

But because of those decisions we made, the Chancellor inherited lower borrowing than France, the America, Italy and Japan.  

And the second lowest debt in the entire G7.  

So, any which way you look at it, Labour's claims about their inheritance are plainly ludicrous. 

These are her choices. 

So, stop blaming everyone else.  

And take responsibility for them. 

Now let me turn to the substance of those choices. 

During the election, the Chancellor repeatedly promised her plans were fully funded.

Only a few weeks ago the Prime Minister said the Budget would “balance the books”. 

But this Budget does no such thing and reveals that they have not been straight with the British people. 

A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister said the Budget would balance the books.  

But this Budget does no such thing and reveals that they haven't been straight with the British people because today, the Chancellor has launched an enormous borrowing spree, saddling our children and grandchildren with billions upon billions of pounds more debt, pushing up interest rates and leaving our economy more exposed to future shocks. 

And leading the OBR today to now forecast higher inflation in every of the forecast.  

And her decision to let borrowing rip make a total nonsense of her claims of the state of the public finances. 

If they truly were in such a dire state, as she has said, what we should have seen today is a significant reduction in borrowing to repair them, not the splurge that she has just unleashed. 

Madam Deputy Speaker, instead, what we see today is borrowing is higher in every year of the forecast. 

Debt is higher in every year of the forecast. 

Now she has tried to cover up that splurge by fiddling the fiscal rules. 

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the new measure will not actually even be a constraint on the amount she can borrow.  

And it is “hard to escape the suspicion”, they say, that the government is attracted to this change “by the fact that it would allow for significantly more borrowing…without any need for tough choices elsewhere”.  

“Fiscal fiddling”, they have called it. 

And the Chancellor herself agrees.  

Because she specifically told the British people she wouldn't change the debt target because – and I quote – she said, “I'm not going to…fiddle the figures…to get better results.” 

But that is exactly what she has done.  

She has gone back on her word and fiddled the figures so that she can borrow billions more. 

Broken promise after broken promise.  

And working people will pay the price. 

The reason the Chancellor has increased borrowing – and increased taxes – is because she has totally failed to grip public spending. 

First, she has no meaningful plan to deliver the £20 billion of savings available if the public sector returned simply to its pre-pandemic level of productivity. 

Instead, one of the first things the Chancellor did was to hand out inflation busting pay rises to the unions without getting any productivity enhancing reforms in return.  

The Chancellor also scrapped her predecessor's plan to get the civil service back to its pre-pandemic numbers.

She doesn't seem to think the civil service can be reduced by a single person.  

And the Chancellor has no plan to control welfare spending.  

Yet if we simply got working age welfare spending on people with a disability or health condition back to pre-Covid levels that would free up 30 billion pounds worth of savings. 

So, whether it is scrapping our plans to shrink the civil service or their failure to control welfare spending, this is not her inheritance, Madam Deputy Speaker, these are her choices. 

And the result?  

Higher spending, higher borrowing and higher taxes. 

It is broken promise after broken promise.  

And working people paying the price. 

Madam Deputy Speaker, when it comes to growth, let me remind you that the Prime Minister and Chancellor inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7.

That is testament to the last government boosting investment by introducing full expensing, increasing the labour supply by expanding childcare, reforming welfare and cutting tax on work,  

all decisions the OBR said would increase growth.  

Now the Chancellor has said that growing the economy is the Government's number one priority. 

The Prime Minister even said that higher growth would come “very quickly”.   

Well, to be fair, the Prime Minister and Chancellor have had a rapid impact on growth. 

As their plans for the economy became clear, survey after survey showed business confidence plummeting.  

And no wonder.  

The Government's own assessment says its French style labour laws will impose a 5 billion pound direct cost on business, disproportionately hitting smaller businesses. 

And as business group after business group has pointed out, that tax rises on jobs and enterprise in today's Budget will “hobble growth”.  

A “poll tax on business”, they've called it.  

But despite these record-breaking tax rises… 

…despite fiddling the figures… 

…despite letting borrowing soar… 

Today the OBR has forecast growth is going to be lower under this government, than it was forecast to be under the Conservatives. 

