House of Commons

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

Wednesday 6 November 2024

The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock

Prayers

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Carolyn Harris (Neath and Swansea East) (Lab)]

1. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support the steel industry in Wales.

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

11. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support the steel industry in Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Jo Stevens)]

Steelmaking is key to our missions to grow the economy and deliver clean power by 2030. We are committed to providing up to £2.5 billion for steel in addition to the £500 million already earmarked for Tata to build its electric arc furnace at the Port Talbot steelworks. I was pleased to reaffirm at the Budget £80 million of funding for the Port Talbot transition board, which I chair. We will continue to deliver this money to people and businesses affected.

[Carolyn Harris]

Unlike the previous Government, this Government are fully committed to enabling the £800 million transition fund to support former steelworkers. I recently visited the steelworkers’ support centre in Port Talbot, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberafan Maesteg (Stephen Kinnock). In its opening four weeks, it has helped almost 600 individuals, many of whom will be from Neath and Swansea East. Will the Secretary of State join me in thanking Community union and the other organisations that have set up the centre, and provide an update on the transition fund?

[Jo Stevens]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that the hub is great. I opened the hub last month, and Community union and others have done a fabulous job with this one-stop shop to help support workers affected by the changes at Tata. This Government are determined to do everything we can to support workers and businesses. That is why this renewed partnership of Governments, unions and the local council is working together to ensure that the town gets what it needs. Funding from the UK Government is already making a difference via the transition board. We know that there is a huge amount of work to do, but we are already seeing people successfully placed in new jobs as a direct result of the £13.5 million that we have made available so far.

[Adam Thompson]

I thank the Secretary of State for her hard work to support our steel industry and our general steel communities, including in Port Talbot, since she has been in post. I was pleased to see the Chancellor confirm in the Budget £80 million of funding for the transition board, which the Secretary of State chairs. Will she tell the House why that was necessary?

[Jo Stevens]

In my first week as Welsh Secretary, I discovered that the £80 million promised by the previous Conservative Government for the transition board was part of the £22 billion of unfunded promises they had made. That shocking dereliction of duty threatened to leave workers and businesses high and dry without the support they needed. I have therefore made it my mission to fight tooth and nail for that money on behalf of our steel communities, and I would not have left them unsupported. I am pleased to be able to confirm that under this Labour Government the transition board is fully funded, and we are getting on with the delivery.

[Mr Speaker]

I welcome the new shadow Secretary of State for Wales.

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. At the outset, as I come to the Dispatch Box for the first time in this role for Wales questions, may I please pay tribute to my former private secretary in the Wales Office, Debbie John, who was taken at a tender age due to pancreatic cancer? She and her family are in my thoughts today as I take up this role. She is much missed and very fondly remembered.

The right hon. Lady clearly needs to acknowledge to the House that the deal for Tata steel recently re-announced by her UK Government is identical to the one negotiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), who is now Leader of the Opposition.

[Jo Stevens]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her place and join her in her comments about her former private office secretary.

I think the hon. Lady needs to read the deal reached by the Government. The £1.25 billion transformation project at Port Talbot will deliver a state-of-the-art electric furnace, the contract for which has just been signed. In just under 10 weeks, without providing any additional funding beyond the £500 million previously announced, we delivered a better deal that secures the immediate future of Port Talbot and lays the foundations for future investment, as well as enhanced protections for the workforce in Port Talbot, Llanwern, Trostre and Shotton.

[Mims Davies]

I am delighted that the right hon. Lady has read the deal that we wrote, but the facts are simple: despite the protesting, this is the same deal that was previously negotiated by the last Conservative Government, involving the same amount of money to build the electric arc furnace and the same cash for the transition board. It is ludicrous for her or others to continue to claim that no support was in place and that it somehow appeared when she found it down the back of the sofa. She is fully aware that the cash had been sitting there the whole time. Perhaps an apology is needed for that, and for claiming that Port Talbot supplies the defence industry with materials.

[Jo Stevens]

If an apology is due, it is to the people of Port Talbot for promising £80 million for a transition board that operated for nine months under the previous Secretary of State for Wales, and delivered not a single penny to the people of Port Talbot, and now we know why: the £80 million did not exist.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)]

The closure of the last blast furnace at Port Talbot has resulted in the loss of several thousand highly skilled jobs across south Wales, prompting another economic contraction across our region. The global centre for rail excellence at Onllwyn is one project that could reverse the trend of deindustrialisation and bring back good, well-paid jobs to south Wales. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the UK Government intend to make further investments in that project, and give an update on what conversations she has had to ensure that the project gets going?

[Jo Stevens]

The hon. Gentleman will know from both the Budget and the international investment summit that significant investments are being made in Wales as a result of this Government’s work: £63 billion was announced at the investment summit, £1 billion to Shotton Mill in north Wales—the biggest investment in Wales for decades. That will secure 300 jobs and mean that we will have the largest UK paper manufacturing site in the whole United Kingdom. We are growing the economy, creating jobs and delivering significant investment. I will write to him about the rail project.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to strengthen the Union.

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

3. What steps she is taking to strengthen the Union.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Jo Stevens)]

We have reset our relationship with the Welsh Government. Our approach is based on trust and mutual respect, and is spearheaded by the new Council of the Nations and Regions, which met for the first time last month. My regular meetings with the First Minister of Wales are also driving forward our new partnership, which is already delivering for Wales. That was evident in the biggest ever real-terms Budget settlement delivered for the Welsh Government last week.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

The Secretary of State has been clear that this Labour Government will build a new partnership with the Welsh Government based on co-operation, respect and delivery. Will she say how the Government will give meaning to the manifesto commitment to strengthen devolution?

[Jo Stevens]

The previous Conservative Government ran roughshod over the devolution settlement, including by legislating in devolved areas without consent on numerous occasions. This Government will respect the devolution settlement and work in partnership with all devolved Governments. We will honour our manifesto commitment to do that by strengthening the Sewel convention, including a new memorandum of understanding between our Governments, ensuring that the petty squabbles of the past are confined to history and we can focus on delivering for the people of Wales.

[Mark Ferguson]

The Secretary of State has been very clear about the much-needed reset between the Welsh and UK Governments. Can she also make clear how the recent Budget has contributed to that reset?

[Jo Stevens]

Our Budget delivered for Wales for the first time in a generation, because the £21 billion settlement announced last week is the largest settlement in real terms since the dawn of devolution. It will provide a record boost for the Welsh Government to support vital public services in Wales, such as the NHS. It includes £25 million to maintain work to keep coal tips safe, and £320 million for investment zones in north and south Wales to power our sector strengths, which include the creative industries, life sciences and advanced manufacturing—for example, our world-leading compound semiconductor cluster. That shows the difference of Labour Governments working together.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

First, may I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), who has just taken on the role of shadow Secretary of State for Wales? It is a fantastic opportunity for her to champion a vital part of our Union. Secondly, may I ask the Secretary of State, who is newly in her post, what she will do to ensure that the power that brings our Union together comes out of Ynys Môn—that is Anglesey to her—so that she can ensure that the nuclear projects that keep us safe are properly invested in and not dropped, as they have been by this Labour Government? Labour Governments control both sides of the M4 now, and it is about time they delivered.

[Jo Stevens]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has ever been to Anglesey—or Ynys Môn, as he describes it. I am eager to see new nuclear developments in north Wales that will provide high-quality jobs across the region and drive economic growth. We recognise that a nuclear future at Wylfa could help to deliver several of our strategic objectives, achieving net zero energy independence and restoring economic prosperity across our nations and regions. Great British Nuclear completed the purchase of the site in June this year, and we will make further announcements about it very soon.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Could the Secretary of State explain how it is possible to strengthen the Union while maintaining a partitioning border in the Irish sea at the behest of a foreign jurisdiction and under its laws?

[Jo Stevens]

I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to my previous answer about the resetting of the relationship with the Welsh Government, and about working together and respecting the devolution settlement with all devolved Governments.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Secretary of State talks about respecting the devolution settlement. Mark Drakeford wrote to the Chancellor before the Budget asking for a review of Wales’s Barnett formula for transport funding, which had fallen from 81% in 2015 to 36% in 2021. However, the Budget revealed a further cut in the Welsh transport comparability factor, which is now down to 33%. How come strengthening the Union under Labour means that every major rail project in England results in Wales losing out?

[Jo Stevens]

We are having ongoing discussions with the Welsh Government about funding flexibilities and their fiscal framework. We will deliver our manifesto commitment to work with the Welsh Government to address the outdated fiscal framework. As the right hon. Lady knows, heavy rail infrastructure is not devolved in Wales as it is in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Department for Transport settlement provides a £1.1 billion cash increase to total budgets in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25.

[Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)]

4. What discussions she has had with the Welsh Government on the impact of the autumn Budget on Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Jo Stevens)]

I have regular discussions with the First Minister of Wales on a range of topics, including, of course, the autumn Budget. This Budget has delivered for Wales for the first time in a generation. The Welsh Government are receiving the largest settlement in real terms since devolution, to support public services such as the NHS. More than 100,000 workers in Wales benefit from increases in the national minimum wage and the national living wage each year.

[Llinos Medi]

In the Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Barnett formula would apply to funding for agriculture, rather than the devolved Governments receiving a ringfenced amount. The Farmers’ Union of Wales says that the Barnettisation of funding could lead to a cut of £146 million a year, or more than 40%. Can the Secretary of State say whether that figure is correct, and whether she believes that her Government’s Budget has shown any consideration at all for our farming communities?

[Jo Stevens]

I was very pleased that the Budget was able to protect the current farming budget for the next financial year, despite the difficult decisions that we had to make because the Conservative party had trashed our economy. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Griffith, you are continually being a nuisance on the Front Bench. I want you either to restrict it or to go and get yourself that cup of tea.

[Jo Stevens]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Obviously, farming is devolved in Wales, and the decision on how to spend that budget will be up to the Welsh Government.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

I welcomed last week’s Budget announcements about improving rail transport, and I want to bang the drum for a most excellent project in Monmouthshire, the Magor walkway station, which is ready for investment—indeed, we might even call it oven-ready. Will my right hon. Friend commit to working with the Rail Minister and me, and Welsh Ministers, to deliver the five Burns stations, and will she meet me to discuss progress?

[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is a wonderful advocate for her constituency and for the Burns commission’s recommendations for her constituency, and I would be very happy to meet her to discuss them.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State express her regret about the impact of Labour’s Budget on Wales? It will undoubtedly make the people of Wales poorer. Pensioners have been left wondering whether they should turn on their heating this winter, and family farms will be destroyed. The Budget is affecting business confidence and employment across the nation.

[Jo Stevens]

The Budget provides the biggest ever settlement in real terms since the dawn of devolution, a protected £80 million for steelworkers and businesses, £88 million for city and growth deals, £320 million for funding through investment zones, £25 million for coal tips and a protected £440 million for local communities— I could go on. It was a great deal for Wales.

[Mims Davies]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. You cannot just keep asking questions, shadow Secretary of State. You are allowed only two, and that was your second.

[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

5. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on increasing economic growth in Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Jo Stevens)]

The growth mission is the central priority for this Government. Our new industrial strategy and national wealth fund will boost economic growth across Wales, creating jobs and driving up living standards. Working alongside ministerial colleagues, I was pleased to confirm £320 million of funding for two investment zones in Wales, the green light on the freeport in the Celtic sea and protection for local community growth funding across Wales.

[Andrew Ranger]

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. Universities in Wales, such as Wrexham University in my constituency, are crucial not just for the educational and research outcomes they provide, but for the economic opportunities they give our towns and cities, with a recent report by Universities Wales showing that their contribution to the economy stands at £11 billion. At a time when we are firmly in pursuit of economic growth, can the Secretary of State tell me what conversations she has had to ensure that universities in Wales are partners in this mission? Will she agree to visit Wrexham University with me to see at first hand the brilliant work that it is doing in collaboration with local businesses?

[Jo Stevens]

I would be delighted to go back to Wrexham and visit the university with my hon. Friend. Welsh universities will benefit from record levels of investment in research and development, which will be worth over £20 billion next year. The Budget confirmed £160 million of funding for the Wrexham and Flintshire investment zone, which was chosen due to the presence of world-renowned research institutions such as Wrexham University and Bangor University.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

We say the phrase “no farmers, no food” so often, but never has there been a need for such emphasis as in the wake of the autumn Budget. Farmers in Wales, in Northern Ireland and right across this United Kingdom are reeling from the change in agricultural property relief and the impact it will have on the future of family farms. What is the Secretary of State doing to support farmers and make this case to the Treasury?

[Jo Stevens]

This Government continue to provide significant tax relief for farmers. For example, farming parents are able to pass up to £3 million to their children free of tax. They then pay half of the normal inheritance tax rates on anything over £3 million, and they have up to 10 years to pay it. The vast majority of farms will be unaffected by the changes in the Budget and will continue not to pay inheritance tax.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West and Islwyn) (Lab)]

6. What discussions she is having with the Welsh Government on collaborative efforts to improve healthcare in England and Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Jo Stevens)]

Cutting waiting lists is a top priority for both this Government and the Welsh Government. Last week’s spending review provided the Welsh Government with the largest real-terms settlement since devolution, including an additional £1.7 billion for 2025-26, enabling them to spend more on public services such as the NHS. I continue to collaborate with ministerial colleagues in both Governments, with the aim of driving down waiting lists.

[Ruth Jones]

I welcome this new partnership between the Welsh and UK Governments, which represents a real opportunity to share best practice and help to cut NHS waiting lists in England and Wales. Will the Secretary of State expand on how she will ensure that patients on both sides of the border get access to the best healthcare possible in a timely matter?

[Jo Stevens]

Both Governments are working collaboratively to make the NHS fit for the future. We provided a £1.75 billion boost for the Welsh Government to spend on public services such as the NHS, and the Welsh Government have just announced £28 million to cut NHS waiting times. Both Governments are sharing best practice and will consider more cross-border arrangements where capacity allows. The Welsh Government’s ministerial advisory group on NHS performance and productivity has been established to support improvements and bring down long waiting lists.

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

The Secretary of State will know that health is devolved across all the nations. Can she reassure me that the Secretary of State for Health will work with all the devolved Health Ministers to make sure that we can truly engender a national health service for the likes of mental health provision?

[Jo Stevens]

I know that the Health and Social Care Secretary wants to ensure that the national health service across all of our four nations is fit for the future.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The British Medical Association in Wales says that GP funding has decreased as a percentage of the Welsh Government’s budget by over 2.6% since 2005. Treflan surgery in Pwllheli cannot afford to fill key staff roles, and Budget measures will cost it an extra £19,000. The Secretary of State for Wales knows the state of the NHS in Wales, so why is she instrumental in Labour at both ends of the M4 threatening GP surgeries?

[Jo Stevens]

We are not threatening GP surgeries. If the right hon. Lady does not think that the £1.7 billion additional funding to spend on the NHS in Wales as a result of the Budget is a great idea, she needs to say what she would do instead.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

7. What discussions she is having with the Welsh Government on support for the farming industry in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dame Nia Griffith)]

I recently met the Deputy First Minister of Wales to discuss a range of matters relating to farming. In September, the inter-ministerial group meeting on rural affairs agreed to improve food security and environmental land management by increasing the exchange of data and insights on farming support schemes. I was also pleased to see the Budget protecting Welsh farm budgets at current levels for the financial year.

[Clive Jones]

The Secretary of State, while in opposition, warned that the New Zealand trade deal would push Welsh farmers into bankruptcy and noted that Australian meat was produced at a far lower standard than in Wales. I agree. My constituents want high-quality Welsh lamb, beef and chicken. Will the Minister therefore push her colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade to review the Australia and New Zealand trade agreement and get it right for our farming communities?

[Dame Nia Griffith]

The hon. Member will know as well as I do that the new Leader of the Opposition is the one who sold our farmers down the river, negotiating deals with places such as Australia and leaving our farmers open to increasing quotas on imported meat. I assure him that this Government are committed to promoting robust standards, nationally and internationally, to protect consumer interests and to ensure that consumers have confidence in the food that they buy. We will consider the full range of tools at our disposal to uphold the UK’s commitment to high standards. That includes using our influence in the World Trade Organisation and other multilateral bodies to argue for better and fairer trading rules.

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

8. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help create new jobs in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dame Nia Griffith)]

Our mission to kick-start economic growth will deliver good jobs and growth in Wales. Just last month, our international investment summit secured over £63 billion in private investment into the UK. Since July, we have secured over £1 billion of investment into north Wales, creating and sustaining 400 well-paid jobs in manufacturing.

[Steve Witherden]

The Secretary of State has said that economic growth is her No. 1 priority. Can the Minister say how the Budget’s confirmation of the investment zones will help contribute to that aim?

[Dame Nia Griffith]

The Budget includes a total of £320 million and a commitment for the investment zones in Cardiff and Newport and in Wrexham and Flintshire. This is a crucial part of our work with the Welsh Government to provide a rocket boost for sectoral strengths such as the creative industries, the life sciences and advanced manufacturing, including our world-leading compound semiconductor cluster.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There is great potential for creating new jobs in wind energy and sea energy in Wales. We in Northern Ireland, and in Belfast in particular, have the engineering skills to provide the turbines for that energy production. Everyone would gain: Wales would get the jobs, and Northern Ireland would get the jobs as well.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

This Government are absolutely committed to economic growth across all parts of the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Mr Speaker]

I welcome the Leader of the Opposition and wish her well.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 6 November.

[The Prime Minister (Keir Starmer)]

I begin by congratulating President-elect Trump on his historic election victory. As the closest of allies, the UK and the US will continue to work together to protect our shared values of freedom and democracy. Having had dinner with President-elect Trump just a few weeks ago, I look forward to working with him in the years to come.

I also welcome the Leader of the Opposition to her place—my fourth Tory leader in four and a half years. I look forward to working with her in the interests of the British public.

This weekend is Remembrance Sunday, when people across the country will come together to pay solemn tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defending the values and freedoms that we enjoy today. I am sure the entire House will join me in paying tribute to them.

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

My constituent Suzanne is going to miss out on her winter fuel allowance this winter because she is just £10 above the pension credit threshold. As well as losing out on that vital money to keep her house warm, she does not get the £150 warm home discount, the £169 free TV licence or free NHS prescriptions. For the sake of a tenner, is this fair?

[The Prime Minister]

We introduced a Budget to fix the foundations of this country and to rebuild our country. One of the issues we had to confront was the £22 billion black hole left by the last Government. We have taken the tough decisions that will stabilise our economy. This means we can commit to the triple lock, which means that pensioners will be better off, seeing an increase in their pension, than they would have been under the Conservative party.

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

Q2. Every week I meet hard-working families in Burton and Uttoxeter who are juggling raising their children with managing their family finances. When they hear the Conservative party and its new leader say that maternity pay has “gone too far,” they are terrified about what that means for them. To ease the worry felt by thousands of hard-working families, will the Prime Minister please confirm that he has no plans to change maternity pay or to roll back the hard-won rights of working families?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is a champion for families in his constituency. My answer is simple: yes. I do not agree with the Leader of the Opposition when she says that maternity pay is excessive and has gone too far.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his almost warm welcome. I echo the comments he has made. It is an immense privilege and the honour of my life to lead the Conservative party. I look forward to joining him at the Cenotaph this Remembrance Sunday.

As Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition, I will be taking a different approach to the last Opposition, by being a constructive Opposition, so I would like to start by congratulating President-elect Trump on his impressive victory this morning. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary met him in September. Did the Foreign Secretary take that opportunity to apologise for making derogatory and scatological references, including

“Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath. He is also a profound threat to the international order”?

