A WEEK is a long time in politics. When George Osborne announced his Budget for 2016 I welcomed it warmly. There were measures to help incentivise saving, the amount you can earn before having to pay income tax will rise to £11,500, there is another freeze on fuel duty, a cut on beer duty which will help support our community pubs and local breweries and a tax on sugary drinks to pay for increased school sport.

The announced cuts in business taxes will support small and medium-sized firms in Wiltshire and two local companies benefitted directly with £316k for Corsham-based charity ‘Recruit For Spouses’ to assist service spouses back into work and £16m for Dyson for research and development of new battery technology.

I spoke in the Chamber to welcome reforms to school funding that I have been campaigning for which, I hope, will benefit the schools in Wiltshire and welcomed these important reforms that honour the manifesto commitments set out last May.

As always, the devil is in the detail and, having studied the specifics within the Budget ‘Red Book’, I did not feel that I could support elements of the changes in welfare spending, particularly the changes to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) that were being proposed.

I supported the introduction of PIP as a way of targeting support on the most vulnerable and help disabled people meet the extra costs of their disability, whilst ensuring that they have every opportunity to work if they are able to, targeting the extra support for disabled people on those who need it most. I believe in compassionate Conservativism.

I have always believed that we must focus on the ‘ability’ not the ‘disability’ and do not believe that people should be written off simply because of a disability. That is why I support the Government in working to ensure that all disabled people have the choices, chances and opportunities that they deserve and need.

Whilst it is important to remember that the overall spending on disability benefits is increasing and that PIP spending will rise every year, I believed that the Chancellor’s proposed changes to PIP were, unintentionally, likely to hurt those most in need.

I have received hundreds of emails on this subject and will be responding to them this week.

I did not seek election to Parliament in order to take money away from disabled people – I will not let them down.

On Thursday I wrote to a number of Ministers setting out my position. In that letter I said that, regretfully, I would not be able to support elements within the Budget.

Thankfully, the Government have listened, the idea to change PIP has been scrapped and I am now fully able to support the Budget. Thank you to all those who have contacted me on Facebook, Twitter, by email, letter and call about this important subject.

As a local MP I must now concentrate on ensuring that the Budget delivers for Wiltshire.