For 14 years, the Conservatives failed working people by choosing austerity and decline. As a result, public services are crumbling and working people have paid the price. Though we come from different generations and grew up in different parts of Britain, the prime minister and I both saw how politics could make a difference to people from working-class backgrounds like ours. But the country we inherited in July had seen those opportunities denied to too many working families. That’s the Britain we are determined to change.

This week we turned the tide, choosing investment over decline. The budget charted a course for national renewal, fixing the foundations of our country to deliver the change Labour promised. It is a budget for working people, by a government for working people.

I know first-hand that secure work and a secure home are the foundations of a better life – that is what drove me into politics in the first place, and drives my priorities today. That is why we are wasting no time in making work pay, with the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation now backed by a budget that protects their pay packets and puts their interests first.

This is not only what I came........

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