If he did not apologise, will the Prime Minister do so now, on his behalf?

[The Prime Minister]

There will be many issues on which the Leader of the Opposition and I disagree, but there will be issues that unite this House, on national security and Ukraine. I look forward to working closely with her on that. I will provide her with the information that she needs to discharge her duties. That is the right thing for the country and it is far more important than party politics. The Foreign Secretary and I did meet President-elect Trump, just a few weeks ago, for dinner, for about a couple of hours. We discussed a number of issues of global significance. It was a very constructive exercise.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The Prime Minister did not distance himself from the remarks made by the Foreign Secretary, and I am very sure that President Trump will soon be calling to thank him for sending all of those north London Labour activists to campaign for his opponent. Given that most of his Cabinet signed a motion to ban President Trump from addressing Parliament, will the Prime Minister show that he and his Government can be more than student politicians by asking the Speaker to extend—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Perkins, I do not need any more. Your voice carries; it is like mine—too loud.

[Mrs Badenoch]

Will the Prime Minister show that he and his Government can be more than student politicians by asking you, Mr Speaker, to extend an invitation to President Trump to address Parliament on his next visit?

[The Prime Minister]

The Leader of the Opposition is giving a masterclass on student politics! But seriously, we live in probably a more volatile world than we have lived in for many decades. It is absolutely crucial that we have a strong relationship—that strong, special relationship, forged in difficult circumstances—between the US and the UK. We will continue to work, as we have done in our four months in government, on issues of security, our economy and global conflict.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The Prime Minister does not answer the questions; he just reads the lines the officials have prepared for him. It does not sound like he wants to invite President-elect Trump to Parliament. He needs to look after the special relationship. The US is our single biggest trade partner. Given the risk of increased tariffs on UK exports, which threatens our manufacturing sector, will the Prime Minister commit now to continuing the negotiations on our free trade agreement with the US, which the Biden Administration cancelled when they came into office?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we will discuss issues of our economy with the President-elect, as we already have done. Economy, security and global conflict are issues of real significance that ought to unite this House. When it comes to the economy, what we have done with our Budget is to fix the foundations after 14 years, and return economic stability after the £22 billion black hole. We have protected the payslips of working people. We have made the single biggest investment in our country for a generation in the NHS, schools and homes. We have given a pay rise to the 3 million lowest paid. If the Leader of the Opposition is opposed to that investment or the pay rise for working people—she is a straight talker, as I understand it—perhaps she should say so.

[Mrs Badenoch]

Discuss, discuss, discuss; chat, chat, chat—the Prime Minister has no plans whatsoever for building on the special relationship. He needs to realise that we in this country rely on our single biggest trade partner. President Trump is also right to argue that Europe needs to increase its defence spending. The last Conservative Government committed to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. Will the Prime Minister finally match that commitment?

[The Prime Minister]

There is no more important duty than keeping the people of this country safe. It was the Labour Government who signed the NATO treaty in the first place, and we are strong supporters. We have a strategic defence review, and we are committed to 2.5%. [Interruption.] I remind Conservative Members that the last time 2.5% was met was under the last Labour Government. Fourteen years, and they never did it once. Last year, the National Audit Office identified a £17 billion black hole in the Ministry of Defence finances. The former Defence Secretary said that the previous Government “hollowed out” the armed forces. The plan that the Conservatives put forward at the election was pure fantasy.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The Prime Minister will not make that commitment; that is very clear. All that he is doing —[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am going to hear the questions. If there are people who do not want to hear them, they can leave now.

[Mrs Badenoch]

The Prime Minister will not make that commitment, yet the world is getting more dangerous. His Chancellor’s Budget did not even mention defence. The Chancellor’s Budget last week was a copy and paste of Bidenomics. It turns out that a high-spending, high-borrowing and high-inflation approach is less popular than she may have thought. May I suggest that he now urges her to change course, or is he determined to be a one-term leader?

[The Prime Minister]

The one thing that I learned as Leader of the Opposition is that it is a good idea to listen to what the Government are actually saying. I think the right hon. Lady just said that defence was not mentioned in the Budget. It was seven days ago that it was absolutely clear and central to the Budget, as was economic growth. We are fixing the foundations. We are giving a pay rise to millions of people. We are picking up the mess that the Conservatives left, including the £22 billion black hole, and giving a pay rise to working people. I have not yet heard her welcome that pay rise for the 3 million lowest paid workers. Does she now welcome it, or does she stick to her previous policy that it is excessive?

[Mrs Badenoch]

I was the one who, as Business Secretary, raised the minimum wage last year; I have a strong record on this. We need to make sure that we balance the books. The Prime Minister’s scripted lines show that he has not even listened to the Budget himself, so I will try a different question. Perhaps he can give something that is unscripted to the people who are watching.

Farmers across the United Kingdom—[Laughter.] Mr Speaker—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not need any help. If anybody wants to leave, I will help them do that. I am going to hear the question, and I certainly want to hear the answer as well, so, please, let us have some courtesy.

[Mrs Badenoch]

We have heard the Prime Minister on television repeat the lines “fixing the foundations” and so on, over and over again, but what does he say to farmers who are facing uncertainty about their futures as a result of the increased taxes announced by the Chancellor? I am very clear that we would reverse Labour’s cruel family farms tax. [Hon. Members: “Reading!”] What can he say now to reassure the farming community —[Hon. Members: “Reading!”]—who provide security for the whole nation?

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to help the Leader of the Opposition. If she is going to complain about scripted answers, it is probably best not to read that from a script! [Hon. Members: “More!”] I am glad that she raised the issue of farmers, because the Budget last week put £5 billion over the next two years into farming. That is the single biggest increase, unlike the £300 million underspend under the last Government. When it comes to inheritance, the vast, vast majority of farmers will be unaffected, as she and her party well know.

The Budget was about fixing the foundations, fixing the £22 billion hole that the Conservatives left and investing in the future of our country—investing in our NHS, our schools, our hospitals and our homes. I am proud that we are making that investment. If the Opposition oppose it, they should go out there and tell their constituents that they are against that investment in the future of our country. That is the difference: a Labour Government taking us forward; the Conservatives are stuck in the past.

[Hon. Members]

More!

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I want to hear Matthew Patrick.

[Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Q3. Emily left her ex, but the abuse did not stop. He stayed in their home, cancelled the mortgage contributions and destroyed her credit score. Now she cannot even take out a mobile phone contract. Surviving Economic Abuse and UK Finance have made progress in tackling this issue, but more has to be done. Will the Prime Minister and his Government work with me to introduce new provisions, so that we can restore the credit files for survivors of economic abuse like Emily?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this really important issue. Economic abuse has a devastating impact on victims, leaving them vulnerable and isolated, and we are committed to ending this national emergency and keeping women safe from domestic abuse, harassment and stalking. That includes £200,000 this year for the charity Surviving Economic Abuse, and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has launched an online tool to help charities and businesses to identify and respond to economic abuse. I will make sure that my hon. Friend has a meeting with the relevant Minister.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I join the Prime Minister in his comments about Remembrance Sunday. We must always remember the brave British men and women who gave their lives for our country. I also join him in welcoming the Conservative leader to her place, and congratulate her on becoming the first black leader of a UK-wide party—a major and historic achievement.

President-elect Trump praised Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He called it “genius”. He also said that he would encourage Russia

“to do whatever the hell they want”

to NATO allies, so what action is the Prime Minister taking to encourage a Trump presidency to change its mind? Otherwise, it is a huge threat to global security, and national security in the UK. Does the Prime Minister agree that, if the US will not oppose President Putin and support our brave Ukrainian allies, the UK must lead in Europe, so that together we do?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very proud that in this House we are united on the question of Ukraine, and clear about Russian aggression, and we will continue to be so. I have long taken the view that the only winner if we are divided in this House is Putin, and I am not prepared to let that happen. Our relationship with the US is a strong relationship, forged in very difficult circumstances historically. It remains as strong today as it was when it was first forged, and I look forward to working with President-elect Trump to ensure that that relationship stays the special relationship.

[Ed Davey]

I am grateful for the Prime Minister’s comments on Ukraine, but Donald Trump has also said that “trade wars are good”. He calls himself “Tariff Man”. People are really worried that Trump’s trade wars and tariffs will damage our economy, damage businesses, and hit the cost of living here in the UK. Given that, does the Prime Minister recognise that it is more urgent than ever that we support our British economy by getting rid of the damaging trade barriers with Europe put in place by the Conservatives?

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Member will know, we made the economy the centrepiece of our Budget, and we will do everything that we need to do to ensure that our economy grows, and that is measured in living standards going up for working people across the country.

[Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)]

Q5. Many families across Aldershot and Farnborough have struggled for years to get their children with special educational needs the help that they need. It is therefore shameful to read the misguided claims made by the Leader of the Opposition that autistic people“may well get better treatment”and receive economic privileges and protections. Will the Prime Minister stand with the families of autistic children, and distance the Government from those awful words?

[The Prime Minister]

I will leave the Leader of the Opposition to respond to those words. As the recent National Audit Office report exposed, children with special educational needs and disabilities were being failed by the system under the previous Government. This has come up I think five times in the last two or three weeks at PMQs. It is clearly a serious issue. Our focus will be on ensuring that every child receives the right support to succeed in their education.

[Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)]

Northern Ireland is considered one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be a woman—24 women have been killed in the last four years—but one of the most dangerous places for women and girls is online. I pay tribute to Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid, which is tireless in its advocacy of women. What are the Government doing to keep women and girls safe online, not just in Lagan Valley but right across the United Kingdom?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member is right to draw attention to that issue. Misogyny and abuse, both online and offline, cause horrendous harm to women and girls across the UK. I commend her for her honesty and bravery in speaking out about her own experiences, and for her dedication to creating safe spaces for women in her constituency. We must create a safer world online for women and girls through the Online Safety Act 2023, mitigating the risk of illegal content and activity that is abusive or incites hatred.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Q6. Everyone in Southwark will benefit from the positive measures in last week’s Budget, especially the thousands of people on minimum wage, who will get a real-terms increase to help themselves, their families and the economy. The new leader of the Tory party—this week’s leader—is on record as saying that she wants to scrap the minimum wage, having seemingly learned nothing from July. Will the Prime Minister pledge to protect the minimum wage and increase it in this Parliament as finances allow?

[The Prime Minister]

The previous Labour Government transformed the labour market with the national minimum wage. That was opposed by the Conservatives at the time, and sadly they do not seem to have changed. I was surprised by the comments of the Leader of the Opposition. I was surprised to see the new shadow Business Secretary say that the minimum wage was

“something that legislators pass to make themselves feel good.”

I disagree. I am very proud of the fact that this Labour Government have raised wages for 3 million low-paid workers, and I expect the Conservative party to welcome that.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Q4.   After 14 years shaping the UK’s long-term strategies for life sciences, agritech, fusion and space, I welcome the Government’s industrial strategy. However, too many of our great companies are being bought out by our competitors. To build the industries of tomorrow here, we need to unlock some of the hundreds of billions of pounds in UK pension funds in the City, only 3% of which are now investing in UK equities. With the new Lord Mayor making that a priority, and the Mansion House speech imminent, will the new Government commit to seeing through the previous Government’s reforms to unlock British capital for British research and development growth?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Member for welcoming the industrial strategy. I know that this issue is close to his heart; he has spoken about and acted on it for many years. The Budget sees record R&D investment, with over £20 billion next year, including over £2 billion to support our world-leading life sciences sector. Through the British Growth Partnership, we will crowd in pension fund investment to support innovative business, and we have launched our landmark pensions review to unlock billions of pounds of investment into the UK and boost growth and living standards across the country.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

Q7. As the Chancellor said last week, we were left a toxic legacy by the previous Government, including rivers filled with polluted waste. Will the Prime Minister put the River Wye into special measures by designating it a water protection zone, and will he meet me and the excellent cross-border Wye Catchment Partnership to deliver its plan to clean up the Wye?

[The Prime Minister]

The River Wye is one of our most important and iconic rivers, and we are working closely with the Welsh Government on that pressing issue. The destruction of our waterways should never have been allowed. That is why we have launched a water commission to attract investment and speed up infrastructure delivery, and why we have introduced legislation to enable tougher penalties and severe fines to crack down on polluters. I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets a meeting with the relevant Minister.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Q8. As a good lawyer, the Prime Minister will want to listen to the evidence, so if evidence mounts from experts and organisations such as the National Farmers Union that smaller family farms of average size—250 acres—will be severely impacted by the tax changes, will he, in a spirit of compromise, listen to that evidence, keep an open mind and perhaps be prepared to raise the threshold in order to preserve our family farms?

[The Prime Minister]

We are listening to farmers, and the Environment Secretary and Treasury Ministers met with the NFU on Monday. We have taken a fair and balanced approach: the vast, vast majority of farms will not be affected. What I will also say is that having grown up in a rural community, I know that rural communities also need an NHS that is back on its feet, schools that their children can go to and homes that their families can afford to live in, but we will continue to talk to the NFU and others.

[Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)]

Q9. This week, the Leader of the Opposition told us that any outrage at suitcases full of wine and karaoke machines in Downing Street while people across the country were told to stay at home was all “overblown”. For the people and businesses in my constituency who followed the rules—many of us at great personal cost—this is an insult. Will the Prime Minister join me in ensuring that we as a country learn the lessons from covid, and that the Conservatives as a party learn the lessons of their behaviour too?

[The Prime Minister]

Across the country, people made enormous sacrifices during covid. They missed weddings, births and deaths—really important moments in their and their families’ lives. In doing so, they saved the lives of people they will probably never meet. That was a collective effort, and unfortunately the party opposite, who set the rules, did not follow them themselves. It was a betrayal of those who did, and I think the Leader of the Opposition was wrong to describe the public anger and upset as “overblown”. I am sure she will want to clarify that at the first opportunity.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Llinos Medi.

[Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)]

Q12. Diolch, Llefarydd. Representatives of Glan Rhos nursing home in my constituency tell me that the Budget changes mean a 10% increase in their in-year costs—a staggering £127,500 extra. Will the Prime Minister reconsider the rise in employer national insurance?

[The Prime Minister]

What we did in last week’s Budget was ensure that no one would face tax rises in their payslip. We had to deal with the £22 billion black hole, but when we did so, we protected the smallest businesses and charities. We doubled the employment allowance to £10,500, meaning that 40% of employers will not pay employer national insurance contributions. Companies with four employees or fewer on the minimum wage will pay no employer NICs at all, and half of businesses that pay NICs will see no change or pay less after the Budget.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Q10.   My constituents were pleased to hear last week’s Budget prioritise investment in public infrastructure, including important projects such as the electrification of the Wigan to Bolton railway line, which will deliver more reliable and greener journeys. Does the Prime Minister agree that investment in the key infrastructure of towns such as Horwich, Westhoughton, Blackrod and Bolton is the only way to deliver economic growth and prosperity for all?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a champion for the north-west, and the Budget secured investment for vital transport projects to transform connectivity across the north of England and drive economic growth. That includes completing the Wigan to Bolton electrification —a really important moment on Northern Powerhouse Rail. Over £5 billion has been allocated to support everyday journeys for working people. By restoring economic stability and increasing investment, we are taking our country forward.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

Q13. The Swan Youth Project in Berkhamsted is an incredible drop-in centre that intervenes to bring hope and a better future to teenagers such as Lex and Megan, who have been facing anxiety, depression and long mental health waiting lists, as well as families coping with special educational needs and disability. Its representatives have already written to the Treasury saying that they are worried about getting the funds they need, as our communities face a tough winter and grants are depleting. Parul, the manager, also assures me that she makes a mean curry and would welcome the Prime Minister, so will he join me to discuss their concerns and ensure that the Swan Youth Project and similar organisations in the third sector get the support they need as they work tirelessly for our communities?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that I have been to Berkhamsted a number of times, as we have very good friends who live there. I pay tribute to the work of the Swan Youth Project; too many young people—she cited some of them—are struggling with mental health and not receiving the support they need. That is why we will recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers and are introducing long-overdue reforms to the Mental Health Act 1983. That is happening today. We will put more money into SEND, but we also need to look at reforming SEND, which I think and hope will be supported across the House. I will ensure that she gets a meeting with the relevant Ministers about that.

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

Q11. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will know that after 14 years of Tory ideological hostility and cuts, our universities are in financial meltdown. The University of East Anglia, in my constituency, is having to make redundancies, as are many others. Our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has started to address the problem, but we need a long-term solution that does not simply saddle our young people with more debt. Can my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister say how we can move to fix the foundations of higher education as we go forward?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to raise higher education. We inherited a sector facing severe financial challenges. Universities have suffered a real-terms decline in their income and the gap between disadvantaged students and their peers is the highest on record. We have had to take tough decisions to put that on a secure footing, but we are also taking the step of easing living pressures by increasing maintenance loans, which is worth an extra £414 per year.

[Alex Brewer (North East Hampshire) (LD)]

Jo Hamilton, my constituent and a former sub-postmistress, has long campaigned with Alan Bates for compensation following the Horizon Post Office scandal. Can the Prime Minister give an exact timeframe in which those who have been waiting more than a decade might finally be compensated?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this important issue. A commitment was made to properly compensate the victims of this scandal. Unfortunately, the Conservative Government, having made that commitment, regrettably did not allocate any money. Her constituents will be pleased to know that we have changed the approach. We have set out the compensation within the Budget—a transparent, accountable Budget—and we will make the payments as soon as we can.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

Q14. I echo the Prime Minister’s sentiments towards that other son of Lewis—although I wish that I had woken up today in the Isle of Harris. My constituents there face long delays, cancellations and loss of service because of the SNP’s incompetent handling of ferry procurement. In last week’s Budget the Scottish Government received a record settlement. May I urge the Prime Minister to tell Scottish Ministers to use that to improve public services in Scotland, to invest in the NHS in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, to build schools in places such as Barra and finally to fix the ferry fiasco?

[The Prime Minister]

Last week in the Budget we delivered the largest settlement for the Scottish Government in real terms since devolution. That includes £3.4 billion through the Barnett formula, a fuel duty freeze and an increase to the national living wage, benefiting my hon. Friend’s constituents and all those across Scotland. The result of the Budget is now clear. The SNP in power in Scotland have the powers and they now have the money, so they have no more excuses.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister think it is acceptable for a Back-Bench MP to suggest that the Leader of the Opposition represents “white supremacy in blackface” and is

“the most prominent member of white supremacy’s black collaborator class”,

with all the race traitor innuendo that that carries? If he does not, why has he not removed the Whip?

[The Prime Minister]

No, I do not.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

As a semi-retired violinist and rock musician asking a semi-retired multi-instrumentalist, I feel confident that the Prime Minister shares my belief in the importance of music education. Does he agree that, as we unleash the potential of our country, we must invest in the educational infrastructure of creative arts subjects so that they are accessible to all, and will he visit my constituency, to see the great work of the schools there despite the inheritance that we received?

[The Prime Minister]

I am not sure about the description “semi-retired”, although that may be the wish of the Conservative party. What I know from personal experience is that music, the creative subjects and art are really important not only for the pleasure and knowledge that they give to children and young people but for the experience of working in groups and leadership. That is why we are determined to ensure that they are counted as subjects again in the curriculum, which will encourage many more schools to provide them in the curriculum and enrich the futures of children and young people across the country.

[Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Before the election, the Prime Minister claimed that he would not put up national insurance contributions; he put them up. Before the election, he claimed that he would scrap tuition fees; he put them up. Before the election, he said that he would not tax family farms; he is taxing them. Will he address his party’s growing reputation for dishonesty by making good on his commitment to close the Wethersfield asylum accommodation centre in my constituency?

