‘It falls to Labour to rebuild Britain – so we have requested those that have extra to pay extra’
Today, Mirror readers will be reading about the change we are delivering.
More teachers in our schools. More appointments in our NHS. More homes being built. The investment we need to rebuild our country.
It was our promise to protect working people, and that’s what we’ve done with a higher National Living Wage and payslips protected, with no increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance contributions.
We will deliver an economy that is growing. Because that is the only way to improve living standards.
Faced with a £22billion blackhole from the previous government there are no shortcuts, and we’ve had to make difficult decisions. But it has been crucial that we restore economic stability.
Under the Conservatives we saw the impact of playing fast and loose with public finances. They hit ordinary people who have to pay the price through higher mortgages.
That will not happen under my watch. And today, I turned the page on 14 years of chaos.
This is not the first time that it has fallen to the Labour party to rebuild Britain. In 1945, it was the Labour party that rebuilt our country from the rubble of the Second World War.
In 1964, it was the Labour party that rebuilt Britain with the white heat of technology. And in 1997, it was the Labour party that rebuilt our schools and our hospitals.
Today, it falls to this Labour government to rebuild Britain once again. So we have asked those who have more, to pay more.
And we are choosing to invest more. In our roads. In clean energy. In research and development in industries of the future. Because that is the only way to drive economic growth.
And that gets us the jobs and opportunity this government wants to see spread across the UK.
My belief in Britain burns brighter than ever. One Budget cannot change things overnight. But today is the start of a decade of renewal.