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Just recently, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered a Labour budget. The public have been calling for Labour’s mission and values to be more clearly articulated. Through the decisions made – a transition to a more equitable tax system, targeting wealth to pay for addressing child poverty, quality public services and the cost of living – we have unequivocally set out what we believe in.

This is why Labour MPs cheered 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 right away.

The Main Dividing Line in UK Government

The primary dividing line in British politics is once again on the economy. On the one hand Labour, who aim to change it so it helps everyday working people, and on the opposite side, our opponents, who support the status quo and the failed ideology of the past. We must now confront, and prevail in, the argument.

The Tories were given 14 years to resolve things and instead, by any measure, they got much worse. Their doctrinaire 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 post-Covid – didn’t work.

Legacy of Failure Under the Previous Administration

Living standards fell by the biggest amount since records began, child poverty reached record levels, NHS waiting lists in England were the highest they’ve ever been, wages were stagnant, a housing crisis became entrenched, young people scarred by Covid were left on the scrapheap. The history of failure goes on.

One budget alone can’t fix everything, so Labour has a long-term plan for rebuilding and for restructuring the country. And we have to go out and keep making the case for why our strategy will yield benefits.

Social Security and Youth Deprivation

Under the Tories, welfare spending significantly increased. As did child poverty, because they didn’t address the underlying issues: low pay, high housing costs, deep inequalities in education, health and regions. The state ends up paying more to deal with the effects instead of the cure.

It’s why we are constructing more affordable homes than for a generation, raising wages and enhanced protections for workers, greatly increasing investment in infrastructure and new industries, reducing waiting lists down and lowering the costs of childcare and energy as we pursue clean power.

Ending the Two-Child Benefit Cap

This is also the reason we are completely justified to use this budget to remove the two-child benefit cap.

For almost a decade, since it was introduced, poorer families with children have suffered from a cruel social experiment that was marketed as fair for working people when it was the opposite. 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 immoral.

Tangible Effects in Local Areas

From experience from my own constituency – where over 5,000 children will be raised out of poverty as a result of ending the cap – the actual impact it’s had. Children wearing £1 wellies as school shoes, children going to bed hungry and cold, living in overcrowded, mouldy homes, parents during the holidays relying 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 results of deep poverty.

Long-Term Consequences of Youth Hardship

Just one in four pupils from the most disadvantaged families achieve five good GCSEs, compared with nearly three in four among affluent families. This sets them up for the disadvantages they face during their lives: unrealized 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 moral imperative, it is a future-oriented strategy. Poverty costs the economy significantly more than the £3bn cost of lifting the two-child cap, or expanding free school meals.

This is the reason we acted promptly in the budget, despite the challenging economic context. Every day with this cap in place sees more than 100 extra children pushed into poverty. The effects of lifting it will not occur overnight either, so taking early action in the parliament was vital.

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

Equitable Financing for Measures

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

Final Thoughts

Equity and direction – that’s how we will win 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 seize back the political megaphone and set the agenda more forcefully about what’s truly flawed with the country and how we are fixing it. We’ve definitely done that this week.

So let’s keep hold of it and win this fight about how we will rebuild Britain and tackle the entrenched inequalities holding us back.