[The Prime Minister]

We are keeping the promises that we made in our manifesto. The right hon. Gentleman’s problem is that he cannot add up; if he could, he might be down on the Front Bench rather than up on the Back Benches. We will take up the issue in his constituency.

[Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)]

Monday marked the seven-year anniversary of my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal’s arbitrary detention in India. Can the Prime Minister assure me that he and his Government will do all they can to secure Jagtar’s immediate release and bring him home?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. We are committed to pushing the Government of India on this important case. The Foreign Secretary has raised it and will continue to do so, and we will ensure that we speak to my hon. Friend as we do so.

[Mr Speaker]

That completes Prime Minister’s questions.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Does the Leader of the Opposition want to correct the record, as she said in Prime Minister’s questions that the Chancellor did not mention defence spending in her Budget, yet the Chancellor mentioned it many, many times, including its allocation of £2.9 billion, which far exceeds our commitment?

[Mr Speaker]

It is not for me to correct the record—and that is not a point of order—but the right hon. Lady has done it.

Small Boat Crossings

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

12:37

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the recent increase in dangerous, illegal and unnecessary channel crossings by small boat?

[The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Dame Angela Eagle)]

For too long, smuggling gangs have been undermining our border security and putting lives at risk, which is why the new Government have made it a top priority to address the crisis we inherited. Let us be clear about what that crisis entailed: small boat crossings in the first half of the year at their highest point on record, and over 100,000 arrivals in the five years prior; over 200,000 cases stuck in the asylum system, costing the taxpayer billions in support; and £700 million spent on a gimmick that sent just four volunteers to Rwanda.

When we entered government, we said it was time for grip, not gimmicks, and that is exactly what we are delivering. Since July, we have established the border security command, headed by experienced police chief Martin Hewitt. In the King’s Speech, we set out our intention to bring forward legislation to give the border security system stronger powers to investigate and prosecute organised immigration crime. We are recruiting 100 new specialist agency and investigation officers at the National Crime Agency to target and dismantle the criminal networks behind this phenomenon. We have also announced an extra £75 million to bolster border security, bringing our investment in the border security command over the next two years to £150 million. This Government’s border security funding boost will go towards a range of enforcement and intelligence activities and capabilities including covert technology as well as hundreds of staff and specialist investigators as we crank up the pressure on the smuggling gangs.

This is an international problem requiring international solutions. Since the general election we have intensified co-operation with partners overseas. We recently struck a new anti-smuggling action plan with G7 partners and the Prime Minister and Home Secretary both attended the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow on Monday to press the case for a much stronger and more integrated global response to organised immigration crime.

As well as tackling the issue upstream, we have taken action to speed up decision making and stepped up returns of those with no right to be in this country. The result of all this action is 9,400 returns since this Government took office including a 19% increase in enforced returns and a 14% increase in returns of foreign national offenders.

Sticking plasters and gimmicks have failed. The smugglers and traffickers have been getting away with it for far too long. It is time to show them we are serious, not with words, but with action. The security of Britain’s borders is paramount and under this Government it always will be.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Leader of the House, Chris Philp.

[Chris Philp]

Shadow Home Secretary; thank you, Mr Speaker.

I am afraid the Government’s actions belie the reality. Since they came to office, 17,520 people have crossed the English channel, more than twice the number they have removed. That is one and a half times the number in the previous four months and 15% more than the same period last year. In October alone, last month, 5,417 people crossed, three times higher than in last October. Tragically, since this Government came to office 50 people have lost their lives or gone missing—more than in the previous 18 months put together—and, tragically, that includes 16 women and children.

This Government decided—they chose—to cancel the Rwanda scheme before it had even started. The first flight was due to take off, from memory, on 24 July but they cancelled it. Had they allowed that to go ahead and the scheme to continue, the deterrent effect would by now have started. We know it works, because it worked in Australia under its Operation Sovereign Borders about 10 years ago. We know the deterrent effect of returns works: it worked with Albania where we secured a 93% reduction in arrivals. Do not just take my word for it: the National Crime Agency said that law enforcement alone is not enough and we need an effective removal scheme to deter crossings. The Government’s announcements in Glasgow on Monday are simply not enough, and they repeat work that is under way already. The NCA and I are not the only ones saying that we need a returns deterrent. Just a few weeks ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen encouraged member states to develop their own returns hubs outside the European Union. Will the Minister follow Ursula von der Leyen’s advice and urgently implement offshore processing?

May I also draw attention to the success that Belgium has had in stopping boats by the shore? Will the Minister ask France to do the same? Finally, because of their failings Labour are breaking their manifesto pledge to end hotel use, so will she pledge not to open any more hotels?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman —the shadow Home Secretary—to his new Front-Bench position. What a pleasure it is to be opposite him; I am going to look forward to jousting with him over the years.

On the Rwanda scheme, during the period from when it began to when we scrapped it, 83,500 people crossed in small boats. If that is a deterrent, the right hon. Gentleman has a peculiar view of the meaning of “deterrence” in the English language.

When I realised that we were doing this urgent question, I took the opportunity to look at the right hon. Gentleman’s record as a Home Office Minister. During his first stint at the Home Office—from September 2019 to 2021—23,849 people crossed the channel on small boats. During his second ministerial sojourn at the Home Office, 50,637 people crossed the channel in small boats, so his overall total is 74,486. In September 2020, the shadow Home Secretary answered an urgent question. He said that the last Government would

“not rest until we have taken the necessary steps to completely end these crossings.”—[Official Report, 2 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 168.]

How did that go?

[Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)]

In 2018, 400 crossed the channel. Since then, more than 140,000 have crossed, the majority of them on the Conservatives’ watch. All they could introduce were ridiculous gimmicks, such as Rwanda, which cost taxpayers millions of pounds. Does the Minister agree that the new injection of cash into border security command is a better use of taxpayers’ money than the gimmicks that the Conservatives introduced?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. The issue here is dealing with cross-border organised immigration crime. To do that, we have to talk to our international allies and co-operate with them across borders. That is exactly what the creation of the border security command will do, both operationally and politically, and we will see the results.

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

I join the Minister in welcoming the new shadow Home Secretary to his place. Leading with the chin on the first full day in the job is an interesting approach, but if any situation highlights the manifest failings of the last Conservative Government, it is surely this. We in this House all want to stop the dangerous channel crossings. I am afraid that the last Government totally failed at that, so I am surprised we are discussing it today. The asylum backlog ballooned under the Tories. The human beings we are talking about who are in these small boats are often the victims of smuggling and trafficking gangs that profit from human suffering. Does the Minister agree that it is therefore imperative that we work in closer co-ordination than ever before with Europol and our French counterparts to smash these criminal networks? I urge the Government to address the root causes of the problem, not just the symptoms. We must empower the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to provide robust aid to regions in an increasingly unstable world.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. This is not about gimmicks, or having a parallel immigration policy that is unconnected with any of the treaties we have signed or international law; it is about doing the day job, and making sure not to leave an inheritor Government a 200,000-person backlog by not doing the day job. The issue with small boat crossings is dealing with organised, internationally focused immigration crime, which often originates in countries very far away. To tackle this issue, we have to co-operate with the forces of law and order operationally, across borders, and that is what this Government are determined to do.

[Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)]

May I welcome the Government’s approach on this issue, and the 23% increase in enforced removals since last summer? I agree with the Minister that the way to deal with this issue is to smash the criminal gangs. I urge her to consider what attention she gives to the shadow Home Secretary who, when he was a Home Office Minister, imposed hotels on my constituency, and was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for Liz Truss during the mini-Budget.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The shadow Home Secretary’s record in office is a matter that we may well keep coming back to. I agree with the observations that my hon. Friend makes.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

Everybody in this House wants an end to small boat crossings and the risks that people take to cross the channel. The Minister has announced a number of measures this week. When does she expect those measures to start producing a reduction in crossings? Will she commit to keeping the Select Committee informed on progress?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is my first chance to congratulate the right hon. Lady on her election as Chair of the Select Committee. I look forward to coming before her Committee whenever she wishes to talk to me. The Department certainly wishes to keep her informed about what is going on.

There has been a significant shift in international co-operation, what with the G7 collaboration on smuggling and the dialogues of the European Political Community, of which there is a meeting tomorrow, at which we hope there will be some announcements. The Government have also been working on bilateral memorandums of understanding and action plans across Europe to achieve a step change in cross-border co-operation, which is the key to beginning to tackle the awful criminal smuggling activity.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

In the five years before the election, I worked on preventing human trafficking in Scotland, including with many of the victims who came on small boat crossings. They have gone through the most appalling abuse that chills the soul. Does the Minister agree that public money is far better spent on smashing the gangs and freeing the victims than on a Rwanda plan that was never going to work?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, I agree profoundly with my hon. Friend, which is why the new Government have changed tack in this area. I am sure that we will see the results in due course.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)]

The Government have pledged millions of pounds to smashing the gangs, on top of the millions of pounds that we spent on stopping the boats. The Government have pledged more drones on the channel and to fast-track cases, just as we deployed drones on the channel and fast-tracked cases. The Government have set up a border security command, which sounds remarkably similar to the small boats operational command that we set up when in government. Other than scrapping the one thing that would have worked—that is, the deterrent—what have this Government done that is different that is actually going to stop the boats?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

First, the border security command is operationally completely different from the command on the channel, which is deliberately there to try to save life and find out what is going on on the water. Operationally, the border security command will co-operate across borders in a very different way. If I were the right hon. and learned Lady, I would not be boasting about the colossal morass of wasted expenditure that the Rwanda scheme represented—£700 million down the drain, with plans to spend nearly £10 billion on the plan over the next few years. It was a gross waste of money that did not deter a single boat crossing.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

The gangs that run this vile trade care only for their profits, not for the lives that they put at risk. Will the Minister reassure the House and my constituents in East Thanet that the border security command will do everything to break the evil smuggling gangs and bring the ringleaders to justice?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes; the point of the increase in operational co-operation across borders is that if we cannot bring people to justice in our jurisdiction, we can ensure that information is swapped in real time, so that they can be brought to justice in other jurisdictions. There will be a step change in that kind of international co-operation, which will deliver results.

[Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

Will the Minister describe clearly and unambiguously, without bluster, the difference in function between the border security command and the small boats operational command?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The border security command is not focused only on channel crossings; it is much more about using our intelligence capabilities and our operational arm to co-operate across borders, with other jurisdictions and in real time, to ensure that organised criminal gangs can be tracked, apprehended and dismantled. We have given £150 million extra to the border security command to start to do that work. The command on the channel is about saving lives and co-operating with the French once people have reached the beaches. It is far too late once people have reached the beaches; we need to go far back to the origin countries, and do a lot more work there.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister acknowledge the real concerns felt by people in the UK and in my city of Portsmouth about the small boat crossings? Does she agree that the 23% increase since last summer in enforced returns of people who have no right to be here shows what can be done when grown-ups are in the room, and when a Government focus on getting a grip?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I absolutely agree with the points my hon. Friend made.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

There are 120 conflicts globally, which, along with other factors such as poverty, food insecurity and the effects of climate change, cause populations to move. Does the Minister agree that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) pointed out, it is essential that we look at the root causes of immigration? Does she therefore support an increase in the development and aid budget, rather than the cut in official development assistance in last week’s Budget?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

In the end, any work that we can do upstream, whether in respect of development or aid, will deal with some of the causes, some of which the hon. Lady rightly points out. We have to stay within the bounds set by the Budget, but I assure her that I regard prevention as much better than cure.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

This Government inherited a situation on our borders in which there was failure on all fronts. There were record numbers of tragic deaths in the channel, millions wasted on the failed Rwanda gimmick, and criminal gangs profiteering off exploiting our borders. Will the Minister reassure my constituents that, unlike the previous Government, we will not waste time on political gimmicks, but will focus on the practical measures that can bring an end to the persistence of these damning failures?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I assure my hon. Friend that we will do exactly that. It is why we have seen a step change in returns since this Government took office. There have been 9,400 in that period, which includes a 19% increase in enforced returns and a 14% increase in returns of foreign national offenders. We will ensure that our immigration system has integrity.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

Sometimes, when listening to the exchanges between Labour Front Benchers and the Conservatives, we can forget that we are dealing with real people who are fleeing the most unimaginable horrors. Aside from the bizarre Rwanda plan, why is the Minister continuing with the same failed approach as the Tories? The Government continue to spend millions on hotels, drones and various bits of high tech; how about trying something different? How about looking at safe and legal routes, in order to smash the gangs? And how about showing some compassion?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am not going to get into a competition with the hon. Gentleman about compassion. We have a duty to ensure that asylum seekers who come to our shores are properly processed and dealt with, and integrated in our society if asylum is granted. [Interruption.] Despite the hon. Gentleman chuntering away, I am not going to stand here and say that we will let people smugglers, who exploit people for money, decide who comes to our country. We have to stop this trade; that is not at odds with treating those who arrive here with compassion.

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

When I stood for election on 4 July this year, my commitment to my voters was that we would smash the criminal gangs and stop the small boats. At that point, the number of small boat crossings was 6% higher than in the worst ever year, 2022. Does the Minister welcome the data that shows that the number is now 9,000 lower than in 2022?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, but the House has to have patience. There are no magic wands to wave in this policy area, and there are no fantasy policies now that we have got rid of the Rwanda scheme. There is hard, day-to-day operational work to try to get the system that we inherited—which is in complete chaos, with huge backlogs—back into some kind of order, so that we can run it properly, fairly and efficiently. That is what we are focusing on.

[Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)]

I recently listened to an interview with a retired former inspector of borders and immigration, who was responding to the Government’s announcements. He outlined his concerns about the impact of the measures on their own, without an effective deterrent, and about how the Government will measure their success—the percentage or volume by which they want to see small boat crossings reduced after the announcements. What percentage reduction in small boat crossings would the Government view as success?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am not getting into a numbers game in the House. We are trying to deal with and dismantle a trade that was allowed to become established and industrialised on the previous Government’s watch. I am not going to stand here and say, “It’ll happen overnight,” but we will make progress.

[Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)]

Folks in Plymouth are really interested in how the Government will solve this big problem. They will welcome the increase in money towards dealing with the problem and the increase in returns. Another thing they want is constructive, lively debate with ideas in this place. Unfortunately, the Opposition seem so devoid of ideas that they will bang on for another four years about their landmark Rwanda policy to stop the boats—a failed scheme that got firmly rejected by the electorate. Does the Minister agree that the first sign of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes.

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)]

In the Home Office annual report, it is confirmed that in 2022-23 £3 billion was spent on hotel costs for illegal migrants, averaging £8 million a day. The cruel inheritance tax assault on British family farms and businesses is estimated eventually to raise £520 million a year. Do the Labour Government need to rethink their spending priorities urgently?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

No. We have just had a Budget, which we are in the middle of debating and will be voting on, and I expect that that will be the way we go forwards.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

The 23% increase in returns of people who have no right to be here is a really positive step in giving the public confidence in our systems. What measures are in place to continue to ensure that our processes remain robust and that the trajectory of returns continues?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We are ensuring that the enforcement part of the Home Office that deals with returns is given the resources it needs to do that job, but to make it even more successful, we have to engage with those countries to which we wish to return people so that we can have papers issued. Again, the significant shift in international co-operation is what will deliver that.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

If Rwanda was a gimmick, why are Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania looking at similar schemes? Given the number of crossings and deaths in the channel, would it not, with hindsight, have been wise at least to have allowed the Rwanda scheme a trial run?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Those countries are not considering a Rwanda scheme; they are all saying that they will stay within the confines of international law. The Rwanda scheme definitely tore up international law, and it was planned to spend nearly £10 billion up until 2027 on trying to remove 250 people a week from this country, and to spend nearly £3 billion on extra detention camps for them in this country. I do not think that represents British values or good value for money.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

Given that only 3% of people who arrived by small boats between 2018 and June 2024 have been returned, a period of reflection from the Conservative party on this issue would be welcome. Does the Minister agree that a Government who have dispensed with gimmicks and who focus on the day job are delivering that progress on returns?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, but let us not underestimate the fact that under the Illegal Migration Act 2023 nobody who arrived in that way could be processed, so 118,000 people are waiting to be processed because the previous Government stopped the system dead. We have to get the processing system going again—that is what we are doing—so that we can get the flow of decisions, return those who are not entitled to be here and integrate those who are entitled to stay.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Government have a mandate for trying out their approach, and I wish them well. I have always felt that unless the boats are intercepted and turned back near the start of their journey, nothing will deter people from using that method. Will the Minister, whom I respect greatly, explain how it is possible to smash gangs who operate in other jurisdictions once they get to the point where they withdraw their headquarters to countries where there is no possibility of co-operation with the authorities in charge of those states?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Well, getting to that level of withdrawal would be a fantastic development that would put incredible pressure on many of the supply lines currently being used; if we could get to that stage, we would have already made significant progress. The answer to what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about is international co-operation to put the maximum pressure on this terrible international trade in human lives and exploitation. I am glad that he is giving me a little bit of time to prove that we can make a difference.

[Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)]

People in West Brom are appalled by these criminal smuggling gangs. Does the Minister agree that the last Government wasted £700 million on the totally failed Rwanda scheme? Could she set out how the new Government are going to fix the situation?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, and the repurposing of some of that money and resource that has not been lost is funding the new approach.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

Does the Minister agree that the loss of life is colossally too high on these channel crossings, including the loss of a two-year-old child just the other week? Does she also agree that we should reopen safe routes so that we can treat those coming to this country with the dignity and respect that they deserve?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I do not believe that safe routes would stop people from attempting to come over the channel in small boats. I have some sympathy with the idea of safe routes, but I do not think they would stop this trade. For example, 1,500 Indians came across, and we have a visa regime with the Indians. The highest nationality for small boat arrivals this year is the Vietnamese. Again, it is not always about people who are asylum seekers coming over; it is people who do not have a right to be here but are paying to come here. Safe routes would not solve that problem.

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

The shadow Home Secretary referred to the lives lost in the channel—every single one of them is a tragedy —but does the Minister agree that his trying to make a political point about those deaths, as he appeared to do, is beneath the Conservative party, as were gimmicks such as the Rwanda scheme?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, I agree. The loss of life in the channel this year has been the highest on record, and that is because more pressure is being put on the gangs, the boats are being overloaded and there is more anarchy on the beaches in France. Those are all things that we have to try to deal with in co-operation with our French colleagues.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

My constituents want to see an end to the small boat crossings and an end to the use of hotels for asylum seekers—as pledged in the Government’s manifesto. Will the Minister undertake to ensure that, where hotels have seen asylum seekers moved out, more are not put back in?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The issue with hotels and other dispersal accommodation is that we have inherited a backlog. Owing to the way in which the Conservatives ran the system, there was no processing of asylum seekers, who then had to be put up in hotels. Hotels are temporary, not a solution. We will do our best to get out of dealing with hotels as quickly as possible by getting the system up and running and processing those who are making claims, so that we can get them either approved and integrated or returned.

