Daniel Zeichner MP: speeches

Speeches

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the Father of the House and his wide-ranging contribution. I think he is slightly more optimistic about the ability to achieve consensus across the Front Benches than, sadly, I might be, but his point about intergenerational unfairness is absolutely right. Let me start by recognising the hard work that the Treasury team have put into this Budget against a challenging international backdrop, particularly around trade issues. I particularly welcome the long overdue measures around council tax on more valuable properties. No one wants to pay more tax, of course, but some of us appreciate that the public services and the public realm need to be properly funded. Frankly, what is extraordinary to me is the number of years that those invaluable properties have escaped proper taxation. I am old enough to remember how that all came about, with the council tax being introduced as a quick fix after the debacle of the Tory poll tax. I am afraid that some people on the Conservative Benches never change: they are always hankering to find a way to escape paying their dues. They hanker after things like flat taxes or whatever, but after 30 years of certain properties not making their contribution, I am delighted that it is this Government who are finally cracking down on that unfairness. There are many other aspects to this Budget that I strongly welcome. Many of my Cambridge constituents commute into London, and the freeze on regulated rail fares, including season tickets, will be widely welcomed. I also wish to say a few things about what the money raised in the Budget is spent on. In my experience, both as an MP and a former Minister, it was not just the council tax system that the Tories broke in the 1990s; it went much wider. The fragmentation and privatisation of so much of our public realm have not only cost us financially but contributed to the gloom that has descended on what is still a rich and successful country. Private affluence alongside public decay does not make for a happy society. In the limited time I have, I will cite a few examples that I have come across over the previous few weeks. The chaos in our prison and justice systems goes back in no small part to the disastrous policies pursued by Chris Grayling in his misguided attempts to privatise the Probation Service, from which it has never fully recovered. The fragmentation of services was made particularly clear recently, when residents in a modern development near Cambridge railway station complained to me about the problems they faced with both criminal behaviour and poor building standards. The housing associations turned out in force to meet me—it is amazing what a visit from an MP will do—and they told me about the labyrinth of organisations involved in those issues: at least two councils, the police, those responsible for developing the building, those responsible for maintaining the building, and those responsible for fire safety. In those circumstances, how could anyone come to a sensible solution? I came away very clear about one thing: no one seemed to take responsibility overall, and as a consequence, the residents have a very poor deal. Another example is the rightful national outcry about the abuses that have resulted from too many neighbourhood shops selling vapes and smuggled cigarettes, exposed so well by BBC investigative reporters. I could not be the only one who wondered why it seemed so hard to enforce the law when it is being flouted in plain sight, so I asked the House of Commons Library for statistics on what has happened to trading standards officers over the years. Guess what? In 2010, local authorities spent just under £172 million per annum on them. By 2020, that had fallen to just over £103 million. That figure recovered only a little, to £117 million, by 2024. I understand that trading standards are not the only agencies involved, but it is no wonder that they struggle to respond. That is certainly not a criticism of trading standards officers; they do a remarkable job, given that they have been starved of resources. My conclusion is that this Budget is a really good start in difficult circumstances, yet we have a huge way to go in rebuilding the public realm so that we have a country that feels safe and secure for everyone. Putting back together what has been broken apart is neither easy nor quick; it is much easier to break things than to put them back together again. We have had decades of disruption from the Conservative party, and things would only be made worse by the party that goes by the name of Reform. It, too, ought to go to trading standards, because that is a false prospectus. The party is not about reforming the country, but about breaking it. I am confident that people will increasingly recognise that, so I urge my Treasury colleagues to stand firm and rebuild not just our economy but the communities in which we all live, whatever our circumstances.