Week beginning 26th October 2026

Last week was budget week - although some other interesting things happened as well.

Monday 26th October 2026

There was a debate on the governments plan to solve rough sleeping where the government announced that the funding will be almost doubled to £874 million.

There was a debate on Royal Mail, the privatised company that holds the monopoly on letters, failing to fulfil its letter delivery obligations for the fifth year in a row, despite Ofcom lowering its targets last year.

MPs highlighted how many services such as the NHS, benefits and postal voting rely on predictable delivery times for letters and the harms that slow letters can cause.

Tuesday 27th October 2026

In a debate about community resilience, van Mierlo highlighted the impact that community organisations like Greener Henley have.

Greener Henley are a community group and charity that you may know from the Great Big Green Week. They have just launched a new initiative, called Street by Street, encouraging residents to come together with their street to help nature and support each other.

They suggest small projects that work better together like cutting small gaps in fences to allow hedgehogs through, as well as situations that collective organising might make cheaper like bulk buying water butts or solar panels.

Organising in streets could also allow people to better respond as a community to extreme weather events (that are more likely with climate change) like the heat and drought this summer.

Wednesday 28th October 2026

On Wednesday the budget was announced. It was pitched as a "breathing space" budget that doesn't claim to solve all the problems. Much of it has been previously announced but here are a few things that I was interested in.

It included a commitment to only add new electricity generation to the grid when it lowers bills, potentially slowing down the switch to renewable energy. Wind and solar are generally cheaper than gas so if the government follow the policy correctly it shouldn't overly effect clean energy expansion.

An electricity discount (British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme) was announced. It turns out that it applies mostly to arms manufactures.

Minimum wage will be increased from next April to £13.21 for 21 and over, £11.27 for ages 18 to 20 and £8.31 for children. This is slightly smaller than last years increase for 21 and over and significantly less for 18 to 20 (by percentage), going against Labours manifesto promise to equalise pay for the two age groups before the next general election.

An extra 20% business rates reduction for pubs, music venues and social clubs as well as increasing the number of smaller business that pay no business rates, funded by stopping VAT avoidance in online marketplaces.

There are plans to increase government spending and investment over the next few years and changes to fiscal rules calculations to allow day-to-day spending that saves money in the long term. An additional £1.5 billion was announced for social and affordable homes.

Tax on property and savings income will be increased as well as higher tax on gambling machines - complying with their manifesto promise, there will be no increase on working income.

AI is referenced throughout the budget including an independent review into bringing AI into the NHS and a (relatively small) venture-capital style investment of £140 million into British AI companies that promises that "the United Kingdom is your unfair advantage" with "faster pathways to data and regulatory opportunities".

Thursday 29th October 2026

On Thursday the government announced that local government reorganisation, including the reorganisation of Oxfordshire, will go ahead after legal issues. Henley and Thame will both be in the new Ridgeway district along with most of existing South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and West Berkshire.

There are also plans for a Swindon mayor over Swindon, Oxfordshire and Berkshire starting in 2030. Freddie van Mierlo has raised an issue with this - this could lead to a need to reorganise our health board and police because are currently separate from Swindon.

Endnote

There is no Friday in parliament this week.

Thank you for reading, hope you will be back next week.

-- Tom Brandis

Link to share this page: https://last-week.tombrandis.uk/week/2026-10-26/

If you spot a mistake or want to tell me anything email me at tom@tombrandis.uk.

For further infomation see Hansard (the official parliament report).

To contact Freddie van Mierlo email freddie.vanmierlo.mp@parliament.uk. You can follow him on Bluesky.

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