Helen highlights ‘missed opportunities for Shropshire’ in Budget speech

Helen Morgan described the Budget as a “missed opportunity” for rural Britain as she highlighted the impact of the measures on North Shropshire in the House of Commons.

The Liberal Democrat MP said the “entire national potholes budget would probably not be enough to repair the badly neglected roads of Shropshire” as she described the Budget as “taking with one hand and giving away with another”.

Helen pointed to the lack of support for small businesses that are struggling to stay afloat and the absence of measures for health and social care despite the huge waiting times and pressure on staff.

Speaking in the final day of the Budget debate, Helen said: “Rural businesses in North Shropshire have told me that the astronomical cost of energy means that they are struggling to stay afloat, not turning a comfortable profit or generating cash to invest.”

Helen and her Lib Dem colleagues had called on the Chancellor to extend support to businesses to help them cope with crippling energy prices and the cost of supplies and for an increase in wages for social care staff to ease the staffing crisis that is clogging up hospitals and GP surgeries.

However, the Government refused to help and refused to implement a proper windfall tax on the oil and gas giants which the Liberal Democrats estimate would raise an extra £15 billion.

Helen, the Lib Dem spokesman for Levelling Up, also called on the Government to invest in infrastructure in places where it is most needed rather than forcing under-pressure councils to compete against each other for limited Levelling Up funding.

And Helen questioned the impact that abolishing local enterprise partnerships will have on stretched local councils like Shropshire, which is proposing more than £50 million of cuts this year.

It comes after Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary, announced a new batch of grants that are almost exclusively benefiting areas with large towns and cities at the expense of rural areas.