Margaret Mullane

“Today, as this House continues to debate last week’s Labour Budget, we turn a spotlight on investment and renewal. Thankfully, we have moved on since the Liz Truss Budget—we are no longer talking about growing pies. This Labour Government are in the business of growing the economy, which has gone up by 1.5% this year, alongside less borrowing and lower levels of inflation. That is helping homeowners with their mortgage rates and enabling businesses to invest. The Conservatives and Reform would take Britain back to austerity, but we have closed that door. While the popular trend on social media is to wander around with a microphone and do down areas such as Dagenham and Rainham, those divisive campaigns offer no solutions. Labour is making fair choices, such as the incoming mansion tax, allowing us to reinvest in our national health service and build on the progress we have already made on appointments and neighbourhood health centres. As new investment becomes available off the back of this Budget, I will keep banging the drum for Queen’s hospital, in the hope of securing the £35 million needed to expand its emergency department and bring down waiting times for my constituents. Dagenham and Rainham has felt the pinch for too long, suffering a cost of living crisis in which hard-working families have been pushed to the breadline. It does not have to be like this; we are choosing a different path, but that is not without its challenges. We knew that there would be tough choices to balance the books after 14 years of catastrophe, but thankfully some choices are easier for Labour politicians to make. Above all else, this Budget was a renewal of our Government’s contract with the ordinary working people who form the backbone of Britain. Raising the living wage and the minimum wage and increasing the wages of young workers is putting pounds back into the pockets of my constituents. Those measures, coupled with our action to reduce energy bills by £150 and the continued freeze on fuel duty, mean that working-class communities across the country will have more to show for their hard work at the end of the month. When it comes to investment in my seat, I could talk about London’s largest film studio, University College London’s state-of-the-art person-environment-activity research laboratory in east Dagenham, or the upcoming new rail station at Beam Park that I am sure will be delivered under a Labour Government. I could mention that only last week, I welcomed the Minister for Energy Consumers—the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey)—to my seat for a hydrogen summit at the Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence, where they unveiled £73 million of investment in jobs and opportunities to build the low-carbon economy of tomorrow. There are lots of promising investment and growth opportunities in the south of my constituency within the Thames freeport area. Working with Ford, the City of London, the freeport and our Government, I am sure that through this and future Budgets, we can deliver on my election promise to bring jobs that people can raise a family on back to Dagenham and Rainham. For me, though, the real story of investment at this Budget is our investment in the next generation—an investment that will lift 450,000 children across Britain, including 5,050 children in Dagenham and Rainham, out of poverty as we scrap the two-child benefit cap next April. I will wrap up with a quote that was often cited by my predecessor: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.” That is the mission of a Labour Government, and for Dagenham and Rainham, I think this Budget begins that work.”