Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash says The Budget lifted thousands of town children out of poverty
The angry messages I get every time support is announced for young families are as predictable as they are depressing.
A small but noisy group always pipes up to complain about free childcare, free breakfast clubs or, heaven forbid, lifting kids out of poverty.
And every time they do, they miss the point completely.
Because the truth is simple: Young families today are worse off than any generation in living memory and they are also the ones paying for everyone else.
Young parents today are working longer hours for less security, paying more tax as a share of their income and raising children in a far harsher economic climate than their parents ever faced.
They have seen house prices explode out of reach. They face childcare costs worse than a second mortgage. They pay for social care that is not there for them.
And they live with the blunt knowledge that the state pension will probably not exist for them in its current form.
Many of today’s older generation retired earlier, bought homes cheaply, benefited from massive house price growth and enjoyed free education.
Their pensions, protected by the triple lock, are far more generous than the systems they paid into themselves.
And now, when a young family gets help with childcare or school meals, some people complain.
The social contract is supposed to be simple: You work hard, you contribute and society supports you when you need it.
But that deal has been shredded. Young people are paying in and being shut out.
Free childcare. Rail fares frozen for the first time in 30 years. £150 off energy bills plus another £150 off through the warm homes discount extended to 17,000 Hartlepool homes.
Frozen prescription charges. Bus fares capped. Free school meals extended to 6,000 Hartlepool children.
These are not luxuries. They are lifelines. They are how working families keep their heads above water.
Every time you give a child a better start in life, you strengthen the foundations of our whole society. Everyone benefits.
Last week, we took the decision to lift 3,210 children out of poverty in our town.
Nationally, it’s nearly 500,000 and the majority come from working families.
This is the right choice, the moral choice, the choice that’s right for our nation.