It is clear to everyone on this side of the House that the measures in the Bill are a vital step towards securing the long-term stability of the public finances. We are not prepared to continue with the fiction that no difficult decisions are required to balance the books. Unlike the Conservatives, this Labour Government are not interested in more decline, more austerity or forcing the poorest in society to pay for the previous Government’s mistakes.
The decisions that we are taking are not easy. Increasing employer national insurance contributions to 15% is not easy. Reducing the secondary threshold to £5,000 is not easy. And, of course, constituents are absolutely right to ask me why this is happening. Well, that question would be best answered by the Conservatives.
The Conservatives crashed our economy, mortgage rates went through the roof, and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money was wasted on a failed asylum system and on dodgy covid contracts. They promised the victims of the infected blood scandal that they would be compensated, but they did not put a single penny aside for it. They promised the same for the sub-postmasters. They promised 40 new hospitals, but they did not allocate anywhere near enough money to deliver them, and they are still pretending that they would not have given a single penny in pay rises to our public sector workers.
The Conservatives spent the national reserve three times over in the first three months of this financial year, and all before calling an election they expected to lose, so somebody else could clean up the mess. They chose to govern not in the national interest, but in their own interest. Some Conservative Members have been brave enough to come to the House today and remind us of their great legacy, but I have to tell them that 14 years of failure and a £22 billion black hole, leaving our nation on the brink of bankruptcy, is their legacy.
By making changes to national insurance contributions, we will be able to provide the funding to public services that is desperately needed, including, but not limited to, investing £25 billion in our NHS, recruiting 6,500 new teachers and providing local authorities with £600 million for social care.