Sentinel: Personally Speaking: November 2026

MOST people won’t read the Chan­cel­lor’s Red Book. They’ll ask a simple ques­tion: what does the Budget mean for me and my fam­ily? My job as an MP is to answer that, because what is done in West­min­ster is felt by fam­il­ies here in Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford­shire.

Think about the fam­il­ies you know in Tun­stall, Butt Lane, Small­thorne or Kidsgrove. Often, you’ll find grand­par­ents, par­ents and grand­chil­dren all liv­ing within a mile of each other. This Budget was about giv­ing every one of them some breath­ing room now, and a bit more hope for the future.

Start with the grand­par­ents. Just like my mum and grandad, many spent their lives work­ing in a pot­bank. Now they’re retired, and too many are cau­tiously watch­ing the energy meter. This winter, every house­hold in coun­cil tax bands A to D will get £100 paid straight to them to help with their energy bills. That’s around 19 in every 20 fam­il­ies here – so it’s for every gen­er­a­tion.

The VAT cut on elec­tri­city has been exten­ded too, and the stand­ing charge on gas is being scrapped; the cost we pay even on the days we don’t use gas. None of this makes winter easy, but it makes it that little bit less fright­en­ing.

The places those grand­par­ents worked and wor­shipped in are the ones too many of us now walk past boarded up. It’s one of the things people raise with me most. When I was elec­ted, I prom­ised to do everything I could to stop the rot and bring these build­ings back into use. I’ve worked on this since I entered Par­lia­ment two years ago, so I was delighted when, as part of the Gov­ern­ment’s High Streets First plan, the Derel­ict Build­ings Fund was announced.

I was even more pleased that Stokeon-Trent City Coun­cil is get­ting more than £2.5 mil­lion to tackle our her­it­age emer­gency and trans­form neg­lected build­ings into spaces that local people can use. Our pot­banks, chapels and town halls help make this place spe­cial, and too many of them have been left to crumble.

Their chil­dren might be the ones keep­ing those streets alive: run­ning the café, the pub or the corner shop – often work­ing six days a week and still watch­ing costs climb. From April, over

900 more shops, pubs and cafés will pay no busi­ness rates at all, and the rest will see their bills held down. That means more of what they take over the counter stays in the busi­ness, pay­ing staff and cre­at­ing jobs. And then there are the grand­chil­dren. Young people try­ing their best: work­ing hard, sav­ing what they can, yet still watch­ing the hope of own­ing a home of their own drift out of reach as the rent goes up. The new Your First Home scheme is for them. It means they’ll only need a 2.5% deposit to buy a newly built home, with the Gov­ern­ment lend­ing a hand. The first buy­ers will get their keys next spring. There’s also more money to build new coun­cil and afford­able homes so we can tackle the hous­ing wait­ing lists that fam­il­ies fear they’ll never get off. All three gen­er­a­tions share one frus­tra­tion: the decisions about our area are made a long way away. This Budget gives areas like ours more money and a big­ger say over how it’s spent. Once we have our own mayor for Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford­shire, decisions about our buses, our homes and our jobs will be made right here by people who know the area the best.

The Budget won’t fix everything. But it does mean a warmer winter, a high street with a fight­ing chance and build­ings com­ing back to life. For younger people start­ing out in life, it means the lad­der to home own­er­ship will be a little easier to climb. A lot has been done, but there is plenty more to do. I’ll keep push­ing for our area every step of the way.