The Budget
John Healey’s first Budget as Chancellor is all about building on the economic stability that Labour has brought and giving people struggling with the cost of living – because of the conflict in the Gulf – a bit of breathing space. Here’s a list of the main measures:
- A £100 Household Energy Payment for eligible Band A–D households in England, paid directly into bank accounts in January – in Leeds South that’s around 58,200 properties.
- The temporary 0% VAT rate on electricity will be extended until 30 June 2027, reducing the April 2027 Ofgem price cap by around £50.
- Fuel duty rates will be frozen, and the 5p cut extended to 1 July 2027.
- Making permanent more generous mileage rates for both employees and self-employed people using their own vehicles for work.
- Ofgem will work to abolish gas standing charges, which average around £108 a year per household, during 2027 or as soon as possible thereafter – saving an estimated 60% of households £45 a year.
- A £1bn business rates package means that all retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England will see their business rates either frozen in real terms, reduced, or cut to zero.
- An extra 20% business rates cut for pubs and all but the largest live music venues, bringing the average tax cut to over £3,000.
- Around 70,000 additional high street businesses taken out of business rates altogether, and over half of all retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses will not pay business rates at all.
- Eligible industrial businesses will get around 25% off electricity bills, covering more than 10,000 businesses from April 2027.
- In Leeds South, 11 schools have got funding for a breakfast club. This includes: Victoria Primary Academy, Windmill Primary School, Lift Cottingley, New Bewerley Community School, Richmond Hill Academy, Elements Primary School, Co-op Academy Brierley, Co-op Academy Brownhill, Greenmount Primary School, All Saint’s Richmond Hill Church of England Primary School.
- £15 million will support the Leeds College of Building campus, so expanding training capacity and helping tackle construction skills shortages.
- An additional £200m for improvements to Leeds station, including more gates, more entrances and a new central overbridge.
- Banks will pay an extra 3% surcharge on profits, and there will also be tax rises on landlords and gambling.
- Minimum wage rates will rise by 3.9% in April.
- The State Pension will rise by 3.9% in line with average wage increases.
This Budget puts money back into the pockets of families, cutting costs for motorists, backing the shops, pubs and businesses at the heart of our communities, helping British businesses and entrepreneurs, putting power in the hands of local communities, and investing in the technologies and national security that will shape our future. And we can make those choices because everything we do is built on fiscal discipline. These are Labour decisions: backing families and businesses today while building a stronger Britain for tomorrow.
The Middle East
In a landmark statement by the Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband described the situation in Palestine as a moral emergency. What the Israeli government has inflicted on the people of Gaza is a stain on the conscience of the world and this Labour Government will not stand by. We are going to be stronger in standing up for what is right, and bolder in the action we take. The two-state solution – freedom, security and self-determination for both Palestinian and Israeli people – is the ultimate aim of the government’s policy, yet it is under great threat, with increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed. And we are witnessing unprecedented violence, including settler terrorism, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank perpetrated by settler terrorists. The unbearable suffering that we have seen in Gaza in recent years is completely unacceptable with innocent Palestinians, including children, continuing to be killed. There’s also still a humanitarian crisis with too little aid getting in.
Alongside international partners, including France, Labour is: declaring that Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful, in line with the finding of the International Court of Justice; banning trade in goods from illegal Israeli settlements and taking action on services, creating new designation powers to go after individuals and companies that support, facilitate or profit from illegal settlement activity; banning advertising or promotion of land and property in illegal settlements; strengthening our existing global human rights sanctions regime to go after those who defy international humanitarian law, in Palestine, and around the world too; and sanctioning several extremist settlers who have supported or incited acts of violence against Palestinian communities.
We are also reimposing major economic sanctions on Iran and bearing down on its network of proxy groups including Hezbollah. Hamas committed a monstrous attack on 7 October 2023, and this Labour Government condemns that as strongly today as we did in the immediate aftermath. The only route to security for both peoples is a safe and secure Israel and a safe and secure Palestine living side by side in peaceful co-existence. That is why we are taking action – standing up for our values and for what is right.
Social Care
Older people are being let down, families are paying eyewatering sums and if we don’t fix our broken social care system, it will ultimately break the NHS. As part of our New Deal for Older People, the Prime Minister is promising to establish a National Care Service as soon as possible in the next Parliament, providing free personal care for older people. It will be founded on the same principles as the NHS, where everyone contributes and everyone is covered. This will be funded in part by adjusting the pensions triple lock from April 2030. We will honour our manifesto commitment and keep the pensions triple lock unchanged throughout this Parliament and will guarantee the State Pension will rise every year by either inflation or 2.5%, whichever is higher. It will also rise by more than this if needed in some years to ensure it tracks wages over time and holds its value relative to earnings. This will ensure pensioners are protected.
Baroness Louise Casey’s review will advise us on exactly how and when we bring in the National Care Service. After all, the NHS wasn’t built overnight. The Prime Minister has made clear he is going to face this challenge head on and not let the same old politics stand in the way of fixing social care.
The Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill
Too many innocent leaseholders and homeowners in Leeds have spent years trapped in unsafe homes and facing costs they should never have had to bear. As I know from my casework, the legacy of the building safety crisis has left residents living with uncertainty while remediation has progressed far too slowly. Through this Bill, this Labour Government is acting to tackle delay and extend support to leaseholders that are trapped in homes, facing eye-watering bills to fix building safety defects they did not cause. For the first time, those responsible for unsafe residential buildings will face a clear legal duty to identify and remediate unsafe cladding. Alongside the Bill, the Government is expanding protections for leaseholders, supporting residents in collectively owned buildings and ensuring manufacturers contribute towards the costs of putting defects right. These measures build on the Government’s wider Remediation Acceleration Plan, which is already helping thousands more residents live in safer homes.
Jackdaw Gas Field
The decision to give the go-ahead to the development of the Jackdaw natural gas field does not change our climate ambitions. Clean energy investment is increasing, and every decision on oil and gas will be considered on its own merits, consistent with our legally binding climate obligations.
This decision is about how we manage the transition and not about changing the destination. The key consideration here was about energy security. Whether we like it or not, we are in the middle of an energy crisis and we will be using gas for years to come. We would rather use our own homegrown gas than gas imported from miles away, and the new North Sea Energy Wealth Fund is reinvesting revenues from oil and gas into the clean transition. Our commitment to ending new oil and gas exploration licensing remains unchanged, and we will legislate for it in the Energy Independence Bill shortly.
Action on Rough Sleeping
The Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner have doubled funding for our pledge to end rough sleeping for good. A further £432 million has been committed to ensure people sleeping rough have a route off the streets beyond this winter. This is the next stage of the commitment the Prime Minister made on his first day in Downing Street to stop accepting rough sleeping as a fact of life and unite the country behind a plan to end it and builds on the previous £442 million invested to offer everyone who needs it a route off the streets by Christmas.
Local, Political and Parliamentary Activity
- Spoke in the second reading of the Building Safety Bill and in the Committee Stage of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill
- Visited Re-Think and Leeds City College
- Meeting with Beeston Action for Families
- Voted for the Assisted Dying Bill
- Spoke at the CLP event on the South Bank New Town
- Attended Labour Party Conference
- Meeting with the new Leeds Police Commander
- Took part in the Middleton Pride in Place project board meeting
- South Leeds Life Column