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Yesterday, the finance minister, Rachel Reeves, delivered a Labour Party budget. The public have been asking for Labour’s mission and values to be more clearly articulated. By way of the choices made – a shift to a more equitable tax system, targeting wealth to fund tackling child poverty, quality public services and the living expenses – we have unequivocally demonstrated what we stand for.

This is why Labour MPs cheered in the Commons, and it’s why we are ready for the fights to come. And it’s why the cries from the right began immediately.

The Central Political Divide in UK Government

The central dividing line in British politics is once again on the economy. On the one hand Labour, who aim to reform it so it helps ordinary working people, and on the opposite side, our political opponents, who support the status quo and the failed ideology of the past. We must now take on, and win, the debate.

The Tories were given 14 years to fix things and instead, by any measure, they got much worse. Their doctrinaire austerity and trickle-down economics – tax breaks for the wealthy, cutting off investment (leaving us with low productivity and wages), and failing to support young people after the pandemic – proved ineffective.

Record of Decline Under the Previous Administration

Quality of life dropped by the biggest amount since records began, child poverty hit record levels, NHS waiting lists in England were the highest they’ve ever been, wages were stagnant, a housing crisis became entrenched, young people affected by Covid were abandoned. The record of failure continues.

A single budget alone can’t fix everything, so Labour has a comprehensive plan for renewal and for rewiring the country. And we have to go out and continue making the case for why our approach will reap dividends.

Social Security and Youth Deprivation

Under the Tories, welfare spending rose substantially. As did child poverty, because they didn’t address the root causes: low pay, high housing costs, deep inequalities in education, health and regions. The state is forced to paying more to deal with the symptoms instead of the cure.

That’s why we are constructing more affordable homes than for a generation, increasing wages and new rights for workers, greatly increasing 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 Benefit Cap

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

For eight long years, since it was enacted, poorer families with children have suffered from a unjust social experiment that was branded as fair for working people when it was the opposite. Most of the families affected 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 callous and immoral.

Real Impact in Communities

From experience from my own district – where over 5,000 children will be raised out of poverty as a result of ending the cap – the real impact it’s had. Children wearing low-cost wellies as school shoes, children going to bed hungry and cold, living in overcrowded, mouldy homes, parents this Christmas depending on food banks for a modest 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 divert time and resources to supporting children who are living with the consequences of deep poverty.

Lasting Effects of Youth Hardship

Just one in four pupils from the most disadvantaged families achieve five good GCSEs, compared with almost 75% among affluent families. This predisposes them for the disadvantages they face throughout their lives: missed potential, financial struggles and ill health. Children who grew up in poverty are more likely to be jobless or poor as adults.

Confronting 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 over a hundred additional children pushed into poverty. The benefits of lifting it will not occur overnight either, so acting early in the parliament was crucial.

The cap was a totem to 14 years of unsuccessful conservative ideology. Now it is gone.

Fair Funding for Measures

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

Conclusion

Fairness and direction – that’s how we will succeed in the battle of ideas. This budget is a clear 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 define the narrative more forcefully about what’s really wrong with the country and how we are fixing it. We’ve definitely done that this week.

So let’s keep hold of it and prevail in this struggle about how we will rebuild Britain and address the entrenched inequalities holding us back.