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

The Government came to power this year in the worst year on record for small boats crossings, which were 6% higher than in the previous record year of 2022. That was the legacy of chaos left by the last Government. There is no room for complacency, but does the Minister agree that we should be welcoming the now 20% lower level of small boats crossings this year compared with 2022?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree that the first six months of this year were the worst on record. There were then a quiet three months, and now there has been a huge increase, not least because of benign weather conditions. I do not want to get into monthly figures. We need to bear down on the organised criminality that is perpetrating the trade, to disrupt it and deal with it that way.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Does the Minister recognise the distinct lack of humanity about this urgent question and the discussions surrounding small boats and migration? Does she not recognise that those people who risk all to get into those very dangerous boats and cross the chancel are doing so in an act of desperation? The lack of a safe routes system across Europe has created a market for people traffickers. Instead of the current approach, does she not think it necessary to look seriously at safe routes for asylum seekers, to avoid the tragedy of all these deaths in the channel and, for that matter, in the Mediterranean?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I said earlier that safe routes would not stop all the channel crossings. There is now an industrialised system run by organised immigration criminals. The Vietnamese would never have a safe route into the UK—there is no visa system—yet they now comprise 20% of the people crossing on small boats. With all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think that safe routes would solve the problem.

[Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)]

The last Government were responsible for an asylum backlog so large that they ended up spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money every day on asylum hotels, including in my constituency. As the Minister said, we are now dealing with that legacy, and I welcome her statement. Does she agree that we will take no lessons from the Conservative party, and that we will continue to make progress towards our manifesto commitment to bring down the backlog and end hotel use?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I could not have put it better myself.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

I think there is unanimity in the House that this is a moral issue. When I raised the issue of deterrence with the Home Secretary at her last statement on 22 July, she seemed to agree that we needed a deterrent. Since then, the Government do not seem to have brought forward any specific deterrence. If not the Rwanda scheme, will the Minister look at the schemes that other European nations are considering to see whether we can deter the small boat crossings?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The way to deter the small boat crossings is to deal with those who are organising and profiting from that immoral trade. That is what we are doing.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and Conservative Members are still banging the drum for the failed Rwanda gimmick. Does the Minister agree that if the previous Government were so confident that that policy would work, they would not have called an election before that theory could be put to the test?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

My hon. Friend makes an intriguing point, given that Conservative Members have said repeatedly that they were about to start the Rwanda scheme the week after the election, and that all of a sudden it would work and be perfect—after 83,500 people crossed in small boats knowing that the scheme was legislated for and in place. I suspect, somehow, that the date of the election might have had a bit to do with the fact that they realised the Rwanda scheme would fail.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

The Minister is claiming credit for an increase in deportations of people with no right to be in this country. I want an approximate figure, please, of how many of the 9,400 people who have been sent back since the Labour Government came in arrived here in small boats since 2018?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Given that the Conservative party processed virtually nobody who came over in a small boat, they are still in the asylum backlog that we are attempting to deal with.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

I am pleased to see this Government taking swift action to tackle the small boats crisis, including scrapping the Rwanda scheme, which was not only ludicrously expensive but inhumane and ineffective. Will the Minister confirm that it is possible to manage our borders in a way that is both effective and humane, and that we will do that?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

That is certainly the balance that this Government are aiming to achieve.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Minister has said that her policy to smash the criminal gangs will reduce the number of migrants crossing the channel. Can she give the House her estimation of when that policy will start to work?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I said in an earlier answer that there are no magic wands in this area. Tough operational processing and international co-operation will begin to bear down on this, and work by the National Crime Agency and by prosecutorial authorities, often cross-border in different jurisdictions. The fact that we have made such a good start with international co-operation and the significant shift in attention here will bear down on this, but I will not stand at this Dispatch Box and pretend that there is an easy timeframe or answer for when that will have the effect that we all want it to have. We will bear down on it and we will make progress.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

At a time of highly stretched resources right across Government, thanks to the mess in the public finances left by the Conservative party, my constituents will be pleased that £75 million has been secured for further investment in the Border Security Command. Does the Minister agree that it is a far better use of taxpayers’ money than paying people to go to Rwanda or housing them in hotels at great expense?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, it is advisable to try to deal with the immediate causes of the problem—organised immigration criminality—as well as bearing down on the longer-term causes, which often are about political stability in other areas of the world.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her answers. I want to take a slightly different look. I welcome the fact that smugglers will now be treated using terrorism powers, as it is my firm belief—and the belief of this House, I think—that the continued abuse of the asylum system is tantamount to an invasion. Can the Minister assure us that those who come across the Northern Ireland border will also be subject to the terrorism provisions?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

A border security Bill will be introduced. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will want to serve on the Committee, so that he can be certain that the points he just made are accurately reflected by the Government in that Bill.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

One of the most colossal failures under the previous Government was the chaos in the channel and the associated backlog in the system, yet the Conservatives seem to have come here today to tell the British people that they had it all under control. Can the Minister reassure my constituents of the serious steps she is taking to disrupt the gangs, speed up returns and end this chaos.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Yes, my hon. Friend’s constituents can be assured that a great deal of work is going on and more resources are being applied. A lot more intelligence is being gathered, much of which cannot be discussed publicly. We are on it.

[Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)]

I strongly welcome the Government’s focus on tackling the root causes of organised crime behind the small boats, rather than the gimmicks of the previous Government. Across Kent, the criminal gangs are fuelling a rise in organised crime, and in my constituency that is pushing up rural crime, street crime and antisocial behaviour. Will my hon. Friend ensure that the new Border Security Command works closely with Kent police to deal with the effects across the whole of Kent and the wider country?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Some areas have suffered particular pressure from this phenomenon over the years, and Kent is one of them, so I am acutely aware of the pressure that he and the local authorities in that area are under.

[Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)]

Over the past 14 years, the Conservative party saw this issue become a growing crisis. Conservative Members have spoken much today about how we need a deterrent, but does the Minister agree that, for someone who is willing to get into a vessel of questionable seaworthiness to cross one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet, a 3% chance of a trip to Kigali is not a deterrent? The only way of getting a handle on this is to go back to where the problem originates. Waiting for people to get to the channel is delaying the response and creating the crisis that the Conservatives oversaw.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend’s observations, and so do the figures. Between the date of the announcement of the Rwanda scheme and the date of the last general election, 83,500 people came across in small boats. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) says that it had not started then. The Conservatives began by saying that Rwanda would be a deterrent when their Bill was published, and then every time it made no difference, they took it back and said, “It will work, it will work.” It would never have worked. It cost £700 million, and they had budgeted—but not budgeted—for nearly £10 billion of expenditure by the end of that scheme.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

Given that at the end of 2022, under the last Conservative Government, the asylum backlog had reached 166,261, an elevenfold increase in 12 years, does my hon. Friend agree that Conservative Members—who are very small in number for their own urgent question—are exhibiting a high degree of audacity?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

They are indeed, and perhaps they should also be reminded that returns collapsed on their watch as well.

Personal Statement

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before I call the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) to make his personal statement, I remind the House that such statements should be heard in silence and without interruption.

13:21

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a personal statement, in compliance with the findings of the Independent Expert Panel in its report. I accept the findings of the panel and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards in full and without reservation.

On 23 November 2023, at the Derby Gate entrance, I was involved in an incident with a security guard. During the incident, I spoke to the complainant in a manner that was totally unacceptable, and which including swearing and other language that goes against the House of Commons bullying and harassment policy.

I would like to apologise to the complainant and to the House for my behaviour. Our security staff do an incredible job and should always be treated with the utmost respect. An MP’s behaviour must always be of a higher standard. I give you, Mr Speaker, and the House my firm assurance that I have learnt significant lessons through this process, and a firm undertaking that such behaviour on my part will never happen again.

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Member.

Points of Order

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

13:22

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you received any notice of a statement from the Government? I know that a number of Members have written to the Foreign Secretary, in particular, about the case of the writer and human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has served five years in an Egyptian prison for organising human rights protests. He was meant to be released in September but has still not been. His mother, Laila, has now been on hunger strike for four weeks, and many of us are concerned about the risk to her life. If a statement is not forthcoming, perhaps those on the Treasury Bench could urge the Government to make firm representations to Egypt to release Mr Abd el-Fattah.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman is in danger of answering his own point of order. I have received no notification of a statement, but I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have taken his point on board. Let me also say to him that I know he will not rest there on this matter; that he will use all other avenues available to him ensure that the profile of the case is raised—I would expect nothing else.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Ind)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This concerns the lack of response to my cross-party correspondence addressed to the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and the Defence Secretary, dated 13 September 2024. In that letter I, along with 36 parliamentary colleagues, requested clarification on the Government’s decision to exempt offensive F-35 fighter jet components from the 30 out of 350 licences that they have suspended for items that could be used in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, as there is a clear risk that they may be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law. Given the significance of the issue and its implications for the UK’s international obligations, it is imperative that MPs receive a comprehensive response. Having to wait two months for a reply raises questions—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I have absolutely got the point of order. Obviously, this is not my responsibility, but I take it seriously if any Member of this House writes to the Government and does not receive a timely reply. I am here to defend whoever the correspondence is from and ensure that they receive a reply. I am entirely convinced that those on the Front Bench will have heard what has been said and will already be looking to get that reply. If not, the hon. Lady should inform me and we will raise it again. I thank her for her point of order.

Bills Presented

Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 50)

Darren Jones, supported by the Prime Minister, James Murray, Tulip Siddiq and Emma Reynolds, presented a Bill to make provision for loans or other financial assistance to be provided to, or for the benefit of, the government of Ukraine.

Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Monday 11 November, and to be printed (Bill 48) with explanatory notes (Bill 48-EN).

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary John Healey, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Angela Rayner, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Yvette Cooper, Secretary David Lammy, Secretary Hilary Benn, Secretary Ian Murray, Secretary Jo Stevens, Dan Jarvis, Maria Eagle and Luke Pollard presented a Bill to establish, and confer functions on, the Armed Forces Commissioner; to abolish the office of Service Complaints Ombudsman; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Monday 11 November, and to be printed (Bill 124) with explanatory notes (Bill 124-EN).

Child Criminal Exploitation (No. 2) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Victoria Atkins presented a Bill to create an offence of child criminal exploitation; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 29 November 2024 and to be printed (Bill 75).

Horticultural Peat (Prohibition of Sale)

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

18:19

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the prohibition of the sale in England of horticultural peat by the end of 2025; to provide for certain exemptions from that prohibition; and for connected purposes.

Let me begin by paying tribute to the right hon. Theresa Villiers, the former Member for Chipping Barnet, who previously worked hard to bring this Bill through Parliament, and by thanking Rebecca Pow, the former Member for Taunton Deane, who also endeavoured to secure a ban on the sale of peat.

Somerset is one of only two counties in England where peat extraction still takes place. The Somerset levels and moors are the second largest area of lowland deep peat in England, containing 11 million tonnes of carbon. However, drained deep peat is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and, along with peat extraction, could be responsible for as much as 255,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, according to a 2023 report published by eftec. Somerset’s peatlands are extremely rare and valuable habitats for wildlife. They are the perfect place for plants such as the sundew and the marsh violet, which in turn support invertebrates and bird populations.

Banning the sale of peat and protecting our peatlands both at home and abroad is crucial. I say “abroad” because we offshore most of our peatland emissions by importing about 60% of the peat used in horticulture in the UK. All the major parties agree with the proposal for a ban. The Liberal Democrats have pledged to restore peatlands and ban the use of horticultural peat, Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised to expand nature-rich habitats such as peat bogs, and the last Conservative Government made several attempts, despite failing to ban peat in their 14 years in office.

In 2011, the previous Government said that they wanted to reduce the amount of peat in compost voluntarily by 2020, but as the amount of peat fell by only a quarter in the subsequent years, the threat of legislation was introduced. A consultation by the last Government also revealed how popular a ban was, with 95% of respondents favouring a ban on retail peat by the end of the last Parliament. However, no legislation has been introduced that would ensure a ban on selling peat, so a vast amount of uncertainty remains in the industry today.

I want to be absolutely clear how important it is that the horticultural industry is considered and consulted before any legislation seeking to ban peat is introduced. But banning horticultural peat is the right thing to do, and that is already supported by a vast number of people in the industry, and, if done correctly, will bring huge opportunities for British horticulture. In September this year, professional growers, gardeners, nursery owners, compost manufacturers, retailers and supporters of peat-free horticulture wrote to the Prime Minister demanding a sale ban. The signatories included B&Q, Co-op supermarkets, Chris Beardshaw, Alys Fowler, Chris Packham, the Soil Association, the National Trust, the Wildlife Trust, CPRE, Evergreen Garden Care, Vitacress and the Royal Horticultural Society, to name just a few.

I recently visited Durston Garden Products, just outside Street, which is the largest manufacturer of growing media in southern England. It produces 6 million bags a year, and it supports a ban on the sale of peat. Three quarters of the bags that Durston currently produces are peat free; five years ago, the figure was just one quarter. That is because Durston, like most of the industry, took the previous Government at their word when they committed to banning the sale of peat. Durston has done what it believed was the right thing for the business and for the environment, and it has put in the time, effort and money to develop alternative growing media that can outperform peat. As it stands, however, the investment that Durston has made to prepare for a peat-free market has been for nothing.

Britain is a gardening nation. In fact, there are 30 million gardeners in the country, and 70% of them are interested in gardening more sustainably. The positive reaction to my Bill being announced demonstrates the feeling in the industry. The chair of the Growing Media Association, Simon Blackhurst, told the industry’s main trade magazine, Horticultural Week, that there is currently an “unfair commercial landscape”, as

“peat based growing media is cheaper than peat free.”

Southern Trident’s Steve Harper said:

“There really is no argument for delaying a retail peat ban”.

Floralive’s Sean Higgs said:

“Everyone is expecting it now (or believes it’s already in place)—to reverse would be counterproductive to the industry and undermine it on several counts.”

There are many fantastic examples of businesses moving towards being peat free. One such business is Kelways in Langport, in my constituency, which no longer sells compost containing peat and understands the shift that needs to take place. Moving towards being peat free would help the Government to achieve their aim of moving towards a circular economy. Peat-free compost manufacturers want to keep supply chains close to home, and some, such as Miracle-Gro, have their own on-site waste processors to produce compost. Others have partnerships with local forestry and wood processing businesses. RocketGro in Somerset processes digestate, a by-product of sustainable energy, into peat-free compost.

Advances in technology are clear evidence of the success of peat-free alternatives. The Royal Horticultural Society is set to be 100% peat free by the end of 2025, and is now at the end of a second successful year of trials funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The RHS has grown millions of plants peat free in partnership with eight major wholesale growers, and developed practices to help the wholesale industry transition smoothly. By ending the use of horticultural peat at home, we can reduce our reliance on foreign, imported plants grown in peat, and support British peat-free growers. I am fully aware that any ban would require exemptions, time for businesses to transition, and support from the Government to help businesses move forward, but setting dates in stone through legislation would remove the uncertainty that is damaging the industry and reducing opportunities.

I turn to the impact that a ban on peat would have on peatland. Peat grows at a rate of 1 mm per year but can degrade by 1 cm per year if it is in bad condition, which, sadly, is the case for 86% of our peatlands. As I touched on earlier, they are amazing and rare habitats. Given our current knowledge of the damage that peat extraction does to nature, the environment and the land around us, there is simply no excuse for not changing course. Somerset faces ever more devastating flooding every winter, and the degradation and destruction of our peatlands does little to worsen its impact by reducing peatland’s ability to absorb excess rainwater and act as a natural flood defence, as an intact peat bog would do. Whereas preventing the sale of peat opens up opportunities for world-beating peat alternatives, stopping peat extraction opens up opportunities for peat restoration, such as creating new jobs by reskilling the existing workforce to use their expertise in managing peatlands for restoration.

The destruction of these precious, important and beautiful habitats must stop. As many experts, the public and politicians alike have outlined, we must not miss our chance. I urge the House to support this Bill today and ensure that we take the steps that would prevent the release of thousands of tonnes of carbon, help us move towards a circular economy, open up opportunities for British horticulture and protect precious peatlands.

13:35

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am not going to oppose the right of the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) to bring in a Bill, because I believe in the right of Members to bring forward whatever Bills they want. Most of them are ill conceived, and I have spent much of my time in this place attacking Bills that would have unintended consequences. I think the hon. Lady’s Bill will fit into the category of Bills that have good intentions, but would have unacceptable unintended consequences.

It will not go unnoticed that this Bill is a full-frontal attack on British horticulture, and that it is being promoted by none other than the Liberal Democrats. The hon. Lady referred to the previous Bill, which I spoke against on 16 April. It is a salutary reminder of the work of democrats in this country that none of the 12 Members of this House who supported that Bill is still a Member of the House—the electorate gave their verdict on the ill-conceived support for it. I am delighted to say today that a number of my new and not so new colleagues have said to me, “Why can’t you divide the House and oppose this Bill?” I say to them, including my hon. Friends the Members for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), that we should allow the Liberal Democrats to stew in their own juice and bring forward their Bill, so that it can be criticised and never reach the statute book.

One would have thought from the remarks of the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton that she was a supporter of the Horticultural Trades Association. Yesterday, the association ran an event in this House, and so many people attended that the free indoor plants on offer were all scooped up about halfway through. If the hon. Lady went to collect her free plants, she obviously missed the opportunity to talk to representatives of the association, who believe that her proposals would completely undermine British horticulture. What is most important—the HTA makes this point—is that we should have a level playing field with European growers.

We want to grow more trees. Too few trees are being home-grown, and too many of them are being imported. Likewise, we want to promote garden products, but too many of them are being imported. A very large proportion are being imported from Holland, because, far from having a peat-free environment, Holland is the fastest-growing export market for peat coming into our country. Holland is also one of the largest importers and exporters of peat, and it gets a lot of its peat from Germany, Estonia, Belgium, Latvia and Sweden.

The Dutch use peat to make horticultural products, which are then sold into our market because those products are more acceptable to consumers, not least because they tend to last longer, as peat is a substance that enables plants to retain moisture and water a lot longer than products that are peat free, such as coir. Some of the people who promote peat-free products do not seem to realise, when they talk about coir as a substitute, that it is produced mainly in the far east, particularly in Sri Lanka, and that it has to be washed and de-salted before it can be prepared for horticultural use and then has to be transported halfway across the world. That is not an ecologically friendly way of producing a peat substitute.

There is another dimension to the issue of peat. What proportion of it is used in horticulture? It is a very small proportion. I am told that about 95% of the peat consumed in the world is used for peat fires. It is put into domestic boilers and mega-incinerators or used as a substitute for coal or even natural gas. By concentrating on just one aspect of the use of peat, in horticulture, we are ignoring the much larger problem of the burning of peat for fuel. I have looked up how easy it is to buy peat for fuel in this country, and the latest information is that I could get a pallet of 10 or so bags of peat delivered to my home for £260. That peat comes from exactly the same source as peat for agriculture. Why are we having a go at the use of peat in horticulture and agriculture when we could be dealing with the much larger issue of the extraction of peat for heating our homes?

This is a sensitive, emotional subject, but we need to have some hard-headed realism around it. If you, like me, Madam Deputy Speaker, support British horticulture, you should be very much opposed to this Bill, because it is a full-frontal assault upon the viability of our horticulture industry and will result in less choice for all those who engage in horticulture, whether as amateur or professional gardeners.

I urge the hon. Lady to think carefully before she drafts her Bill. If she thinks that it will be mitigated by having a lot of exemptions set out in it, I challenge her to include on the face of her Bill all the exemptions she thinks will be necessary, because only with thousands of exemptions will the Bill be in any way acceptable. That is the challenge to her. That is why I am not going to oppose her bringing forward her Bill. Let us see what it says, but I fear it is going to be absolutely ghastly. I am disappointed, because I thought the Liberal Democrats were the friends of people working in the countryside and in agriculture and horticulture, but this Bill suggests quite the reverse. I strongly oppose it.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Sarah Dyke, Wera Hobhouse, Tim Farron, Pippa Heylings, Martin Wrigley, Caroline Voaden, Carla Denyer, Layla Moran, Tessa Munt, Richard Foord, Vikki Slade and Steve Darling present the Bill.

