This Budget isn’t a national mission for growth; it’s a low-growth budget from a low-growth Government which pulls thousands of people into higher tax, punishing working families in Esher and Walton and waging a quiet war on aspiration without a roadmap to prosperity. 

You can watch my full speech on the budget above, or read my speech in below:

"I am sure that the Chancellor is sick of hearing her own words from last year quoted back to her:

“extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people. It would take more money out of their payslips”

Yesterday, she froze income tax thresholds, dragging one in four people into higher rate or additional rates of tax and pushing the tax burden to an all-time high of 38% of GDP. Today, she is refusing to rule out coming back for more. Blindly copying the playbook of the last Conservative Government, she is the continuity Chancellor. There is still no vision for growth, just that old-style Labour tax and spend. It is like new Labour’s wealth creation to pay for better public services never happened.

 The Government may like to blame the Conservatives for the OBR’s downgrade in growth, but the OBR has said that none of the measures in the Budget will boost growth. In fact, the Budget may actively harm growth. The OBR has said that slower wage growth and higher taxes mean living standards will rise more slowly than expected. Take, for example, the raid on pension contributions: the OBR tells us that employers will pass on the cost of the £4.7 billion tax raid on pension contributions to employees through lower wages and less generous schemes. The CBI has data showing that three-quarters of employers will decrease pension contributions as a result. It is a tax on those doing the right thing.

 That comes after Government policies harmed businesses in their first Budget, including the national insurance increases that have put thousands of pounds on to a load of businesses in my constituency, causing them to hire less and cut hours for the very people that the Government say they want to protect: part-time, low-paid workers, often with caring responsibilities. Higher unemployment in turn means more spending on universal credit—indeed, £1.8 billion more, as estimated by the OBR, on unemployment. It is all the wrong way round.

 Yesterday, one long-term successful business owner in my constituency said to me:

 “The whole thing is just depressing. I could work for another 10 or 20 years creating wealth for the economy, but the Government is making it so hard I may as well retire. And if I was in my 30s, I wouldn’t choose to do it here any more—I would move overseas.”

She is one of our wealth creators—she creates the growth we need. Another large business in my constituency who once felt confident about investing in Britain, creating growth and hiring new staff is now telling me that it is scaling back plans, postponing projects altogether and contemplating offshoring.

 Talking of supporting people trying to do the right thing, let us turn to landlords. One of my constituents, who is known as a decent landlord, told me yesterday:

 “I may as well pull out—what is the point? I get 2% gain on my properties. I may as well put it in the bank and get 4%.”

The Government’s policy will take rentals off the market and increase rents. In Esher and Walton, where rental prices are sky high, that means more people will not be able to afford to live there.

 The property tax will gum up the housing market and distort it by bunching properties for sale below the threshold. It is said that the surcharge will raise more than £600 million, but that will be offset by £200 million of behavioural impact, so the take-home is £400 million, which is a rounded-up figure. In London and the south-east, where the average price per square foot is higher, those properties might not be such big houses, and in them are likely to be pensioners. Public First has said that two fifths of homeowners in bands G and H are pensioners.

 Older homeowners who have watched their properties’ value soar over the years will be hardest hit by this granny tax. They are asset-rich but cash-poor. They may be forced to sell up—at reduced asking prices—and more properties will get dragged into the mansion tax net. As that happens, a proportion of terraced houses, flats and semis will join them.

Worst of all, this is not a serious attempt to reform property tax, including business rates, stamp duty and council tax. Like the Budget, it is tinkering and meddling around the edges. This is a patchwork Budget that does not take us much further forward. Where has the national mission for growth gone? This is a low-growth Budget from a low-growth Government who thumb their nose at the wealth creators. It does not tackle some of the big questions. Where is the money in the plan for adult social care? Where is the money in the plan for the £14 billion deficit in SEND provision to help local authorities that are about to go bankrupt? The Budget is a smorgasbord of contempt for aspiration and growth. The Government have not only abandoned working people in my constituency, but waged a quiet war on aspiration itself.

 I am pleased that the Government have lifted the two-child benefit limit. My party laid out how we would do that, but Government Members know as well as I do that poverty does not end there. To tackle poverty, we need to create growth.

