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Just recently, the finance minister, Rachel Reeves, presented a Labour Party budget. People have been asking for Labour’s purpose and values to be more clearly expressed. By way of the choices made – a shift to a fairer tax system, focusing on wealth to pay for addressing child poverty, good 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 ready for the battles to come. And it’s why the cries from the conservative side began right away.

The Central Dividing Line in British Government

The central dividing line in British politics is once 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 opponents, who support the status quo and the failed doctrine 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 far more dire. Their ideological austerity and trickle-down economics – tax cuts for the wealthy, cutting off investment (leaving us with low productivity and wages), and neglecting to support young people post-Covid – didn’t work.

Record of Failure Under the Former Administration

Living standards dropped by the largest margin since records began, child poverty reached record levels, NHS waiting lists in England were the highest on record, wages remained flat, a housing crisis became entrenched, young people affected by Covid were left on the scrapheap. The history of failure continues.

One budget alone can’t put all this right, 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 failed to tackle the root causes: low pay, high housing costs, deep inequalities in education, health and regions. The state ends up paying more to deal with the symptoms instead of the cure.

That’s why we are building more affordable homes than for a generation, raising wages and new rights for workers, greatly increasing investment in infrastructure and new industries, reducing waiting lists down and lowering 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 lift the two-child benefit cap.

For eight long years, since it was enacted, low-income families with children have suffered from a unjust social experiment that was marketed 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, ultimately, costs us more, as well as being heartless and unethical.

Tangible Effects in Communities

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 low-cost wellies as school shoes, children going to bed hungry and cold, living in cramped, mouldy homes, parents during the holidays 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 severe deprivation.

Lasting Effects of Youth Hardship

Just one in four pupils from the poorest families achieve five good GCSEs, compared with nearly three in four among wealthier families. This predisposes them for the disadvantages they face throughout their lives: missed potential, economic struggles and poor health. Children who were raised in poverty are more likely to be jobless or poor as adults.

Confronting child poverty isn’t just a ethical duty, it is a long-term investment. Poverty costs the economy significantly more than the three billion pound cost of removing the two-child cap, or expanding free school meals.

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

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

Equitable Funding for Measures

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

Final Thoughts

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 consistently said during my campaign to become deputy leader, we must seize back the political megaphone and define the narrative more strongly about what’s truly flawed with the country and how we are repairing it. We’ve definitely done that this week.

So let’s maintain it and prevail in this struggle about how we will rebuild Britain and tackle the entrenched inequalities holding us back.