Sarah Dyke accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 January 2025, and to be printed (Bill 122).

Ways and Means

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

Budget Resolutions

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

Income Tax (Charge)

Debate resumed (Order, 5 November).

Question again proposed,

That income tax is charged for the tax year 2025-26.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Jonathan Reynolds.

13:44

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)]

It is a pleasure to open this final day of the debate on the Chancellor’s growth Budget. Can I welcome the new shadow team? It is lovely to see them in place. I think many of us on this side would admit that we were shadow Ministers for longer than we ideally would have been, and I know that it is a tough and thankless job at times. On a personal level, I wish them well for the future.

As the Chancellor rightly stated, growth is our only path to prosperity, to increasing living standards and to delivering the change that the British people voted for so decisively over the summer, and we on these Benches recognise that we cannot have growth without investment. Growth demands investment in our infrastructure, into our public services, into the cities and regions that have gone overlooked and under-invested in by past Administrations, and that is what this Budget chooses. It chooses investment over decline, with more than £100 billion of public investment into our roads and our railways, our parks and our playgrounds, our schools and our surgeries—all the things upon which a successful economy and a healthy society depend.

This was a Budget for affordable homes, for the NHS, for the school rebuilding programme and—a personal priority for me as MP for Stalybridge and Hyde—for the trans-Pennine route upgrade, including a new station at Mossley, which is something I am sure the whole House can be excited about and get behind. This is literally rebuilding Britain in action, and make no mistake, businesses need that public investment too, because it creates the right environment for them to thrive now and long into the future. That is why the Office for Budget Responsibility says that our increases in spending will drive up the long-term increase in GDP by up to 1.4%.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

The Secretary of State makes much of growth. Of course we all want growth, but the OBR report actually says that growth in real GDP will start to slow over the next three years and that in years four and five of the Parliament it will go negative. It is telling us that the Government’s Budget is actually going to result in a smaller private sector, not a larger one. How is he going to explain that to business?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

That is not what it says. First, on the figures, we cannot make a like-for-like comparison because we know that the information provided by the previous Government in their financial information was erroneous. They did not square their own spending pledges with what was in those documents. The analysis by the OBR shows that long-term improvement in GDP growth is vital, but the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that it cannot model some of the wider parts of the Government’s agenda. It cannot model those changes in the planning system that are so important to the Government. It cannot model the changes involved in having a long-term industrial strategy. It cannot model our changes to trade policy.

I recognise that there is more to do to prove the case of the Government’s overall commitment, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that fundamentally fixing the foundations, honesty and stability in the public finances, and a focus on long-term public investment are essential to the long-term growth of the country. Also, one thing that has not had sufficient recognition is that many of the real benefits of greater public investment do not accrue in this Parliament; they accrue beyond it, and it is about time we had some long-term focus again in this country. Not before time, if I may say so.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman will, I hope, be aware that the long-term economic growth of this country relies not primarily on public investment or indeed public infrastructure, but on a healthy private sector—the wealth creators from whom we can take the funding to deliver into those goods that he talks about and that are part of a balanced and successful society. This Budget does not help them. It does the opposite.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I am sorry but, again, the right hon. Gentleman is wrong. I agree with part of his assessment, such as that a strong and thriving private sector is crucial to growth, but I find his analysis a little simplistic. Private firms will say that they also need skilled workers, and that they need a decent transport system so they can get to work.

Under the last Government, I would often get up in the morning and check my phone for updates from people using the trans-Pennine line I just mentioned—the one we are upgrading—and it would be full of people saying, “I cannot get to work.” I need the right hon. Gentleman to make a slightly broader analysis.

Despite the previous Government leaving us with a raging skip fire in many areas—we have to raise money, not to deliver our pledges but to deliver their pledges that they did not properly fund—we have had a regard and a heed for the level of competitiveness in the UK economy. For instance, on the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions, over half of all firms with national insurance liabilities will actually pay less or the same, not only because of the changes to the employment allowance but because of how we have removed the threshold so that all firms now qualify.

Despite the frankly terrible inheritance bequeathed to us, we have done our best to meet those needs and to deliver a long-term focus on the future.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I was going to move on, but I cannot resist the hon. Gentleman.

[Jim Shannon]

I hope the Minister will not be disappointed.

There are many good things in what the Government have brought forward, but what is missing, unfortunately, is support for farmers on inheritance tax. Farmers are the backbone of Britain, and they produce almost all the food we eat across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Farmers will be impacted greatly.

I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union and the National Farmers’ Union, and all the farmers I talk to in Northern Ireland have indicated that every farmer in Northern Ireland will be affected by inheritance tax. If the Government want to get it right, the threshold needs to be raised, and it is not too late. Raise the threshold to £4 million or £5 million so that family farms, the backbone of Britain, can continue.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I always listen to the hon. Gentleman because he is genuine and conscientious in representing his constituency’s interests. I will always listen to what he has to say. We can judge the exact impact of these changes by looking at the value of claims to date. The Conservative party’s analysis has forgotten to aggregate the impact of the changes to those allowances, such as agricultural property relief, alongside the existing nil-rate band and the ability to transfer the allowances between spouses in all cases. The total number of farms across the UK that will be affected by this change is actually only 500 for the 2026-27 financial year. That has been missed, and I remind colleagues that any inheritance tax liability has a 10-year, interest-free payment period. To be frank, there has been some scaremongering from the Opposition, and we have to be clear with people.

We have had to restore economic stability to deliver that investment, and we should not shy away from explaining why this has been so necessary. The previous Government’s scattergun approach to growth left our country starved of investment, economically divided and struggling to maintain a competitive edge in the global economy.

The previous Government’s claim to have delivered the fastest-growing economy in the G7, based on its performance in the first half of this year, is laughably false. I believe that The Sunday Times likened it to someone walking a marathon in six hours but, because they ran the last 100 yards, claiming to be the fastest runner in the world. The truth is that consistency and stability have been sorely lacking. We have had seven growth strategies since 2010 and 11 Business Secretaries in as many years, to say nothing of the UK’s revolving door of Prime Ministers.

[Graham Stuart]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I have already given the right hon. Gentleman a go. I will make a little progress, and we will see whether he can do a better one next time.

The result was a protracted period of anaemic growth. Had our economy grown at the average rate of other OECD countries over this period, it would have been £171 billion larger. Imagine the difference that would have made to all of our communities and to today’s Budget debate. British firms, facing such uncertainty, have not seen investing domestically as a sufficiently attractive proposition. They have been reluctant to adopt new technology, to upskill their employees or to plough money into research and development. We have even heard that, in any given year, roughly 40% of UK firms choose not to invest at all. We want to change that for good. We want to give businesses certainty, confidence and stability so that they can make decisions for the long term.

That is why, at the Budget, the Chancellor reaffirmed our new modern industrial strategy. Invest 2035 will be a central pillar of our growth mission. The strategy will allow businesses to plan not just for the next 10 months, but for the next 10 years. It has already won the backing of Make UK, which has told us that businesses will no longer have to

“fear the constant chop and change in policy we have seen over the last decade.”

Instead, they can focus on the long term.

Our industrial strategy will create a strong pro-business environment, making it simpler and cheaper for companies to scale up and invest. It will unleash the potential of our high-productivity services and industries, because our recent economic history has taught us that we have to play to our strengths. Over the last 25 years, high-productivity sectors were responsible for roughly 60% of our economy’s entire productivity growth. Looking at the figures since 1990, over half of the UK economy’s GDP growth has come from just three sectors—information and communications technology, financial and professional services, and advanced manufacturing.

That is why our industrial strategy will channel support to eight key growth-driving sectors, those in which the UK services sector will excel both today and tomorrow—the services and industries that present the greatest opportunity for output and productivity growth over the long term.

[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

How does that all gel with the fact that the OBR is saying that business investment will fall by 0.6%, as a share of GDP, by 2029? It sounds great, but it does not add up in the OBR’s eyes. Will the Minister please elaborate?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

We have a similar question. The Government’s wider pro-business changes cannot be modelled by the OBR, and we know that we have to prove them. There is simply no way that we will get to the higher business investment, the higher productivity growth and the stronger economic growth that we need in all parts of the country unless we are honest, robust and responsible with the public finances, as this Budget is and the previous Government were not. If the Budget does not set the trajectory for strong long-term public investment, to leverage in that degree of private investment, we will not have the foundations to succeed. I am so excited by this Budget because it gives us those strong foundations for the future.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The problem with our economy is that, too often, people build small businesses and then sell them off. They do not sit and develop them before potentially handing them on. Can the Minister explain how the proposed inheritance tax changes will encourage people to take risks in nurturing and growing their businesses in order to pass them on to succeeding generations? Plainly, his suggestion will have the reverse effect and will, therefore, make the situation worse, which will damage growth.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at the detail of our plans. From the data held by the Treasury, we can plan for how many firms will be affected, and it is a very small number. In most cases, given the existing inheritance tax nil-rate band, especially where property is involved or where there is a transfer from one spouse to another in the inheritance chain, the allowance is so great that it is already considerably in excess of the average claim for relief in this area.

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about a very small number of firms at the very large end. I think the revenue can be raised in a way that protects the kind of family firms he and I want to see continue to thrive. We all know there are cases where, for instance, people advertise the sale of agricultural land or certain types of investments specifically to avoid inheritance tax, which is not right. That is not good for business. We have to recognise that these fair and proportionate changes will pay for the last Government’s spending commitments. The changes will always have a benchmark for international competitiveness, in a way that the right hon. Gentleman should recognise rather than scaremonger.

At the Budget, as a statement of intent for our new industrial strategy, we saw the Chancellor make the first of many down payments with multi-year funding commitments for these areas of our economy. There will be significant tax relief for our world-leading creative industries, up to £0.5 billion for a brand-new life sciences innovative manufacturing fund, and nearly £1 billion for our aerospace sector to fund vital research and development into jet zero technology, which will boost industries in the east midlands, the south-west and Scotland. There is also £2 billion for our automotive sector, ensuring that the next generation of electric vehicles are designed, developed and built right here in the UK.

At the same time, we recognise that our industrial strategy’s success rests upon working in partnership with mayors and multinationals, councils and CEOs, unions and academics. That is why this Government are championing local growth plans—growth plans for the long term—to be delivered by strong local political leadership, which will work together with the Government to create the right conditions for success.

Crucially, our new industrial strategy will be international from the start, taking learnings from the best of what has been achieved globally so that we enable businesses of all sizes and sectors to thrive in our market. To that end, it will work in lockstep with our trade strategy and our twin-track approach to trade, acceding to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership and negotiating deals with the Gulf Co-operation Council and India, all to the benefit of British business.

Unlike the previous Administration, we are also making it much easier for UK firms to do business in and with Europe. Although the Opposition might not want to hear it, the EU is not just our closest trading partner but is still our largest trading partner, by quite some margin, yet the previous Government’s adversarial approach to working with the EU—all that incendiary rhetoric—was not conducive to good business. We are changing course, aiming to remove unnecessary barriers to trade, so that British companies will be able to operate more easily in France, Germany, Italy and across Europe.

We are making real progress. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister and the President of the European Commission issued a joint statement to deepen our co-operation on the economy, energy and security. We have agreed to regular EU-UK summits to strengthen our connections in all those areas, including the close business and investment ties that connect our economies.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

On the sectors that will benefit, does the Secretary of State agree that the hospitality sector would benefit more from some honesty and openness? The Government announced a 6% increase for people on the minimum wage, many of whom are employed in the private hospitality sector, but while our constituents will pay for that, the Treasury will benefit by hundreds of millions of pounds, because almost all those minimum wage earners will become taxpayers overnight.

[Mr Reynolds]

The hon. Gentleman should recognise that the Chancellor did not make an announcement on personal tax thresholds, which, for some Conservative Members, was unexpected and reflected the difficult inheritance of the new Government. Labour Members are proud of the minimum wage, now called the living wage, which has been one of the most successful policies in the history of this country—and even some Conservatives claim credit or support the measure as a policy innovation.

There is no doubt about the burden on the hospitality sector, because if the living wage goes up for people employed in it, that is a business cost. We have to acknowledge that. What those businesses fundamentally need are customers who have some spending power to use their disposable income in those places. The rise is not without benefit, but I recognise that it is painful.

The future for this country, however, cannot be as a low-wage, low-productivity economy that does not give people the living standards they want. I have been on television many times talking about the stagnant wages of the last Government. I want wages to be higher. The doubling of the employment allowance in the Budget recognises the burden on those types of businesses, which can now employ up to four people on the living wage without any national insurance liabilities at all. We have to have a system that accommodates those burdens, but fundamentally this Government are in favour of higher wages, and we are not going to pull away from that in any measure.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

The Secretary of State is right to emphasise the importance of a well-funded public sector and well-provisioned public- sector organisations to economic growth. He will also be aware that questions remain about how much additional support public-sector organisations will receive to cover the additional costs of employer national insurance contributions. Does the Secretary of State expect or anticipate those employers to be compensated in full for those additional costs?

[Mr Reynolds]

The hon. Gentleman raises a legitimate point that is considerably outside the remit of the Department for Business and Trade. He is right to put that issue on the record. There will be opportunity for clarity in that space. I understand why, for his constituents, he will want to ask that question in the Budget debate.

As Members’ interventions have shown, the Budget is not just about a set of policies that will be to the advantage of larger businesses; they will also be important to our smallest start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as for our oldest, biggest family firms. We have committed to hardwiring the views of small businesses into everything we do, and we have already started to do that. That is why in September, together with the Federation of Small Businesses, we announced robust measures to tackle late payments with a new fair payment code and tough, new rules on company reporting.

At the same time, we are reforming the British Business Bank to free up precious capital for SMEs to expand, to create new jobs, and to take ideas from design to development. The Chancellor’s Budget gives the green light to my Department to invest over £1 billion over the next two years so that the British Business Bank can widen access to finance for small businesses across the country. That includes over £250 million each year for small business loans programmes, like our start-up loans and the growth guarantee scheme.

As hon. Members will know and have asked about during the debate, while we are raising national insurance contributions, we have mitigated the impacts for small businesses by doubling the employment allowance to £10,500. That means 1 million small businesses will either be paying the same or less in national insurance contributions than they do now. That is why the Federation of Small Businesses has said that the

“Budget shows a clear direction in business policy now for the whole of this Parliament to target support at small businesses…prioritising everyday entrepreneurs working in local communities in all parts of the country.”

Through this new support for SMEs, the stability afforded by our new industrial strategy and the resetting of our trade relations, we are showing unequivocally that the UK supports business, wants to partner with business and is open for business.

That pro-worker, pro-business approach is already having a significant impact. Last month, hundreds of the world’s biggest firms and investors, from Blackstone to the BW Group, Haleon to Holtec, lined up at our international investment summit to back Britain and back this Government’s growth mission. That summit resulted in £63 billion of private investment commitments, more than double the amount secured by the previous Government last year—and in just 100 days. It will see billions of pounds flowing into our tech, digital, manufacturing and life sciences sectors, spurring growth in all four nations of the United Kingdom and creating almost 38,000 new jobs in the process.

We saw something else at that business and international investment summit: a ringing endorsement of this Government’s restoration of stability for the UK economy. IFM Investors said that it was

“very encouraged by the new government’s commitment to a long-term pro-investment mindset.”

Ørsted, a global leader in green energy, stated that the main reason it was investing more in the UK was because of our green energy targets. It recognised us as

“a government who wants work with business to enable the investments required.”

M&G went one step further. It said:

“The UK has a clear national mission to drive economic growth and back wealth creation across every region of the country.”

It welcomed our efforts to

“put the UK back on the investor map, showcase market opportunities and reinforce how business and government can work in partnership.”

Let there be no doubt, despite the dust the Opposition are trying to kick up, this is a Budget with stability at its core, which sets a course for growth and rebuilds Britain. The former Prime Minister’s response baulked at the wave of new investment this Budget ushers, but he could not be more wrong. While we are restoring economic stability and going for growth, we are keeping debt on a downward path. Indeed, on the back of the Budget, the IMF has said that it supports the reduction in the deficit over the medium term, including by sustainably raising revenue. It recognises what we on the Government Benches know to be true—the principal way to drive economic growth is to invest, invest and invest.

May I remind the Opposition that we have tried their way? All that did was stagnate wages, stifle growth and put the public finances into a £22 billion black hole, with nothing to show for it. We cannot cut our way out of a hole; we need investment to lift the economy up. Having endured the last Government lurching from crisis to crisis, the British people voted in July overwhelmingly for change. They voted for a Government that would set Budgets to serve their long-term interests, not serve the news cycle or election cycle. They voted for stability, for growth and to fix the foundations. That is exactly what this Budget delivers, and I commend it to the House.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Before I call the next speaker, I wish to make a short and hopefully helpful statement. It is about the way in which Members are called to speak in debates. Members who wish to catch my eye, or indeed the eye of Mr Speaker himself or any of the other Deputy Speakers, should write to Mr Speaker in advance. Those who have not written in may still be called, but priority will be given to those who have applied in writing in advance.

Members who have applied to speak, but no longer wish to do so, should notify the Speaker’s Office as soon as possible. Once you have written in to request to speak, you should turn up in the Chamber for the start of the debate and for all contributions from the Front Bench. You should be present in the Chamber for most of the debate. If you are not able to be here because of other commitments, then you should withdraw your application to speak.

Selection of speakers in debates is at the discretion of the Chair. The Chair, however, cannot predict precisely when a Member might expect to speak. When a very large number of Members have put in to speak, as we have seen over the course of the entire Budget debate, it may not be possible to get you all in, even with the use of time limits. If for any reason you need to be briefly absent from the Chamber during the debate in which you are down to speak, you should notify the Chair, but a prolonged absence may result in your name being removed from the list.

May I ask Members not to crowd the Chair, please, to make requests about when they are likely to be called? Please go through your Whip. It is very distracting and difficult for the Chair, particularly if there are a large number of interventions and a large number of Members trying to speak to me. Please go through your Whip, who will be able to handle those requests appropriately.

14:11

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I start by congratulating our US allies on the election of their 47th president? When it comes to business and trade, America is our most important partner. As our economies are so interlinked, nearly 1.5 million Brits work for American companies, and more than 1.2 million Americans work for British companies. That trade relationship is worth £280 billion a year, and the amount invested in each other’s economies has now surpassed £1 trillion.

The Government may be right to say that there is much to rebuild in Britain today, but what this Budget does, combined with the Government’s nationalisation of railways, Employment Rights Bill, and Great British Energy, is to take us further away from that goal, with higher taxes, more regulation, bigger government and a smaller wealth-producing part of the economy. It is a Budget for prejudice rather than for progress. While Labour Members will praise the Budget for its finer measures and the socialist purity of its design, their constituents can see that, when it comes to growth, the Budget emperor has no clothes. The Office for Budget Responsibility strips it back to its stark, naked flesh. It says that Budget policies temporarily boost output in the near term, but leave GDP largely unchanged in five years. If growth is their central mission, the Government have already failed.

