Budgets are a pivotal time for any Government. During my time as a Treasury minister, preparation for the Budget and balancing the financial requirements of competing worthy causes was a constant focus.
For this Budget, the focus was rightly on moving the British economy towards becoming a global beacon for free trade and enterprise, focussing on aspiration and opportunity, reaping the benefits of Brexit, and helping hard working families with the costs of living.
Over the last seven years, Conservatives in Government have delivered changes to our economy to strengthen it. We have record levels of employment and income tax and corporate tax has been lowered. The Budget has demonstrated the Government’s ongoing commitment to help families to keep more of what they earn and businesses to invest in jobs and growth.
Great Conservative budgets support aspiration, opportunity and freedom. The Budget makes welcome changes to stamp duty to help people get onto the property ladder with 95% of first-time buyers benefiting and 80% paying no stamp duty. More action is also being taken to make the dream of home ownership and a property-owning democracy a reality for many more. Small businesses form the backbone of our economy and it is right that action was taken on business rates to help alleviate the pressures that this tax – which can be the highest cost for firms apart from salaries – causes to them.
But we must do more to embrace the opportunities that await us by looking globally. The EU’s share of global GDP will halve from 30% in 1980 to 15% in 2022 so we are right to re-orientate ourselves to partner and trade with emerging markets and growing economies. The investment announced in the Budget for infrastructure, research and skills will make Britain more productive and competitive to become the beacon of free trade we want our country to be. This Budget shows the world that Britain is serious about our future.
All this investment is only possible by having an economy built on strong fiscal foundations and a credible economic plan. By bringing the deficit down and reducing the amount we are borrowing, we are saving current and future generations the higher costs and higher taxes that would come with paying to service those higher debts. This means we can invest more in infrastructure and services rather than servicing our debts.
The response from the Labour party to the Budget was the typical cry for more taxes, more spending and more borrowing. This approach shows that they are not fit to govern. As well as talking down our economy, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have a pathological hatred of enterprise, aspiration and markets. Their calls for higher taxes on business serve only to fulfil their agenda to tighten controls on free enterprise and to stifle the innovation and freedom that business needs to succeed. What Labour do not understand is that we can only have the resources we need to invest in high quality public services by backing enterprise and business to succeed.
It is only by taking the Conservative approach – embracing freedom, aspiration and opportunity – that our economy can grow from strength to strength and we can live in a dynamic, outward looking and successful Britain.