 There is an alternative, which the Liberal Democrats have laid out in our plan to turbocharge economic growth by repairing the £90 billion Brexit black hole caused by the previous Conservative Government. The UK needs to negotiate a new bespoke customs union with the European Union: a modern arrangement designed around the needs of British businesses and workers, which would raise £25 billion a year. Instead of that we have a Budget that taxes work, punishes investment, stifles aspiration and still fails to deliver for public services; a Budget that tells wealth creators."

My reasons for voting against the Bill:

My concerns about lack of scrutiny for this bill.

I worried that the bill did not have the sufficient debate or scrutiny I wanted to for a bill of such import.  I would have liked more time for scrutiny, including an independent review, an equality impact statement, an impact assessment on palliative care provision and a public consultation on the existing law and proposals for change.  This would have helped with my concerns about the Bill as set out below:

Lack of access to palliative care

Before entering Parliament I was a Trustee at Princess Alice Hospice in Esher.  As I wrote in the lead up to the debate, legalising assisted dying with the aim of giving people choice about how they die, when there is not a well-functioning alternative consistently available across the UK seemed to me to be no choice at all.  

I am glad that this was recognised across both sides of the debate and that it has shown a light on the lack of resource and funding for the sector.

Palliative care in the UK, as Marie Curie puts it is ‘patchy, inconsistent and inequitable’. Every year over 100,000 people in the UK die with unmet palliative care needs.  The Bill made no requirement that palliative care be available to the person seeking assisted death, nor were there provisions to safeguard palliative care provisions across England and Wales.  Instead, the assumption of the Bill was that assisted dying will be state run and funded, while palliative care is largely funded by charities.  Hospices are under enormous strain, with a fifth of hospices cutting their services in the last financial year despite growing demand and the sector headed for an estimated deficit of £60million.  Our own Princess Alice Hospice in Esher only receives 20% of its funding from the Government and relies for the rest on charitable donations.  It is only able to meet a third of the need in the area it serves.

 Coercion and protection of vulnerable and marginalised groups.

 In this Bill it does not seem possible to prevent the abuse or misuse of assisted dying even if assisted dying is introduced for the very specific group of people identified in this bill. 

The safeguards within the bill seemed ambiguous and also open to loopholes. 

 Without good palliative care options delivered consistently across regions in England and Wales, legalising assisted dying could force those fearing pain or worrying about being a burden to their families into an assisted death. This is particularly pertinent for marginalised communities.  In Oregon where assisted dying is legal 54% of those who had an assisted death felt a burden. 

 The Bill did not specify how to identify coercion, whether emotional or financial.  Coercion is difficult to prove without witness from the victim who will be dead.  There was no recognition of subtle internal coercion from the person feeling a burden, or being made to feel a burden by the behaviour of others or societal pressures.  If a doctor has doubts regarding coercion or pressures, they would not be required to refer the person to a professional who is experienced in detecting coercion. 

 And patients are very vulnerable to whatever a doctor suggests. Doctors can - under the provisions of this Bill – introduce the idea to the patient – which may of itself be coercive.  Point 4 (2) of the bill permits a doctor to raise it even if the patient has not.  This is a particularly worrying point to me – I have seen cases of coercion amongst elderly people even in the few months I have been an MP.  Age UK has reported a disturbing rise in the numbers of reports of possible abuse of vulnerable elderly people in England with a 4% rise in cases referred for investigation.

 Currently the Bill does not provide for a right to appeal when the court has approved an assisted death while a court refusal can be appealed against.  Talking to campaigners for assisted dying I understand the reasoning for this – to ensure that the patient’s will is delivered, but even if coercion comes to light while the patient is still alive there is no recourse to appeal by a loved one.  The provision for the courts seems inadequate. There seems to me to be no provision in the bill for how courts can adequately detect abuse. 

Judges are only able to hear from one of the Doctors but not the patient requesting assisted suicide. 