In the harsh light of day, the Secretary of State’s colleagues are starting to realise that the Budget is not such an appealing sell. As was reported on Sunday, Labour Back Benchers have said that the Chancellor’s Budget is impossible to sell to horrified constituents—they have been reading their emails again. One colleague of the Secretary of State for Business and Trade told The Daily Telegraph, “It has been received very badly indeed within the Labour party”. There is a stark contrast between what the OBR is saying and what those on the Government Front Bench are claiming. The chances are that it will not be a growth Budget, as is claimed. All the evidence is that it will have no more growth by the end of it, and it will certainly be paid for by higher effective taxes on working people.

The Secretary of State’s colleagues are right, and no wonder. The private sector experience of the Cabinet could barely fill a beer glass, let alone a boardroom. Conservative Members know that it is business that creates jobs and the prosperity to pay for our public services. Businesses are the builders, and there is no rebuilding without them. That is something that Labour Members simply do not understand. Britain’s business needs a Government who have their back, not one that drags them down.

[David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Under the previous Government, life expectancy plateaued, and the number of people living with long-term ill health increased. Was that good for business?

[Andrew Griffith]

The ability to continue to invest in our public services, and the sterling work done by the predecessor Government on levelling up every part of the United Kingdom—[Interruption.] Government Members do not like it, but that work relies fundamentally on private enterprise, which pays the taxes that fund the prosperity and the infrastructure that this country needs. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is merely showing once again his party’s deficient understanding of how a modern economy works—it is markets, not Governments, that drive up prosperity—and how free trade has improved human health.

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State think that the Conservative-designed and implemented Brexit is good for markets, good for business, and good for growth?

[Andrew Griffith]

Well, we will talk a little later about stability. If colleagues do not have maiden speeches to make, I will be very happy to talk at great length about the many benefits of Brexit and the important ability for a country to make its own laws and deliver benefits for the economy.

Let me make some progress. The Secretary of State has talked much about infrastructure, and, indeed, that is partly the subject of today’s debate. Although creating infrastructure is a noble goal, important to all the constituents who send us here, words, I am afraid, are cheap, and the actions of his party somewhat undermine his position. His party voted in the other place against measures to allow 100,000 homes to be built, and his Labour Mayor of London failed to build to such an extent that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government now proposes lowering his targets. This Labour Budget has pulled up the housing ladder for so many, by increasing the burden of stamp duty for first-time buyers. Currently, an estimated 80% of first-time buyers pay no stamp duty, but from April 2025, that could fall to only half.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Andrew Griffith]

I will happily give way to the hon. Lady, particularly if she can tell me how this Budget will help deliver for first-time buyers.

[Florence Eshalomi]

Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that this Labour Government will help renters by banning no-fault evictions?

[Andrew Griffith]

I was party to the debate in which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition talked about the unintended consequences of piling burden upon burden on the rental market—in a well-meaning way, I accept. We have only to look north of the border, where similar measures were introduced, to see their devastating effect on the rental markets, and the shocking increase in rents as a result of a Government trying to over-regulate a sector.

Laughably, while the Government talk about investment, in their first 100 days, they cancelled the restoring your railway programme—clearly, with some projects being honourable exceptions—which would have made it easier for constituents to get to work sustainably. They have also cancelled road schemes, including the A303 scheme and—I declare an interest—the A27 Arundel bypass in my constituency. It is not the first time that a Labour Government have cancelled that bypass. The Government talk a great deal about the future of this country, the technology and their modern industrial strategy, but should not new innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence and supercomputing, be at the heart of that?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

rose—

[Andrew Griffith]

I will happily give way to the Secretary of State if he wants to explain why he no longer deems it important to invest in these crucial parts of the economy.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Let us reflect on where we are today—the first day of the constructive Opposition. The new Leader of the Conservative party stood at the Dispatch Box two hours ago and called for both tax cuts and massive public spending on defence. How are you going to pay for projects that you promised but never delivered, and that you knew you could never pay for?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The Secretary of State knows better than to say “you”.

[Andrew Griffith]

We would have got a better answer from ChatGPT. The reality is that the Budget not only increased taxes in the outyears by £40 billion a year but increased borrowing by £140 billion over the course of the plans—yet despite that largesse, there was no room to fulfil the mandate of British researchers and continue to invest in the supercomputer and infrastructure that they need.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)]

A Business Secretary in the last Government wrote an industrial strategy, but it was quickly binned. Under the Conservatives’ new leadership, what is their position on industrial strategy, because we went without one for many years?

[Andrew Griffith]

Forgive me if the hon. Member has been here for more than 120 days, but I fully support the sectors, and the industrial strategies that the Government have articulated for them, because the strategies continue on from, and are identical to, those of the previous Government. Not for the first time, we see what I call name-plating from this Government. A British business bank—the UK Infrastructure Bank—is being re-name-plated as a national wealth fund. The modern industrial strategy takes the existing science, technology and innovation framework, our plan for financial services and our creative industries strategy and re-name-plates them under a different banner. That is welcome. There is nothing quite as flattering as plagiarism, and I am delighted that those really important sectors of the economy will benefit from a degree of continuity.

The Budget has been absolutely crushing for business. If the Secretary of State is honest, he will know that from his engagement. The only thing that it has delivered to businesses across the country is more burdens. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the increase in national insurance contributions amounts to a £25 billion tax on business. The reduction of the national insurance threshold by over £4,000 will keep small and medium-sized businesses up at night. Let us not equivocate: the measures in the Budget amount, in the words of the Chancellor herself, to a “jobs tax”. From industry leaders to shop owners, those in the retail, hospitality and leisure industries in particular will think back to what they heard during the election campaign.

[Graham Stuart]

I know that my hon. Friend follows these things closely. According to the OBR, the £26 billion jobs tax bombshell actually nets only £16 billion because of reduced investment and other funds, and three quarters of the £26 billion falls on workers’ wages. Only this socialist Government could be so incompetent as to reduce wages by more than they will take from a tax that they have introduced. I have not heard that observation yet in the debate, but I share it with my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. We have heard talk from Labour Members of a circular economy. Well, this is entirely circular. As the OBR observes, the measure does not add to growth, and as my right hon. Friend mentioned, three quarters of the burden will fall on the low-paid. The Labour party has a distinguished record on these matters, and if Labour Members are serious and thoughtful about this, they will interrogate their Front-Benchers in much greater depth, because the measure will result in lower-paid, poorer jobs—and it will be much harder for people to get on the jobs ladder in the first place.

There is an enormous number of unanswered questions. The impact on GPs is uncosted.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

And on charities.

[Andrew Griffith]

Indeed, there will be an impact on charities and the third sector—those who care for us at the most difficult points in life. On Friday, I met representatives from a charity in my constituency that cares for those with dementia. Its income is fixed, its needs are ever present, and as a result of this Labour Budget, it simply does not know how it will balance its books.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

Is the reality not that the Labour Government also do not know how they will balance the books? I asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in a written parliamentary question how much the rise in employer national insurance contributions will cost the Department. The Government said that they did not know.

[Andrew Griffith]

Either the Government do not know but should know, or they do know and should say.

The Budget also included the highest-ever increase in capital gains tax, and a reduction in business property relief. Just as with the family farm tax, that reduction is an attack on the family-owned businesses that dominate our high streets and industrial parks. The incentive to take risk, and to create and grow a family business with the objective of passing it on, will be fundamentally undermined. Some 75% of UK businesses are family run, and in aggregate they employ 50% of all workers in the economy. We are talking about decades of hard work, dedicated to building a legacy, and people creating an insurance policy for their passing. The so-called “loopholes” in inheritance tax that Government Front-Benchers talk about are legitimate tax policies, introduced by a Labour Government in 1976 to ensure that businesses were not broken up and devastated on the death of an owner, to the detriment of the remaining employees, workers, suppliers, customers, the wider economy, and even the Treasury, which would lose future tax take. This measure could be devastating for our communities and our high streets up and down the country.

It is not just Conservative Members who are sounding the alarm, though we may be doing it with a greater degree of passion. The chief executive officer of UKHospitality said that the increase in national insurance will undermine businesses operating at the margins and

“be a brake on growth”.

Family Business UK, which represents family-owned enterprises, has said that the Budget

“removes entirely any incentive for starting or running a family business.”

[Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that in the 2022 spring Budget, the Conservative party increased national insurance for employers by 1.25%, and he supported that. Can he explain why he was in favour of it then but opposes it now, even though we have introduced increased employment allowances that counteract the change?

[Andrew Griffith]

I am pretty sure that at the time, the now Chancellor described the increase as a “jobs tax”, and that is exactly what this is. What we are seeing is not a need to balance the nation’s books on the back of a global supply chain squeeze, higher energy costs due to the war in Ukraine and the aftermath of covid, but a Government coming in with premeditated plans that they did not share with the British people, and setting the biggest-ever tax raid Budget in British history. That is an enormous difference, and business understands it; it can see through this Government.

One of the UK’s leading hospitality entrepreneurs is Luke Johnson, who runs Gail’s, which I believe some of my Liberal Democrat colleagues are rather keen on—they are the party of Gail’s. He said:

“It is heartbreaking that Britain’s proud record of innovation, flexibility and business success is being thrown away thanks to that old knee-jerk Labour instinct of taxing success.”

I agree.

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is clear that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the way in which the Budget raises revenue. Does he oppose the £22 billion investment in the NHS, the investment in special educational needs and disabilities education, or the increases in the schools budget?

[Andrew Griffith]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman has a long and successful career in this House, but he will not have very long to wait; if he is concerned about a lack of investment in the NHS, I ask him to sit down with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and ask exactly what the rate of growth will be for NHS spending and departmental spending in the years ’26-27 and ’27-28. Then perhaps he could come back and tell me what he thinks about that level of spending growth.

The Government talk of stabilising the economy—we have heard a lot about that—but this is not a Budget for stability; it is anything but. Let me educate Labour colleagues. There is nothing stable about lowering the rate of economic growth. All that does is create a more fragile and susceptible economy. There is nothing sustainable about a Government changing the fiscal rules after saying that they would not. Even with the potentially unsustainable levels of departmental spend, there is nothing stable in a Government having a razor-thin level of headroom that the OBR quantifies at only £10 billion—just one third of the level that the Chancellor’s predecessor set—to ensure that they remain within the fiscal rules, which they have just made up, by the way.

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

I will happily give way to the hon. Lady if she wants to talk about headroom in the fiscal rules, and the lack thereof.

[Melanie Ward]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about stability, but does he recognise the irony in his party—the party of Liz Truss—lecturing the Government about stability?

[Andrew Griffith]

The—[Interruption.] I am trying to find something relevant to say to the hon. Lady. There is a—[Interruption.]

[Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)]

rose—

[Hon. Members]

Behind you!

[Andrew Griffith]

I will happily give way in a minute. At least the Budget that the hon. Lady talks about was an attempt to do two things. First, it sought to shield households in this country from going into a cold winter with an increase in energy bills—her Labour colleagues may wish to contemplate what they have done to 8 million pensioners through the reduction of the winter fuel allowance. Secondly, it was a Budget for growth. This Budget, as we have observed—[Interruption.] Well, some people are making interesting comments, but the direction in this Budget is to lower, rather than increase, growth.

[Mr Snowden]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the reaction to the Budget, the gilt market is in a far worse position than it was following the mini-Budget? Labour Members might want to do some research into the impact of their own Budget.

[Andrew Griffith]

Well, my—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I will hear the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Griffith]

My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point. The Government are enormously lucky, given the spike in gilt yields over the preceding weeks and subsequent to the Budget, that the previous Government dealt with the aftermath of the financial regulatory failure in respect of liability-driven investment. We dealt with that, and as a result we have a more stable financial system, which has been able, so far, to survive what the Government have done.

In evidence taken by the Treasury Committee yesterday, Richard Hughes explained, and I shall say this slowly, that an increase to interest rates of just 0.3%—one third of 1%—would wipe out all the headroom. That is in the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook, and is no doubt why the OBR gives the Government only a 54% chance of hitting their targets. That is barely better than the odds on a coin toss.

So there we have it. The Government spent months talking up their credentials on enterprise. They looked business owners in the eye and told them that they would have their back and support them, but 120 days later they went back on their promise—a prawn cocktail offensive with a nasty dose of indigestion. They have crushed confidence and destroyed investment. They have checked any incentive for growth. They have left thousands of enterprising strivers wondering when the day will come when the shutters on their shops are not lifted any more. I dare the Secretary of State to stand before the 4.8 million family business owners and tell them that this is a Budget that will work for them. Risk takers and wealth creators deserve a Government who have their back, invest in infrastructure and do not embolden the inefficiencies of the public sector. Be in no doubt: while the Government keep growth, innovation and entrepreneurs in their crosshairs, the Conservatives will always be on the side of business.

14:34

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to speak about the first Labour Budget in 14 years. For my constituents, the last fourteen years have been difficult. Too often, they felt that the then Government were not on their side. That Government did not hear that austerity left us not only with deteriorating public services but more fragile communities. They did not reform the planning system, which would have alleviated the housing crisis and stopped the 20% to 30% rent increases that left many of my constituents facing eviction during a cost of living crisis. They did not take the difficult decisions to protect the economy, and left our new Government with a black hole to fill.

We heard loud and clear in July that government must be different. This Budget offers that. We have a rise to the national living wage and to the rate for under-21s, which will make work pay whatever someone’s age. Funding of over £25 billion for the NHS over the next two years will deliver more doctors and tens of thousands of extra appointments, helping hospitals such as St Thomas’, just over the river in my constituency.

As the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, I have heard a lot from our local authorities, which have borne the brunt of the failure to tackle the housing crisis. Councils have been forgotten, with devastating consequences for communities. Yesterday, at our first public Committee meeting, we heard from homelessness organisations and local authority representatives on the state of temporary accommodation. Councils are having to spend unsustainable amounts to fill gaps in that area, which is driving them to near bankruptcy. In London alone, 70% of local authority housing budgets are being absorbed by temporary accommodation. That means less money for repairs and maintenance of housing stock, which leaves tenants feeling the increase in the crisis.

The human impact is even more shocking. As I speak, over 150,000 children are in temporary accommodation across England. In the last five years, 55 children have died in circumstances linked to temporary accommodation; 42 of them were under the age of one. That should shock and shame us. Those deaths are not coincidental. Yesterday, the Committee heard about families living in one room. That can stunt a child’s growth because they are not able to do the things they should, such as crawling. We heard about how a child’s ability to form social attachments with peers can be affected by the lack of consistency caused by constant moving. We heard about how parents are often plunged into mental health crises because of the stress of raising a family in those conditions, which further isolates the child.

The Government can and must do better. I welcome the steps in this Budget to supplement the affordable housing programme, increase homelessness spending and scale back right to buy to boost our social housing stock, but they must be first steps. We need further significant change in the upcoming funding settlement, and the next Budget must truly start to address that crisis. I am particularly worried about the freeze to local housing allowance rate, because it is a lifeline for people who are struggling. That is covered by the Department for Work and Pensions, but the measure could have a significant impact on attempts to tackle the homelessness crisis, so it must be addressed in upcoming statements.

The deep harm caused by the last 14 years cannot and will not be fixed overnight. The Budget is the first in my five years in this House that gives us a glimmer of hope and a road map for fixing our broken public services. I congratulate the Chancellor and her team on getting on with the job so quickly, but I will be a voice for the thousands of families who continue to fall through the cracks with no safety net beneath them. They cannot afford to wait any longer for help—they need it now. I urge the Government to give attention to people in crisis, such as those in temporary accommodation. We cannot, as a Labour Government, risk failing a generation of young people.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

14:39

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), who has given another customarily powerful speech and reminded us of the injustices facing those who fall between the cracks.

We live in an uncertain and unstable world, and the US election result makes it more so. As we debate how to rebuild our great country after the mess left by the Conservatives, many of us will have a sense of apprehension today about what the presidential result means for the US—including women and minority groups—as well as for the UK, Europe and the world. Families across the UK will also be worrying about the damage that President Trump and his Administration may do to our economy and our national security, given his record of starting trade wars, undermining NATO and emboldening tyrants such as Putin. None the less, that may well be the context within which we must rebuild Britain.

We Liberal Democrats believe that rebuilding Britain starts with rebuilding our NHS and social care. Never before have I heard so much desperation as at the last general election. The legacy of the last Government was to leave people saying that they could not see a GP or a dentist, and were waiting months for mental health assessments or special educational needs documents. People were asking me on the doorstep whether maybe everything was so broken that it could not be fixed at all, but we Liberal Democrats know that health and social care must be fixed hand in hand. We welcome the Government’s investment in the NHS, but they cannot remain silent on social care—they cannot dismiss it as a second-term issue. Businesses know that people’s productivity plummets when they have to pick up the pieces of a broken social care system.

[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady makes absolutely the right point about the NHS and its interdependence with social care, but the Government have done more than be silent on social care: through the minimum wage and the NICs, they have imposed £2.5 billion of additional costs on social care while giving just £600 million to local authorities. They are taking an already difficult situation and making it rather worse.

[Daisy Cooper]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. He may remember that at Deputy Prime Minister’s questions two weeks ago, I raised precisely that point with the Deputy Prime Minister and advised the Government that if they went ahead with the rise in national insurance contributions, it would affect social care. The right hon. Gentleman will, however, remember that it was the Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson who stood on the steps of Downing Street in 2019 and promised to reform social care “once and for all”, but clearly failed to do so.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

Two managing partners from GP practices in my constituency have written to me about the significant impact of the increase in employer NI contributions, which they say will directly undermine access and patient care. They will also have a huge impact on the brilliant work of Princess Alice hospice in my constituency, which is already hugely stretched—it will cost that hospice £400,000 a year. Does my hon. Friend agree that that hospice and those GP practices should be exempt?

[Daisy Cooper]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. I absolutely agree that they should be exempt; I think the rise in national insurance contributions is the wrong thing to do, full stop, but if it is going to go ahead, there must be exemptions. In my own area, for example, one local hospice in Hertfordshire will see its national insurance contributions go up by £150,000. Its warning is very clear: that if this rise goes ahead, beds will have to close.

People must see opportunities in enterprise as well, but the rise in national insurance contributions will hit small businesses hard, especially those on the high street. The success of our high streets really matters, not just for growth but for confidence: for so many people, the high street is the most visual and visceral mark of whether or not the economy is thriving. I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate later today whether the Government intend to bring forward a high streets strategy, and if so, when we might see it.

I have been inundated with messages from small businesses on my high street in St Albans. Here are just some of the quotes: one business said that

“the reality of last week’s budget will mean no more investment and no further recruitment as was planned and in all likelihood redundancies.”

Another small business said:

“I provide employment locally, raise money for local charities and have created a much-loved addition to our town centre…I am worried about how much longer I can go on.”

One business said that it

“would be impacted mainly with our business rates increase and my plea is that that can’t happen. The high street challenges are hard enough as they are”

without having to face

“an uncertain Christmas trading period.”

Other colleagues have mentioned the impact on medical charities, hospices and GPs. In Hertfordshire, the local medical committee said:

“Since 2014 we have seen 56 practices close or merge across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, representing 35% of the 216 practices that existed back in 2014.”

GP practices need certainty as to whether any of these costs will be passed on to them at a time when they are already feeling the squeeze. I can guess what the Minister may say: he may encourage Members on the Opposition Benches to indicate how we would raise taxes instead. In the spirit of constructive opposition, we Liberal Democrats urge the Government to think again, because we believe the burden of fixing our public services should fall on the shoulders of the big banks, the gambling companies and the big tech companies, not the small businesses that are the beating heart of our communities. Suppressing small business is not the route to growth.

