Rachel Reeves has delivered daring Budget that may return Britain to proper path

Rachel Reeves has demonstrated the difference a Labour government can make.

This was a bold, confident Budget that addressed the incredible damage caused by fourteen years of Conservative austerity, injustice and neglect. The Chancellor inherited a dire legacy from her Tory predecessors.

A less courageous politician would have taken the easy route of persisting with the discredited policies of the past in order to avoid courting unpopularity. Instead, Ms Reeves took the difficult decision to raise taxes in order to provide the funding our schools and hospitals so desperately need. This choice will not be universally welcomed but it is categorically the right one. Ignore the squeals of the wealthy having to pay more.

The Chancellor instinctively understands that improving education, reducing waiting lists, raising wages and building more homes are not just the foundation of a fairer society, but also a more prosperous one. This was a Budget carved and centred on the principle of fairness.

Thanks to the rise in the minimum wage, millions of workers will be better off. There was additional money for children with special educational needs who were left scandalously underfunded by the Tories.

The injustice of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme was finally addressed. Compensation will at last be paid to the victims of the infected blood and Post Office Horizon scandals and there will be £1billion more to remove dangerous cladding from buildings.

More affordable homes will be built, more potholes filled and more train lines upgraded. There was help for drivers with the freezing of fuel duty and support for pubs with a penny off the price of a pint.

Those who oppose having to pay a bit more in tax need to explain how they would restore the NHS to health, fix our crumbling transport network and end the scandal of children being taught in dangerous buildings. Rebuilding Britain from the rubble of Tory ruin will not happen overnight but Ms Reeves today put the country back on the right with a historic and ambitious Budget.