This article was originally published in the County Times, 29th November 2025, and can be found here.

I write to you before the Autumn Budget, but the Chancellor will have delivered it by the time this is printed.

The media will be digesting how its contents will affect who is up or down in Westminster, the markets for its fiscal rectitude.

What will not be discussed are the stories of the girl coming into school hungry, the young man facing homelessness, the nurse whose wages are worth less than they were 20 years ago.

There are millions of these stories unfolding across the country. They tell you what kind of economy we need and will continue to need after the furore leaves the front pages.

We need an economy where wealth is taxed fairly. The bottom 10% of earners pay an effective tax rate of 44%, the top 0.01% pay half that, just 21%.

Meanwhile inequality spreads and the public realm crumbles, undermining people’s faith in the ability of social democracy to deliver material improvements to their livelihoods.

That is why, before the budget, I campaigned for a 2% tax on assets over £10m, which could raise £24bn, and for bringing Capital Gains Tax up to the level of Income Tax, which would raise £14bn.

We need an economy where child poverty is greatly reduced. It is a moral failure that a staggering one in three children in Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr grow up in poverty. Across Britain, some 4.5 million souls live in households earning under 60% of the national median income.

That is why I campaigned for the lifting of the two-child benefit limit in full, which would lift nearly half a million of those out of hardship.

We need an economy where everyone has a safe home. Of all households threatened with homelessness in Wales last year, it was only successfully prevented, for at least 6 months, in 57% of cases. Homeless deaths in the UK increased by nearly a tenth in 2024, an average of four a day.

That is why I campaigned to once more link Local Housing Allowance to local rents, which could save thousands from sleeping rough and provide a safety net to people on low incomes fleeing domestic abuse and violence.

Reducing inequality is an important aim in and of itself. But the belief that things can and will get better underpins everything else. Rising inequality destroys that everyday optimism.

If we do not take steps to build a fairer society, I am not convinced we will find a way out of the hole we find ourselves in.