With a huge majority in Parliament, the expectation after the election was that this government would be able to deliver its agenda without much trouble. But despite the parliamentary arithmetic, the Prime Minister has realised he cannot afford to ignore public opinion and a series of campaigns mobilising opposition and using it in the House of Commons have seen the government make a series of policy changes.
The reversal of plans to remove Winter Fuel Payments, changes to the Family Farm Tax, welfare reform, a national inquiry into grooming gangs, compulsory digital ID cards, and other changes all underline that when a government gets it wrong it can be forced to listen.
And now there has been a partial reversal on business rates. Finally, the Chancellor has responded to the pressure and provided additional support for pubs and music venues facing a huge increase in their business rates as a result of her Budget. This unwinds part of a huge bill that she announced only two months ago which underlines how ill-thought out the plans were.
While welcome as far as it goes, this is a very limited package. As I pointed out to the Chancellor in the House of Commons, wider hospitality, leisure, and retail businesses are all affected. Her measures were not just an attack on pubs - restaurants, hotels, cafes, and many more will suffer too. Having promised firms she would lower their taxes the reality of higher bills landing in a few weeks will be felt in every village, town, city, and high street.
This was only one of the higher taxes included in the Budget which raises £26 billion more to spend on more welfare. In my role as a Shadow Treasury Minister, I have been leading as we go through the measures line by line. What does that involve?
Well, let me take you to wood panelled committee room 14 in the House of Commons. One floor up from the Chamber, the MPs scrutinising the Finance Bill meet here to spend hours going through the 536 pages of the legislation. And no tea or coffee is allowed to help concentrate!
Here we have debated corporation tax levels, increases in road taxes and charges, higher tax on holiday flights, tax increases on investment, increases to landfill and aggregates tax, cracking down on Motability scheme misuse, illegal tobacco usage, the winter fuel payment reversal, and even a new taxi tax.
A diverse range of topics but the common theme is the government has chosen to put up taxes which ultimately will make us less competitive as a country and increase the cost of living, for people. There is nothing inevitable about this – it is the priority they have chosen to spend more on welfare. Based on my conversations and mailbag, many people strongly disagree and think that they are working harder for less and to fund benefits. That's not fair.
That’s why my party has set out plans to save £23 billion from welfare spending with more to come and to use that and other savings to abolish stamp duty on homes, scrap business rates benefitting 250,000 retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses, and help young people build up savings of £5,000 from their first job.
