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Just recently, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered a Labour Party budget. People have been asking for Labour’s mission and principles to be more distinctly expressed. By way of the decisions made – a shift to a fairer tax system, targeting wealth to pay for addressing child poverty, quality public services and the living expenses – we have clearly demonstrated what we stand for.

That’s why Labour MPs applauded in the Commons, and it’s why we are up for the battles to come. And it’s why the cries from the right began immediately.

The Main Political Divide in British Politics

The central division in British politics is yet again on the economy. On the one hand Labour, who aim to change it so it helps ordinary working people, and on the other, our political opponents, who support the status quo and the unsuccessful doctrine of the past. We must now confront, and prevail in, the debate.

The Tories were given 14 years to fix things and instead, by every standard, they got far more dire. Their ideological austerity and supply-side economics – tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting off investment (causing us with low productivity and wages), and neglecting to support young people after the pandemic – didn’t work.

Legacy of Decline Under the Previous Government

Living standards dropped by the biggest amount since records began, child poverty reached record levels, NHS waiting lists in England were the highest on record, wages remained flat, a housing crisis took hold, young people affected by Covid were abandoned. The history of failure goes on.

A single budget alone can’t put all this right, so Labour has a long-term plan for rebuilding and for rewiring the country. And we have to go out and keep making the case for why our approach will yield benefits.

Welfare Spending and Child Poverty

During the Tories, welfare spending significantly increased. As did child poverty, because they didn’t address the underlying issues: low pay, high housing costs, significant inequalities in education, health and regions. The state is forced to paying more to manage the effects instead of the solution.

That’s why we are constructing more affordable homes than for a generation, increasing wages and new rights for workers, massively boosting investment in infrastructure and new industries, getting waiting lists down and bringing down the costs of childcare and energy as we drive for clean power.

Ending the Two-Child Limit

It’s also why we are completely justified to use this budget to remove the two-child benefit cap.

For almost a decade, since it was enacted, poorer families with children have endured from a cruel social experiment that was branded as fair for working people when it was anything but. Most of the families impacted by it have a parent in work.

It has only served to push 300,000 more children into poverty – which, in the end, costs us more, as well as being heartless and unethical.

Real Impact in Communities

I know from my own constituency – where over 5,000 children will be raised out of poverty as a result of abolishing the cap – the actual impact it’s had. Children wearing £1 wellies as school shoes, children going to bed hungry and cold, living in cramped, damp homes, parents this Christmas depending on food banks for a simple meal or small gift for their kids.

I also see the impact on schools, teachers, social workers, doctors and charities who are already overburdened but have to redirect time and resources to supporting children who are living with the consequences of deep poverty.

Long-Term Effects of Child Poverty

Just one in four pupils from the poorest families achieve five good GCSEs, compared with almost 75% among wealthier families. This sets them up for the challenges they face during their lives: missed potential, economic struggles and ill health. Children who were raised in poverty are more likely to be unemployed or poor as adults.

Addressing child poverty isn’t just a ethical duty, it is a future-oriented strategy. Poverty costs the economy significantly more than the three billion pound cost of lifting the two-child cap, or expanding free school meals.

This is the reason we acted urgently in the budget, despite the challenging economic context. Every day with this cap in place sees over a hundred additional children pushed into poverty. The effects of lifting it won’t happen overnight either, so acting early in the parliament was vital.

The cap was a symbol to 14 years of unsuccessful rightwing ideology. Now it is abolished.

Equitable Funding for Measures

We, as Labour, can also be explicit that these initiatives are being funded in a just way – from a new gambling levy, closing tax loopholes and a new “mansion tax”.

Final Thoughts

Fairness and direction – that’s how we will succeed in the contest of ideas. This budget is a definitive statement that we won the election as Labour, and will lead as Labour. As I repeatedly said during my campaign to become deputy leader, we must reclaim the political platform and set the agenda more strongly about what’s truly flawed with the country and how we are fixing it. We’ve certainly done that this week.

So let’s maintain it and win this fight about how we will rebuild Britain and tackle the entrenched inequalities impeding progress.