This week in the Commons, Member of Parliament for Epping Forest, Dr Neil Hudson, called out this year’s Budget for raising taxes while failing to deliver the vital services relied on for workers and employers in Epping Forest on issues like healthcare and transport services.
In his speech in the 2025 Budget Debate, Dr Hudson particularly focused on the Budget’s failure to deliver the services they need that Dr Hudson has campaigned for since being elected Member of Parliament for Epping Forest.
Dr Hudson pressed the Government to get on with fulfilling rebuilds of Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, and Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, as Labour promised they would do during the General Election campaign. Whipps Cross, which Labour explicitly pledged would be fully rebuilt, is now facing £170million in backlog maintenance costs due to its decision to delay the project until the 2030s, one of the highest figures in the country. Dr Hudson has raised this repeatedly in Parliament since his election, and did so again only last week to urge the projects get underway.
Likewise, Dr Hudson championed the need for his Epping Forest constituents for improved transport services, particularly on the Central Line. He highlighted the worsening quality of Central Line services, from severe delays, overcrowding, to overheating in the Summer and uncomfortable levels of noise from the rails.
He also repeated his calls for action over rising levels of graffitiing of trains, which he has raised with TfL and the Mayor of London on several occasions. You can see more about Dr Hudson’s work on this issue here.
Standing up for the precious Green Belt of Epping Forest was also a focus of Dr Hudson’s speech, which he described as the ‘heart and lungs’ of the area, urging the Government not to persevere with its reclassification of some Green Belt land as “Grey Belt” that allows it to be built on, ripping away its benefits of the natural environment, biodiversity and its benefits to people’s wellbeing. He has been absolutely clear that local communities must be heard in planning decisions and not have top-down bureaucracy imposed on them from this Government. This likewise is something that Dr Hudson has repeatedly pressed the Government on since his election, last doing so only last month, which you can see more about here.
In a very similar vein, as an MP and Shadow DEFRA Minister, he has been explicitly concerned about the potential risk to food-producing agricultural land around the constituency from the excessive development of solar farms, using his most recent opportunity at the Despatch Box to urge the Government to do more to protect this land.
He was also clear to remind them that this Government have taken the decision to money from the taxpayers of Epping Forest on national policies that are not beneficial to the UK , from spending £1.8billion on a digital ID scheme, to the Chagos Islands agreement costing the UK £35billion.
The Budget also saw the Government vote to keep the Family Farms Tax announced in last year’s Budget, something Dr Hudson has been vocal about as a Shadow DEFRA Minister, making clear that it is a threat to the very future of the farming industry in this country. On the morning of the Budget itself, he joined farmers at their rally to call on the Government to do the right thing and scrap the tax. Many farms have already had to make difficult decisions about whether they can continue operating or must be sold off, despite many existing for many generations, because of the move.
Following his speech in the Chamber, Dr Hudson commented:
“This high-tax and low-delivery Budget completely lets down the people of Epping Forest, paying more in tax and getting nothing they need in return.
The Government have chosen to splurge the money of my hard-working constituents on disastrous policies like Digital ID and the Chagos Islands sellout. Yet, the Whipps Cross and Princess Alexandra Hospital rebuilds Labour promised are forced to wait until the 2030s, Central Line services remain unacceptably delayed, overcrowded and covered in graffiti like they belong in Gotham City, and local communities are ridden roughshod by the Government’s Grey Belt approach that condemns the heart and lungs of our community, the Green Belt, to inappropriate developments.
Worse still, Labour MPs voted to consign our hard-working farming sector to potential ruin by maintaining the Family Farms Tax. Only one labour MP voted against the plans. Its effects are being felt now. This Government must listen to the farmers who rallied on Budget day to make clear their very livelihoods depend on this heartless, misguided tax being reversed.
I will always stand up against Labour economic policy that neglects the people and places of Epping Forest, and champion a different approach that lowers taxes, like our abolition of Stamp Duty and business rates proposals, and delivers the services that people rightly deserve.”
