A Budget Made in West Yorkshire?

By Julian Pearce, founder of communications agency Yasper

Prior to this past week, the last time a Chancellor of the Exchequer representing a constituency in West Yorkshire stood at the despatch box to deliver a budget, the year was 1979 and it was offered to the house by Dennis Healey, who was MP for Leeds East from 1952-1992. 

Derided as a ‘caretaker’ budget by the Tories, who were snapping at the heels of Labour’s paper-thin majority – destined to be overturned in the 1979 General Election a few months later – it stands as little more than a footnote in history.

While Healey’s budget marked the last throes of Labour as a governing force for a generation, the current Prime Minister has called the one delivered by Reeves as “a landmark Budget, by the first female Chancellor” at the beginning of a new era of leadership for Labour. 

Rachel Reeves seems to possess a rare quality as constituency MPs go, in that I rarely hear a bad word said about her. Originally Elected as MP for Leeds West in 2010, the recent boundary changes have seen her assume parts of traditionally Tory patches, such as Pudsey. 

What strikes me about her approach to constituency matters now – speaking as a constituent of hers – is that she continues to have a strong focus on local issues, despite what some might think is a much more pressing brief, in the financial health of the UK as a whole. 

Politicians who can simultaneously inhabit the space of connecting with the communities they represent while ‘getting the big picture’ are few and far between. Huddersfield’s own Harold Wilson was one such politician; famed for his amiable nature and quick wit, his biggest talent was connecting with the people he served.

So what of our current Chancellor’s history as an elected member in West Yorkshire – and before that, her career in the district? While her credentials as an ‘economist for the bank of England’ became almost as much of a cliché during the General Election as her colleague’s dad being a toolmaker, she also held senior roles in the private sector. 

Her background in banking – at HBOS in Halifax (during a tumultuous period for the economy and banking sector) – would have given her a good grounding in the intricacies and interdependencies of all parts of the financial machinery of the country working as one.

You would like to think that having that ‘lived experience’ at the front line of business, twinned with her obvious care and attention for the area she represents, would mean that West Yorkshire has played a strong role in shaping Reeves’ priorities and policies.

Labour has now had the best part of four months to get to grips with what they inherited and to come up with a plan. Certainly, they have had time to get under the skin of the economy and discover many ‘skeletons in closets’ that need to be served with eviction papers, but only time will tell how the 2024 Budget will go down with the business community, particularly here on Reeves’ home patch.

From a wider perspective, the 2024 Budget tells us little about Rachel Reeves the politician. She has even indicated that the words she delivered this past week will be unique. With policies shaped by the stagnation of the economy – transport infrastructure disarray here in the North chief among the challenges – we may have to wait a little longer to understand what direction she would like to take, given a clean slate.

One of the most consequential Chancellors of the last two decades, George Osborne, left the Northern Powerhouse as his legacy. The jury is still out on that, and time will tell what the Reeves-ean equivalent might be. We should start to see the green shoots of those policy choices in the coming years.

In contrast to the budget delivered by Rachel Reeves, Healey’s was the last to be presented by a Labour Government until 1997 – a precursor to Labour’s years in the shadows. Labour now stands at a precipice for the UK and its businesses. As a business community here in Yorkshire, we can only hope that the choices made by our elected members support the growth potential that clearly exists.