The business rates reforms in the Budget not only fall short of what we need, but actually make things worse in the short term. The last Conservative Government promised to reform the business rates system, but failed to do so. The current system penalises bricks-and-mortar retailers, while out-of-town retailers manage to get off almost scot- free. Pubs, high street shops and the rest of the hospitality sector have been hit really hard, with the discount being reduced from 75% to 40%. That is going to have a major impact. St Albans is renowned for its pubs—as many of the more long-established Members will remember, I talk about the pubs in St Albans on many occasions. We have more pubs per square mile than anywhere else in the UK, but those pubs will now face additional business rates bills of between £5,000 and £35,000. Some fear that this could push them over the edge.

Over the past few days, much has been said about food security as well. We Liberal Democrats agree that the loopholes that are being exploited by big corporations that buy up swathes of our land must be closed, but we are concerned that the Government’s approach is rather crude—that as they try to close those loopholes, some family farms will be collateral damage. Again in the spirit of constructive opposition, I encourage the Government to look again at our proposal for a proper family farming test, as is used in some other countries.

Finally, I will say a word or two about investment. We Liberal Democrats believe that the Government have done the right thing in changing the fiscal rules, and in principle, we believe in the importance of borrowing for productive investment. However—once again, I say this in the spirit of constructive opposition—I think the Government have put all of their growth eggs in the building back basket. I understand why they may be doing that. However, given the Trump presidency and the prospects of potential tariffs and trade wars that could drive up the price of products such as semiconductors and construction materials, there is a very real risk that the investment that the Government make will not reap the rewards that we all hope for—through changes in the global climate, rather than any fault of their own. We need a resilient economy, so I praise the Government for investing, but urge them to look at the question of resilience. At this time, it is even more important that we look to small businesses and high streets for growth, so I urge the Government to think again and unleash the power of our high streets and small businesses, rather than hamper them.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Irene Campbell to make her maiden speech.

14:49

[Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Many thanks, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to give my maiden speech in such an important debate. It was great to see a Budget delivered by a female Chancellor, the first one ever in this Parliament, and a Budget delivering the largest funding settlement for Scotland in the history of devolution.

I am delighted to be here today as the Member of Parliament for North Ayrshire and Arran, my home constituency, and I am honoured that people put their faith in me and voted for me to be their MP. I thank my family and friends for their support, which was greatly appreciated.

I pay my respects to my predecessor Patricia Gibson for her work in the constituency over the past nine years. Like me, she cares about the community we serve, and I wish her well. I also pay my respects to her staff for their hard work. Staff often go unrecognised, but they play a vital part in delivering for our communities.

I first got interested in politics at a very young age. One of our neighbours, David Lambie, was the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire from 1970 until 1983 and was very active in the area. That was my introduction to politics and to this place. I was fascinated by what was going on and how it all worked. I remember being in the Gallery to see Prime Minister’s questions in the 1980s; I still cannot quite believe that I am now here sitting on the green Benches.

North Ayrshire and Arran is a mix of towns—many of them post-industrial—villages, rural and island communities. It has the best of both the countryside and the seaside, with two beautiful islands, but I will say more about that later. I have lived in the constituency for most of my life, although I started my working life in London in the 1980s. Jobs were scarce at that time in North Ayrshire and many other parts of Britain. Some may remember that unemployment was very high and to get a job people moved to cities. I arrived in London an enthusiastic young punk and not only got a job that I loved, but got to see a lot of bands, go to great art exhibitions, make some lifetime friends and generally have a great time, as most young people do. I would not have expected that years later I would be back in London where I started my career—I am no longer a punk, as you can see, but hopefully I still have the attitude.

Coming back to my constituency, I must mention a very famous resident, Alfred Nobel. In the 1860s he identified a site in the town of Stevenston on the Ardeer peninsula to build his explosives factory. At one time it was the largest explosives factory in the world and in its heyday it employed around 15,000 people, mainly locals. Nobel lived locally during the start of the project, and my great-grandmother Clara came over from Sweden to work for the Nobel family. She never left Stevenston, as she met my great-grandfather and stayed, so I am obviously very grateful.

North Ayrshire and Arran is a diverse constituency with the towns of Kilwinning, Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenston making up a post-industrial landscape along with the Garnock valley, comprising the towns of Dalry, Beith, Kilbirnie, Glengarnock and the villages of Gateside and Barmill. The famous Glengarnock steelworks opened in the 1840s and operated until the 1970s. The north coast is made up of small, pretty coastal towns, with the villages of Seamill, West Kilbride, which is often referred to as a craft town, Portencross, Fairlie, Largs and Skelmorlie, and of course we have the wonderful and beautiful islands of Arran and Cumbrae.

To give a little bit of history, North Ayrshire and Arran has many ancient castles and monuments, from the medieval abbey in Kilwinning to castles in Ardrossan, Portencross, Glengarnock, Kersland, Dalry and many more, and the ancient Machrie Moor standing stones on Arran. The town of Largs is famous for the Viking battle in 1263 and hosts an annual Viking festival. These historical sites attract many visitors, and tourism is important to our local communities, particularly our island communities.

I must mention some famous residents, past and president—[Interruption.] Forgive me—I meant to say “present”. That is a Freudian slip on 6 November! Betsy Miller from Saltcoats was the first woman to be registered as the master of a ship and was apparently mentioned in this House during a debate on the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act 1834. Henry Faulds from Beith, a Scottish doctor and scientist, was noted for the development of fingerprinting. Moving on to the present day, from Saltcoats we have Steve Clarke, the Scotland football manager, and Colin Hay, singer and musician from the Australian band Men at Work—who incidentally did not come from “a land down under”, but from Saltcoats. We have classical violinist Nicola Benedetti from West Kilbride, Olympic athlete Jemma Reekie from Beith and musicians and songwriters Gallagher and Lyle from Largs.

There are many community organisations and projects working hard in the constituency, including North Ayrshire Women’s Aid, where I served on the board for many years and was chair. The service provides crucial support for women and children. There are also Men’s Sheds throughout the constituency, as I think there are throughout the whole UK, doing great work promoting mental health and general wellbeing. The 1st Alliance Credit Union in Kilwinning ensures that local people can save and access affordable loans. In Kilbirnie there is the Radio City Association, working hard to bring community energy and the associated benefits. We also have the award-winning SeaSalt Streets group in Saltcoats, helping to improve the town centre, and I must pay tribute to the Save Ardrossan Harbour group, fighting hard to save the Ardrossan to Brodick ferry route, which has been in existence for around 190 years. There are many more I could mention.

Finally, I come to my home town of Saltcoats, where I have lived for most of my life. Saltcoats is a small seaside town on the Firth of Clyde. It was a great place to grow up, with plenty for children to do. One feature that I must mention is the great outdoor swimming pool, built in the 1930s, which had a beautiful art deco pavilion that would not have been out of place in the Cote d’Azur—although certainly did not have its weather. The pool welcomed many visitors from Glasgow and beyond and was very busy all through the summer, despite the fact that it was freezing cold and sometimes people would be swimming next to a jellyfish or an eel—that was all part of the experience. I learned to swim in the pool at a young age and have very fond memories of it.

Sadly, the beautiful art deco pavilion was demolished in the 1980s, but the swimming pool remains. During covid, I started a campaign with other local enthusiasts to revive and reopen the pool. We call ourselves the Splash group and we are linked with the UK Future Lidos group, which comprises other lido enthusiasts aiming to build lidos or to reopen existing ones throughout the UK and Ireland. Outdoor swimming has never been so popular and now is definitely the time to do it. It is good for both physical and mental health and wellbeing, and the pool would offer a safe outdoor space for swimmers. The Splash group has been working with London architect Chris Romer-Lee and we have a visionary 21st-century design for our pool. It would be a fantastic asset for Saltcoats and the wider North Ayrshire community.

I have given the House a tour of my constituency. I am in this place to serve my community and my aim during this Parliament is to bring improvement and investment and to work hard to make positive change to the lives of people in North Ayrshire and Arran.

14:56

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) on his role as shadow Secretary of State. I know what a distinguished career he has had in business and how eminently qualified he is for this role. I also enjoyed listening to the Secretary of State; I know he is a very intelligent man and I know by reputation what a decent man he is, but while I was sitting in the Chamber I looked up on Wikipedia what his business experience is and what qualifies him for his role. I am sorry to report that he has about as much business experience as I do, which is precisely none.

I spent my career before my election working in Parliament and in the charity sector—you could mistake me for a Labour MP, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am almost indistinguishable from them and easily mistaken for one. However, I will do my best to disabuse them of that false impression by saying what a very shameful thing it is that the Labour party allowed the public to be so misled in the run-up to the last election. Labour promised not to raise taxes, not to increase borrowing or to change the borrowing rules and certainly not to impose inheritance tax on family farms. All those things they have done in this Budget, and it is a shameful thing.

Leaving aside whether these measures are good or bad for the country, leaving aside the erroneous idea that suddenly Labour understood the public finances after they got into government, when they did not understand them before—even though before the party got into government it said it knew exactly what was in the public finances, and of course it did, because that is what the OBR enables—the fact is that Labour understandably stressed in the run-up to the election that they were standing on a platform of probity, integrity and trust. Those were the words used repeatedly in their election campaigns, and the public responded to that.

In so far as it is possible to say that Labour won public support at the election—of course it did not really; we just lost it—it was on the grounds that—[Interruption.] Labour Members ask why we lost it. We lost it because the public could not trust us and they did not think we had integrity. I know that. I am not stupid. We understand what the public thought and I am not going to disabuse them, but Labour promised to be different, and in this Budget they have absolutely broken their promises on integrity and trust. This is a day of shame for the party after what they have done with this Budget.

In a less partisan spirit, there is much to critique about the economy that the Labour party inherited when it came into government. I recognise that there were things wrong with our economy and deep structural problems. They go back decades—a lot longer than 14 years. In so far as it is possible to critique the Conservative party for failures, those happened for very understandable reasons—not least because of the deficit and the broken economy that we had inherited 14 years previously, as well as other events that took place during our time in power. Our failure was that we did not fix those fundamental structural problems with the economy that we inherited. Those problems were to do with a high-tax, high-borrowing economy that had high levels of public debt caused by high welfare, high and preventable health spending, high rates of private debt, low productivity and low wages. Those are the underlying structural realities of the British economy going back decades; they are the reality of this century so far. It is therefore right that the Chancellor talks often about fixing the foundations. I welcome that because it is absolutely the right framework within which to approach the challenge that the new Government faces on the economy.

The problem is that the Government are leaning into the broken model that we have. They are further damaging the foundations of our economy, which need to be fixed, by pursuing more borrowing, more tax and spend and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs said from the Front Bench a little while ago, a plan that will not lead to greater growth in the economy over this Parliament, with only minuscule improvements if the forecasts are correct.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of cross-party consensus, let me hope that we can fix the foundations of the economy, because we do need to fix them. What are those foundations? Classically understood, the foundations of prosperity—the foundations of any economy—are land, labour and capital. Let me look at each briefly in turn.

The fundamental reality of our land economy is the planning system. Work done in the think-tank world by Southwood, Hughes and Bowman called “Foundations” —that is absolutely the right framing—shows that it is impossible to build things in this country, to build them quickly and to build them in the right places. Yes, we need new housing urgently, and I recognise and applaud the Government’s commitment on that, but their approach is entirely wrong. They propose to build houses where they are not needed and not wanted—on our green fields—instead of where they are urgently needed and very much wanted, which is in our cities.

What we need all across the country, including in rural areas such as the one I represent in east Wiltshire, is more business space. We need space for industrial use, and we need office space. We urgently need to enable our entrepreneurs to create businesses and to grow them in the places where they want to do that. I am very conscious of the challenge we have in Wiltshire with the lack of affordable and available land for business.

Like others, I should also quickly mention the absolute crime of proposing to tax family farms and to insist that farmers sell up when farms are passing from one generation to the next. That is another flagrant abuse of trust by this Government.

The second foundation is the labour market. I have not heard the Government address this so far in the Budget or in this Budget debate, but the crucial challenge for our economy is that it is so dependent on high rates of low-skilled migration, which depresses wages, increases welfare and inhibits productivity—crucially, because it disincentivises employers from investing in people, in machinery or in technology that boosts growth and productivity. We have to cap migration and shift spending into the skills economy and into our own people to support them to gain the skills they need in order to do the jobs that need doing.

The third foundation is capital itself. We have heard a lot from Ministers about the need for investment, but what they mean is public investment and public spending. What is fundamentally needed is private investment, but we hear nothing about that and do not see much sign of it. We have a broken capital market. Again, I recognise that a lot of this goes back many years—to well before this Government—but it is difficult for businesses to find the capital they need to start and, crucially, to scale. All the incentives are towards rushing to private equity or to an initial public offering and cashing out as soon as possible. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) during Prime Minister’s questions earlier about the failure of the London capital market to direct capital into UK businesses. That is a perennial challenge with our finance sector, and it needs addressing.

I echo the point made by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), who was absolutely right about the importance of investing in UK resilience. We need money—crucially, private money—to go into small and medium-sized enterprises and the key growth sectors that will be needed in the turbulent times to come. We need to use the incentives in the tax and regulation systems to direct finance towards British businesses. Crucially, we also need to make British businesses more competitive.

That brings me to the national insurance increase. This huge jobs tax has been imposed on the country with no warning and, in fact, in direct breach of promises made by the Labour party.

[Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)]

As a business owner who is pleased to see more money in the pockets of not just my team but my customers, can I ask the hon. Member whether he agrees that the Conservatives are very good with their own money, but absolutely appalling with the country’s finances?

[Danny Kruger]

I am delighted to hear that there is, in fact, a businessman on the Labour Benches; that is tremendous, and I hope that he and his business prosper under the Government that he is supporting. The fact is that the OBR itself said in its commentary on the Budget that payroll tax rises are “passed through” into lower wages. The direct effect is that the Government are taxing workers to fund their spending commitments. Those spending commitments go partly towards what they call investment capital projects, but also towards public services’ running costs. As we have heard today, the bulk of that money will be front-loaded at the start of this Parliament, in what one would have thought was direct contravention of good fiscal management. However, more importantly and more worryingly, as we heard, the effect will be largely circular, because the additional spending will simply be taken in tax through the NIC increases.

On behalf of my constituents, I would quickly add that the one spending area where I have particular regrets is the cutting of the transport budget. The Government talk about increasing investment in the public sector, but they have cut the transport budget overall and, particularly to the regret of constituents in Wiltshire, scrapped the plan to upgrade the A303 and divert all that horrendous traffic around Stonehenge. I deeply regret that, and I am sorry that we have yet to hear any plans from the Department for Transport or the Treasury to alleviate our chronic traffic problems.

Let me finish by saying how much I regret the missed opportunities that this Budget represents. We need growth and productivity, which, fundamentally, will come only from the private sector. We need to see more savings in the public sector, so that we can fund proper deficit reduction, but we are not going to see that. We also need meaningful tax cuts, so that we can get the economy going. One area where we urgently need more spending is defence, which is the one area we really have not heard about. When will we hear about the timetable to get to 2.5%?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. There will have to be a time limit, but after we have heard all the maiden speeches. I call David Williams to make his maiden speech.

15:07

[David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am really pleased to follow the excellent maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), and I look forward to many more such speeches as the afternoon goes on.

It is an absolute honour to represent Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, an area that has made me who I am. I am also proud to speak in this incredibly important debate. This Government take seriously the need to boost household incomes and to lift families out of poverty. I am delighted that the increase in the national living wage outlined in the Budget will put an extra £1,400 in the pockets of thousands of workers across Stoke-on-Trent and Kidsgrove.

In memory of Sharlotte-Sky Naglis, I would like to thank my predecessor, Jonathan Gullis, who campaigned to change the law to allow blood samples to be tested without consent where loss of life has occurred following dangerous driving. I said to Sharlotte’s mum last week, “I will continue to fight for this critical legislation, though I know nothing can make up for the loss of your child.”

I will also say thank you to Baroness Anderson, who put the national scandal of holiday hunger firmly on the radar during her time in this House. So many children up and down our country are now fed during school holidays.

I did not set out to become an MP. After studying at Keele University—one of our two great local universities—I worked in a local Sure Start centre. I saw how mums had been let down by the state, but I also saw how, with a hand up from the new Labour Government at the time, they were able to get back on their feet. I then worked for the YMCA, where we set up training schemes, secured funding to reopen youth clubs that were closed under austerity, and supported young people into affordable housing.

However, 14 years of Conservative Government left our services on their knees and levelling up was a failed promise. We faced a 97% cut in spending on youth services in my constituency alone. Our Sure Start centres were hollowed out. Annual household incomes have fallen behind rising living costs. Indeed, in some areas of my constituency as many as two thirds of families live in poverty and weekly earnings are some £100 lower than the England average.

I put myself forward to be an MP to break this cycle of broken promises. Our young people locally should not feel they need to move away for well-paid work. I want our families to live in affordable, decent homes, and I want high-quality care for everyone who needs it—real investment, high-quality public services, restoring hope to our people.

My dad once told me, “People like us don’t become MPs.” While, thankfully, he was wrong, because I am here today, many people still believe that where we are born will forever dictate our life’s direction. That is why I am a member of the Labour party, because we believe that everybody, no matter where they are from, should have equal access to opportunities.

I am incredibly proud of my background. My mum and my grandad worked in our local potbanks—H&R Johnson, Richard Tiles and Dunn Bennett and Co. My mum and dad met in the old Adulte ballroom in Burslem. My weekends as a child were spent at Burslem and Tunstall markets, playing out in Tunstall park—after mass, of course—and doing our weekly shop in the Normid hypermarket in Talke Pits. Having worked locally for over 20 years, I know how blessed we are to have so many local people, charities, businesses and faith groups that provide vital support to our community. Whether it is the Chell Area Family Action Group, Middleport Matters, the Hubb Foundation or excellent community organisers like June Cartwright, Anne Marie and Colin, or Mark Porter, I am so grateful for the contributions they make to our towns.

Our history is one of hard-working people, from the potters and the miners, who powered us through the industrial revolution, to the public sector workers who care for us and the business owners who create opportunities for our community. Our history is forged by our people, who have contributed enormously to our local economy and the success of our country: Reginald Mitchell, from Butt Lane, the engineer behind the Spitfire, which helped lead us to victory in the second world war; Clarice Cliff, a pioneering potter who took on a male-dominated industry to make a name for herself; and A. R. Wood, our best-known architect, who created some of our most beautiful buildings including the Burslem school of art and the Queen’s theatre.

These buildings, and our many other historical sites, are ready to have new life breathed into them. We need new spaces for small businesses and new homes for our families, and I want to see our history build our future. In my constituency, we are proud of our past and ambitious for our future, and I know that ambition will be matched by our new Labour Government.

Traces of our proud history can be found in our bottle kilns; whether Moorcroft Pottery in Cobridge or Moorland Pottery in Burslem, it fills me with pride to see the flames of our history continue to burn in these modern times. And I am part of what we call “the turnover club”, and I have attracted some bemused looks as I walk around the cafés in Westminster and lift each plate, bowl and saucer to see where it was crafted; I am pleased to see that so many were made at the Steelite factory in Burslem or at Churchill in Sandyford. I am so proud that my constituency continues to lead the way in ceramics production.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to my friend and predecessor, Joan Walley, who represented Stoke-on-Trent North for 37 years. Joan truly embodies what it means to be a good constituency MP. In her maiden speech she spoke eloquently about the quality of housing. Her fight for improved living standards continues to this day, and I am incredibly proud to be a part of a Labour Government who have delivered their commitment to working people through their first Budget in 14 years.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Charlotte Cane to make her maiden speech.

