How the Labour leadership candidates responded to the 2020 Budget

Rebecca Long-Bailey

The MP for Salford and Eccles said: “By ducking the bold measures needed to tackle the climate emergency, the Chancellor has blown the biggest opportunity for national renewal since the post-war era, betraying current and future generations.

“This Budget piles investment into new motorways without bringing down the cost of public transport, offers derisory support for electric vehicles, loads costs for carbon capture and storage onto consumers, and sets out a series of measures that seem designed to let our biggest emitters off the hook.

And for households struggling with the cost of living, there is no sign of the Tory Manifesto commitment to invest £9.2bn to reduce energy bills, with the Budget kicking the can down the road with consultations on low carbon heat while action is needed urgently. The Chancellor says people in this country voted for change, but nobody voted for catastrophic climate change.

“And with no indication that statutory sick pay will be raised, and no support offered to those on insecure contracts who do not currently qualify for it, the government is also abandoning those who will be hardest hit by the coronavirus emergency.”

Lisa Nandy

Nandy took to social media to express her disappointment at the Budget, tweeting: “This was meant to be a budget for the Red Wall. It isn’t.” She then outlined why:

1. “The great big gaping hole in this budget is social care. Red Wall communities are older communities at the sharp end of the social care crisis. Where is the announcement on social care?
2. “This is even more important because of coronavirus. Directing money to the NHS but ignoring social care will mean more older people having to go to hospital for care or stranded at home, especially in Red Wall areas.
3. “City regions are getting a (welcome) £4.2bn. But how will that money get out of the cities and into towns? What is the plan for Workington or Hastings that aren’t in city regions? Why has the government written them off weeks after promising massive investment?
4. “The promises on business rates and broadband are welcome but they don’t add up to anything like £600bn. There is a reason for this and it’s the one word the Chancellor didn’t say once – Brexit.
5. “Michael Gove said this morning the government won’t publish an impact assessment of their proposed EU trade deal. It’s becoming increasingly clear they don’t actually know if £600bn is a promise they can keep.
6. “Sunak was curiously silent on the one thing the red wall most needs – good jobs. 750 Treasury jobs are moving North, but which ones? Is the power to make decisions moving too?
7. “He mentioned an £800m carbon capture and storage project creating 6k jobs. This is similar to the £1bn project Cameron proposed and then cancelled after four years at huge cost to the companies involved. Why would we believe this will actually happen?
8. “At the same time, they’re putting money into roads, potholes and freezing fuel duty for the 10th year in a row. Car usage is now the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Where is the investment in buses and trains?
9. “If you want to level up the Red Wall, you have to level up the people in them. We need investment in skills, schools and measures to tackle what is on course to be the highest level of child poverty in 60 years.
10. “No more reviews – green book review; business rates review; national infrastructure strategy review. It’s time to start investing now.”

Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer tweeted a thread:

• “1. On Corona – Measures to support businesses are welcome. But there are millions of workers on low wages and in insecure work that needed greater support. Decent sick pay must be extended to all and we need to do far more to protect our strained social care system.
• “2. The real message of this budget is that austerity was an unnecessary and failed experiment. We have a low growth economy, flat-lining productivity, low pay & hollowed out public services. This budget is a confession that austerity was always a political choice, & a poor one.
• “3. But we should take no satisfaction in the Tories finally accepting they have spent a decade on the wrong track. The question we now face is what kind of country do we want to be? And this budget is silent on the social injustices we see all around us.
• “3(continued). The measures on climate change are completely inadequate – with more money for new roads than greening our economy – social care remains neglected, our broken social security system is left in place & there is no attempt to tackle either inequality or child poverty.”

Angela Rayner

Rayner tweeted: “What this budget shows is Labour was right to have a manifesto that invests in education, green business, housing and our wonderful public services.

“We’ve had ten years of failure and hardship because of the tories.They should be ashamed.The Country deserves better.”

She also highlighted that there was no mention of social care in the Budget and that the investment outlined doesn’t plug “the holes created by the ten years of Tory austerity”.

Ian Murray

Ian Murray tweeted to say that Labour “has been saying since 2010, and did so before in government, that government spending on infrastructure boosts the economy. The austerity Tories decried this approach. Now they admit it’s the right thing to do. What a wasted decade”.

He followed this shortly afterwards with another post, saying: “Spend, spend, spend, spend. This chancellor is certainly getting the spending done. Where’s the money coming from?”

Dawn Butler

The MP for Brent Central also took to social media, stating: “This budget demonstrates that austerity was an ideological choice. It means schools without enough money for pens and books was a choice.

“It means child poverty was a choice. It means the 86% of cuts which fell on women were a choice.”

Rosena Allin-Khan

Tooting MP Allin-Khan posted online: “The Chancellor has announced that VAT on ebooks will be abolished, but the abolition of tampon tax that had been opportunistically announced ahead of #IWD2020, has been pushed back until next year. Why are sanitary products deemed to be more of a luxury than ebooks?”

Richard Burgon

The left-wing deputy leader candidate said: “Jeremy is right to raise concerns that years of “deeply damaging & counter-productive cuts” to public services will make dealing with the coronavirus “much tougher” than was necessary. We’re going into this crisis with our public services on their knees”.

He later added: “Austerity was always a political choice. As Jeremy says, it has been a failed experiment that has made the economy worse and ripped apart our public services. Today’s measures go nowhere near far enough to undo the damage done to our country.”