That is the change that they have brought. 

Madam Deputy Speaker, this is what happens when the Labour Party is led by people who have no experience of business and enterprise. 

Relentlessly talking down our economy. 

Delivering a tidal wave of anti-business regulations. 

Destroying our flexible labour market. 

And raising taxes to their highest level in our country's history.  

It is the classic Labour agenda: higher taxes, higher borrowing; no plan for growth.

And working people will pay the price. 

Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister specifically said there would be “no tax surprises” under Labour. 

The Chancellor went even further, saying she wanted to bring taxes down. 

Each time they made these promises, we warned they were not telling the truth.  

And today, the Chancellor and Prime Minister have done what they were always planning to do, but chose to keep hidden from the British people. 

Far from reducing taxes, as a result of today's Budget, never in the history of our country will taxes be higher than they are under this Labour government. 

Now they specifically promised that they wouldn't raise tax on working people.  

The Chancellor said: “Labour will not put up…income tax, national insurance or VAT.” 

Just this month, the Prime Minister gave – and I quote – “an absolute commitment…to not raising tax on working people”. 

So, what does today's Budget do?  

It raises tax on working people by increasing National Insurance – and breaking Labour's promise. 

As the independent Institute of Fiscal Studies have said, this is a straightforward breach of their manifesto. 

Because as the OBR has made clear, this tax rise is “passed through entirely” to working people. 

Even since she started speaking, the IFS have already confirmed that the vast majority of this tax increase will hit working people through lower pay. 

But you don't need to take it from the IFS or the OBR, you can take it from the Chancellor herself.  

She has previously described her tax rise as a “jobs tax” which “takes money out of people's pockets”. 

Not only that, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Chancellor also said the problem with National Insurance “is that it is a tax purely on people who go to work and those who employ them”.  

Far from protecting working people, she is literally raising the only major tax that exclusively hits working people. 

But it doesn't stop there. 

Businesses on the British high street. Your taxes are going up. 

Businesses investing in British energy. Your taxes are going up. 

The small business owner looking to reap the rewards of years spent growing a business and creating jobs. Your taxes are going up. 

The young couple saving to buy their first home. Your taxes are going up.  

To the family wanting to pass on their farm or business to their children. Your taxes are going up. 

The parents sacrificing to give their kids the best start in life. Your taxes are going up.   

They're taxing your job. 

They're taxing your business. 

They're taxing your home. 

They're taxing your savings. 

I said during the election campaign: you name it, they'll tax it.  

And that is exactly what they have done. 

Broken promise after broken promise.  

And working people will pay the price. 

So Madam Deputy Speaker, for the final time from this dispatch box, let me deliver some basic truths. 

Government can foster growth, but it can't magically conjure it up.  

We need businesses, workers, investors and entrepreneurs to all back this country and build our economy. 

It doesn't matter whether your income comes in a pay packet, from investments, in dividends or profits.  

It is a poor politics that is so focused on what people receive, that it fails to see what matters is what people put in.  

The only way to grow and create wealth is for people to put in more.  

So when you create a negative environment for business, when you undermine confidence in our country, when you vilify and penalise people for doing exactly what we need them to do,  which is to invest, take risks and work hard,  you don't create growth, you hold back growth.  

And more than that, the promise of growth tomorrow does not pay the bills today.  

This is not the first government to peddle the “borrow to grow” myth.  

But time and again we have seen the same ending: not higher growth, but higher debt and higher taxes. 

But Madam Deputy Speaker, whatever you think about the economic arguments around today's Budget, there is a more fundamental point that I want to conclude with. 

The Prime Minister has talked relentlessly about trust. 

Yet today's Budget reveals, above all, that the Labour Party did not tell the truth. 

They said they wouldn't fiddle the figures, they have.  

They said they wouldn't increase borrowing, they have. 

They said they wouldn't raise taxes on working people, they have.  

Broken promise after broken promise. 

And it is the working people of this country who will pay the price.