Expansion of Inclusion

 Lastly, I worry about the expansion of inclusion – the so called ‘slippery slope’.  Having spoken to disability campaigners I worry that this Bill will alter societies attitude to the elderly, the long term sick and to the disabled. I worry that the criteria for eligibility could expand over time as has been observed in other countries. Over the period that Canada and Oregon have legalised assisted dying the thresholds for permitting assisted dying and processes and safeguards to implement it have broadened and liberalised. 

And so, on balance, I felt that we are moving too quickly.  This is a hugely important vote in our country and is unlikely to ever be reversed.  That is why I wanted more time for scrutiny and discussion and more time to fix a broken NHS that I was elected to play my part in mending.  I want an NHS that can provide the best of end-of-life care so that all our loved ones have the best possible chance of a good death through universal palliative care through increased resource and a proper funding model, so that the choice at end of life is a real one.

 I hope this gives you a good explanation of why I chose to vote the way I did.  There will be time now for more scrutiny of this bill as it passes through the next stages and I hope some of my concerns will be addressed there.

 In the meantime, I assure you of my compassion and respect of your position on whatever side you fall.  I am sure we will continue this debate for some time as this bill goes through – and I appreciate and look forward to hearing your thoughts and considerations as we do.

The Speech I would have given:

Mr Speaker

It is hard to find a professional, expert medical body that does not have serious or prohibitive concerns about this bill. 

The Royal College of Psychiatrists say that they cannot support the bill and that this legislation risks the preventable deaths of people with treatable mental illnesses.

The Mental Capacity act on which this bill relies was never designed to assess capacity in people considering ending their own lives and is being asked to do something it cannot, leaving a gaping hole of protection in the bill.

Mr Speaker, with a few exceptions, we are not psychiatrists. We are law makers. And we are being asked to pass a law that leans on a legal framework that wasn’t built for this purpose but is being shoehorned in. Experts are warning us of this.

Like the Royal College of Psychiatrists, of Physicians, of General Practitioners- the latter of whom are neutral on the principle, but not one member of the Governing Council voted in support of legalising assisted dying.

The British Medical Association consultants’ conference supported a motion raising “serious potential moral hazards”.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has a representative view asking for improvements in palliative care to allow equity – but this bill guarantees nothing of the kind.

Are we a parliament who ignores experts?

Are we a parliament that brushes aside the unaddressed concerns of charities like Disability Rights UK, of Hospice UK, of Down Syndrome UK, of the British Association of Social Workers, of the British Geriatrics Society?

We have heard the impossibility of safeguards against coercion.  An NHS psychiatrist who gave evidence to the bill committee wrote that patients who resort to suicidal acts are often motivated by feeling like a burden but that these ideas rarely come from coercive relatives – but from cultural norms and societal precedents.   

Mr Speaker as legislators we set the tones of these norms and precedents.

The country is watching us now.

Our current norm – rooted in thousands of years of cultural, legal and medical history - that we live until the natural endpoint of our life – is the strongest safeguard we have.

Normalisation of individual choice over ending ones’ life removes this safeguard – sending a potential lethal message to the most vulnerable in our society like my constituent Janet:

‘As an older person with several medical conditions, the bill makes me feel dispensable – rather than loved and cared for to the end of my life.

Members must not close their ears to this.

The argument for this bill is autonomy.

But for every patient who will benefit from this bill it is equalled and surpassed by those numbers it puts at risk.

Members must go into these lobbies clear eyed – the safeguards within this bill are entirely insufficient to prevent the most vulnerable in our society from being obliged to end their lives prematurely.

When my father was dying from a terminal condition he had bout after bout of pneumonia.

At his first bout I was told that he was in a palliative state.

I asked how long he had left.

The consultant – a man so kind he made me cry, told me that it was an impossible question. ‘ I could tell you that it would be months and he might be alive in two years or he could be dead tomorrow.

The body does what the body does he said but what decides the point of death is the human spirit.

My father lived for another six months recovering each time from bouts of near-death pneumonia.

And beautiful in-between times.

I had always had a distant relationship with my dad and throughout my life I wished for closeness.

I got it in those days – some of the softest and most precious time we ever spent together.

My youngest son was with me too – and for all three of us it transformed our lives.

For those days and so other children might have those days I’ll be voting against the bill today.