15:15

[Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I want to thank those who elected me as the first MP for the new Ely and East Cambridgeshire constituency, although I follow in the Liberal footsteps of Clement Freud and others before him. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) on making her first speech to this House; her constituency sounds almost, but not quite, as beautiful as mine. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) on his first speech. My mum is a member of “the turnover club” and I became an honorary member when I came to this House because I felt I needed to check the saucers so that I could report back to her; so I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from.

Ely and East Cambridgeshire contains part of the old North East Cambridgeshire constituency and most of South East Cambridgeshire. I thank the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) for being so helpful in passing over casework from constituents and I thank Lucy Frazer KC for representing South East Cambridgeshire and in particular for supporting the much-needed upgrade to Ely rail junction. I was disappointed to hear nothing about funding for that in the Budget. We all want economic growth for this country and the Government need to help us fix Ely junction if we are to get freight to and from the ports and allow us to have that growth. I am a chartered accountant so I know that the business case is unanswerable and I urge the Chancellor to put the funding for the Ely junction upgrade in the spring spending review.

My constituents have a range of occupations: we have farmers, we have people in horseracing, and we have cutting-edge technology. Going back to the comments of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, I was amazed to be invited to accompany Almath Crucibles to receive the King’s award for innovation—people have been making crucibles for 8,000 years, yet it has come up with an innovation, which, as an archaeologist, I found utterly amazing. I was also amazed to look at how they make those crucibles in my constituency; they make them with fantastic materials, but they do so in a way that our parents would recognise from the pottery industry. It is stunning.

We are also a beautiful constituency, with an amazing natural environment. We have chalk grasslands, wetland peat and the River Great Ouse running through it all. Over the centuries, people have added things: have ditches, dykes and lodes that help control the water in the fens; and the Devil’s dyke, which runs from my home village of Reach through to Woodditton, a beautiful, probably late Saxon earthwork and a chalk grassland. Watching over all that, we have the “ship of the fens”, which many say is one of the best cathedrals in Europe. Personally, I think it is the best but I would not claim to be an expert in cathedrals.

The National Trust is doing a lot of work near me with Wicken fen, as it has a vision to enlarge the wetland peat area to protect the biodiversity that depends on it and, as we heard in an earlier debate, capture the carbon that is within. I was lucky enough to visit recently, and was promised that we might see a kingfisher. We did indeed see that beautiful kingfisher going back and forth across the river. It was fantastic.

However, there are some downsides to my constituency. It is very expensive to buy or rent a home, which is pricing out young people and families. The median price of a house in my constituency is 11 times the average salary, and the rental market follows on from that, basically. It is unaffordable for many people. On top of that, a lot of our affordable housing is badly insulated, and people rely on oil for their heating. Across my constituency, there are families who cannot afford to heat their homes. As the Government are rebuilding Britain, which I hope that we can do, they should ensure that homes are built that are affordable for people to live in—not just homes that have an affordable price or rent but that are energy-efficient so that they are cheap to run. We must also ensure that we have the infrastructure and support around those homes, whether that is doctors, dentists, schools, green space or water. We need to have all those things.

On the subject of dentists, Ely and East Cambridgeshire is a dental desert. I am horrified to say that people cannot get on an NHS dental list in my constituency. That has to change. I have met people who have spent their life savings on dental treatment or people who, for heaven’s sake, have done it themselves. It is horrendous and we have to address it.

My great-grandfather grew up in the workhouse around Stoke-on-Trent. My parents were the first people in their families to go to university, and they always brought me up to believe that I could do anything I wanted as long as I worked hard on it. I first stood for Parliament in 1987, and mum and dad helped me with that campaign. Sadly, my dad died a few years ago, but my mum supported my election campaign this year, and I know that dad would have been really pleased to see me elected to this House, just as mum was.

I now have to correct an error I made on election night. I did not expect to win, so I had not written a victory speech. I remembered most of the people I had to thank but, as my husband and my children have repeatedly reminded me since, I forgot to thank them, so I am delighted to put on record, and in Hansard no less, my thanks to my husband, Jon, and my children, David and Kathryn, for their unswerving support and encouragement. This might sound a bit odd, but I also need to thank Fosters mill, which is a 19th-century windmill in Swaffham Prior that is still going strong. Its Prior’s oats fuelled my campaign and now give me a breakfast boost each morning to get me through the day. I have to thank my agent Lorna Dupré for running a wonderful campaign and all my campaign team for delivering leaflets and doing all the canvassing. Most of all, I want to thank the people of Ely and East Cambridgeshire for engaging in the conversations and putting their trust in me to be their MP. I will do my utmost to make sure that their voices are heard in this House. I will also try to be the very best local MP possible.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

There will be a three-minute time limit after the next speaker. I call Michelle Welsh to make her maiden speech.

15:24

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

To stand here is such an honour, in a place that is bestowed with such history, and that honour has been bestowed on me by the good people of my constituency of Sherwood Forest. I wish to pay tribute to my predecessor, the right hon. Sir Mark Spencer, who served the constituency of Sherwood for 14 years. Born and raised locally, he was very proud to be the MP.

When I tell people I am the Member of Parliament for Sherwood Forest, most think of Robin Hood and what a legend he is. Many have tried to claim him, but we all know that Robin Hood really belongs to Nottinghamshire. However, Sherwood Forest is so much more than Robin Hood. It was a beating heart of our coal industry, and it was the place where the first vertical flight took place and where engines for planes were built and tested for our war efforts in the second world war. Sherwood Forest is Lord Byron, it is Ada Lovelace, it is our farms, villages, our towns, and most importantly, it is our people. The communities of Sherwood Forest are kind people. They are strong, they are proud, and they tell you exactly how they feel. To be their MP is an absolute honour.

I was raised on a council estate in Nottinghamshire in the 1980s—hard to believe, I know. I saw poverty every single day in my community. I looked it in the eye. I saw social injustice, and I saw a system that not only took away an industry, but did its very best to break working people. It was those experiences growing up that have brought me here today to be a voice for the most vulnerable and to stand up when it counts. I start from the premise that where someone is born should not determine their future.

As the first woman, and the first working-class woman, to be the Labour Member of Parliament for Sherwood Forest, I thought I had smashed a glass ceiling, but the truth is I have merely cracked a porch window. The battles that my mum and her fellow sisters were fighting all those years ago for equality, for better services and for health services for women still exist. As the Member of Parliament for Sherwood Forest, I will be fighting those battles so that every girl or woman and every working-class child knows that they can, and they will.

My son was born in the first week of the very first lockdown. The care that we had at the hands of maternity services was far from the standards that any mother should expect. The trauma of what happened to me has not left me, but it is that very trauma and the strength and courage of my precious son that have driven me to campaign for better maternity services. We were one of the lucky ones; my partner and I left the hospital with our son, but many families in Nottinghamshire did not. That is why I will continue to support the 2,000-plus families in Nottinghamshire who are part of the biggest maternity review in NHS history. It is why I will work alongside the trust and organisations to improve maternity services and to ensure that those families in Nottinghamshire get the answers they need and deserve.

I went to school in the ’80s—again, hard to believe, I know—and early ’90s, in an era of leaky buildings, not enough textbooks and not enough paper to write on. I then worked in education under the previous Labour Government, an era of different educational pathways, high-quality work experience, the education maintenance allowance and a national careers service. I remain so proud of the work that I did in establishing Sure Start, on the No Child Left Behind campaign, on tackling child poverty and on raising standards. I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who are transforming education once again and giving back the life chances to so many children living in Sherwood Forest.

Health inequalities in Sherwood Forest are stark. Those living in the south of Nottinghamshire live on average seven and a half years longer than those who live in the north of my constituency. We must do more to combat this. Early diagnosis, prevention and healthcare in the community are absolutely vital.

Sherwood Forest is a rich tapestry of people and organisations helping each other, from the carers’ support group in Hucknall to In Sam’s Name in Ollerton. Sherwood Forest knows, through its history, how to stand shoulder to shoulder. I am proud of the businesses in my constituency that employ local people, including J. Murphy & Sons, founded in 1951, a global specialist engineering and construction company with over 3,500 employees. It is clear to me that we are a Government of business, and I will do everything I can to bring investment into my constituency and to support our local economy.

My journey to this place speaks to the values and morals of my mother and father—the ones they instilled in me through the endless overtime they worked—the times that they went without so that I and my brother would not, their endless backing, and the absolute faith they placed in me. My journey speaks to my courageous son, who already in his four and a half years has been through so much, and the commitment and support from my unwavering partner. My journey here speaks to every child who thinks that they do not belong in the corridors of this building, or in this Chamber, because of where they come from. My politics is a politics of service, and that is what I will do: serve the people of Sherwood Forest.

15:31

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the Budget debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) on making her maiden speech, and wish her well.

Last Wednesday, we sat in this Chamber to listen to the Chancellor’s Budget of broken promises, and as each day has gone by, we have witnessed the mask slip from this Labour Government. Even before the Budget, we saw the Chancellor start to set out her stall with the callous cutting of the winter fuel allowance, and just this week Labour has attacked students with a monumental hike in tuition fees—a tax on aspiration and on young people and their hard-working families. As the week has gone by, we have seen the Budget unravel as manifesto promise after promise has been broken. I have constituents —from pensioners and farmers to businesses, charities, community organisations, GPs and many more—coming to me with anxiety and worries.

My local farmers are devastated. Promises made to them have been broken with no consultation, giving them no opportunity to plan. The Government have shown that they are no friend of the farmer, the producer of our food and the guardian of our countryside. Farmers have gone from food heroes during covid to being abandoned in the cold. The Government seem to have failed to grasp that family farms are not only farms; they are much more. Family farmers invest in their businesses for the long term, for the next generation. The Government need to keep their promises, reverse the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief, and abolish what I and others now term the family farm tax.

[Graham Stuart]

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said that honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the way that this Government are serially breaking all the promises they made during the election is corrosive for our politics?

[Wendy Morton]

Absolutely. Small businesses also face a tax on aspiration and entrepreneurship. Inheritance tax will be the death of enterprise. The increases to employer national insurance and the minimum wage will stymie growth and investment. Inflation looks set to be higher than growth under the Chancellor’s measures. In fact, far from this being a Budget for growth, the measures set out by the Chancellor will be a hindrance.

If we put all this together, who does it hit? Working people. Even the Chief Secretary to the Treasury admitted that on TV. Think, too, of the jobs for working people that will be lost, or never even created, thanks to the Budget of broken promises. This is a Budget that punishes pensioners, destroys our countryside, chases after our motorists, denies working families and their children choice over education, and saddles young people with more student debt. It is a Budget about ever-increasing spending, ever-higher taxes and an ever-expanding state. Prosperity has never been the result of the state handing out more taxpayer money; it has come from empowering businesses, entrepreneurs and families, and it is about enabling opportunity.

Once upon a time, Labour would have been thought of as the party of working people, but not now. Far from fixing the foundations, it is digging an even bigger hole.

15:35

[Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)]

What a privilege it is to follow so many accomplished and particularly moving maiden speeches. I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on her first Budget. It shows the first steps of this new Labour Government as the work of change really begins. I hope that it will mark a turning point from decline to investment, from instability to security and from self-interest to public service. The choices made in the Budget certainly turn the page on the last 14 years. They begin to restore our public services and improve the rights and rewards of low and middle-income earners.

In the short time that I have, I want to touch on three areas of particular concern to my constituents. First, I welcome the £25 billion-plus of investment to get our national health service back on its feet, cut waiting times and deliver 40,000 extra elective appointments a week. That move will give real hope to people worrying about their healthcare. It recognises our NHS staff across the service, such as those at Aintree university hospital in my constituency and in specialist facilities like the Walton centre.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dan Carden]

I will not. I also welcome the intention to shift the focus to prevention in healthcare. My constituency is one of the most deprived in the UK, and far too many suffer the health impacts of poverty, addiction and despair. I hope to work with the Government to address those long-term public health crises.

Next, and crucially, the Budget delivers some long overdue justice and fairness for those who have been failed by the state. It will transfer the investment reserve fund in the mineworkers’ pension scheme to its members, and will fund compensation schemes for the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal and the infected blood scandal, including a number of my constituents. It gives me hope that the Government have shown a commendable will to right historical wrongs. I hope that in the months and years ahead, the Chancellor will also consider the claim of the Women Against State Pension Inequality—women born in the 1950s, including 5,000 in my Liverpool Walton constituency.

Finally, I want to mention the hospitality industry, which is central to Liverpool’s visitor economy. The 40% relief on business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure is welcome, but with costs continuing to rise, there remains a climate of uncertainty for far too many local businesses. We need to level the playing field between bricks-and-mortar businesses and the online global giants, and we need to prioritise our high streets and take the necessary steps to give relief to local businesses.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Dame Caroline Dinenage.

15:38

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Gosport constituency is a community built around a shared history of service in and for our armed forces. Thirteen per cent of my constituents are veterans. Those are good, hard-working people who have served our country and asked for little in return, but they are not wealthy people. They are disproportionately impacted by the Budget, which delivers the opposite of the growth we were promised: it delivers taxes and cuts that will leave my constituents disproportionately poorer. It started with the baffling decision to cut winter fuel payments. Many of my constituents exist just outside the pension credit threshold and are hanging on by their fingertips. The Government’s own data suggests that 13,000 of them will lose that lifeline through the cold winter months. Age UK says that it will be 5,000 more than that, which will be 91% of pensioners in Gosport.

I have real concern for the health of older people in Gosport during these winter months. That concern extends to the future of some of our most important businesses: the care homes and nurseries who do such vital work and employ so many of our constituents. At this stage, I must direct the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Those organisations are seriously impacted by the triple whammy of minimum wage increases, employer national insurance threshold decreases and contribution increases.

Hopscotch nursery in my constituency told me that the £25 billion tax increase will impact businesses that employ a high number of low-wage workers. It estimates that the changes will add almost £1 million in costs to their businesses. That cannot be alleviated by productivity increases or headcount reductions, because childcare ratios are set by the Government. The services to which we entrust our most precious and loved family members rely on face-to-face care and human interaction, so the extra costs facing childcare and adult social care services will be borne by their customers—working parents and the vulnerable elderly—and by employees through lower wage growth.

[Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. It is good to see the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in his place. I hope he will take on board these arguments, and perhaps the overall settlement can be reworked to minimise the negative impacts that my hon. Friend outlines.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I agree. I would love to see something done to exempt the childcare and adult social care sectors in particular from the policy.

The Budget also threatens many organisations that are central to the regeneration of our communities. I welcome the fact that the cliff edge for business rate relief for hospitality, leisure and retail has been reduced, but what the Chancellor gave with one hand she took away with the other, because hospitality venues can now expect to see their costs increase by £3 billion. In my constituency, that will potentially cripple 146 businesses, which employ around 2,000 people.

While Ministers talk about the value of our creative industries, tourism and hospitality, they are ignoring their fragile state. The chief executive officer of the Sound and Music charity has said that the measures will impose an extra £7 million in additional taxes on the grassroots live music sector. The Music Venue Trust estimates that, without additional support, 10% of remaining venues will see their doors close. That is up to 120 venues, 4,000 jobs and 25,000 performances opportunities all lost.

As well as being a Budget of broken promises, I suspect that this will become known as a Budget of unintended consequences. The decisions that the Chancellor has taken will have real, tangible impacts on the community and those across the country. Not only that, but we are saddling future generations with billions of pounds of debt to pay for it.

15:42

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

Let me start by congratulating the Members who have made their maiden speech this afternoon: my hon. Friends the Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh), and for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) made the first of many brilliant, I am sure, contributions to this House.

It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate in support of the Budget presented last week. It was historic: the first delivered by a Labour Chancellor in 14 years; the first delivered by a female Chancellor, and, just as importantly, the first delivered by a Chancellor who went to school in Beckenham and Penge. On behalf of everyone in Beckenham and Penge, I congratulate the Chancellor, and I look forward to taking a signed copy of the Budget to her old school in Penge very soon.

Two fun facts about my constituency are that we have the second biggest percentage of rail commuters in Britain, and the most train stations of any constituency. We are a constituency of commuters, and the vast majority who board trains every morning go to work in private sector jobs across London. I know that life well, as it is exactly what I did before I was elected as the MP for my constituency this year.

A criticism levelled by Opposition Members is that Labour Members do not understand business. That is simply not true. For the decade before being elected, I worked in the private sector, first at PwC on the graduate scheme and later for two big tech firms. The private sector adds so much value to our country, and I am a passionate advocate of it. Private sector companies are an engine for innovation. They contribute to the economy, help us pay for vital public services and provide high-skilled, well-paid jobs—the sort of jobs that thousands of people in my constituency do, and want their children to do in the future.

In order for business to plan and invest, economic and political stability is vital, and businesses have been starved of that in recent years. We have had six Chancellors in just over three years, and sharp cuts followed by serious increases, and then further planned cuts. Corporation tax went from 28% to 19%, and then to 25%. They said that they were going to build key infrastructure; then they paused it, renamed it, announced it again, but could not tell us how they were going to fund it. They told us that Brexit would solve all our problems, but made a disaster of that too.

This Budget—like this Government, in sharp contrast to the one before—is serious about providing the economic and political stability that businesses in our country need to invest and grow. I am delighted to see investment in vital infrastructure, including Transport for London infrastructure, and a new, co-operative approach to working between my good friend the Transport Secretary and our excellent Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. I have no doubt that that will be of great benefit to my constituents, including the thousands who commute across London each day and the businesses for which they work, and I look forward to supporting it later.

15:45

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)]

This is a Budget of the public sector, by the public sector, for the public sector. Neither the Chancellor nor the Prime Minister was able to define a “working person” with any clarity in various confused and stumbling attempts. Does the definition include the entrepreneurs who take risks, invest money, employ “working” people, work hard themselves, and collect VAT, national insurance and pension contributions—which they gift-wrap and pay to the state—as well as paying corporation tax on any residual profits? If not, why not?

However, we can now see that that is irrelevant, as the massive increase in employers’ national insurance contributions and the equally venal cut in the payment threshold from £9,000 to £5,000 is a huge tax on employment in the private sector, which, unlike the state, cannot print money in taxpayers’ collective name to cover any budget shortfall. This will mean that the private sector will employ fewer people by design, and will reduce pay rises, increase prices, invest less, and pay less corporation tax. It is a disaster for a Government to hand out taxpayers’ money like confetti, without proper checks and balances, taking hard-working taxpayers for fools. This Budget is only possible because quantitative easing has allowed the state to grow without justification, nurturing the culture of central planning, misguided net zero obsession, and all the elements of collectivism that took a generation to destroy the Soviet Union. The Chancellor has landed a knockout punch on private sector entrepreneurs.

It is not only small businesses that suffer. The farming industry, already in a parlous state, has been further undermined by revised death tax amendments. If a rethink of this lunacy is not forthcoming, the continuity and long-term investment required to provide this over-populated island with a degree of food security will be destroyed by forced sales of land on death. Farming is a tough, vocational career, and the average age of farmers is now over 60. The same is true for family businesses, which are also set to suffer disruptive death taxes. The backbone of Britain’s nation of shopkeepers is being broken by socialist design. As Winston Churchill presciently observed,

“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

15:48

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) for his speech, but he should know better, because one of his relatives used to be a doctor in my village in the Cotwolds.

I, and the rest of the country, have waited for this Budget for 14 years. I have worked as a GP throughout that time, and I have watched with horror as our NHS has gone from being the best health service in the world—as it was in 2010—to being a service on its knees. For 14 years I have watched the gap between rich and poor grow wider and wider. For 14 years I have watched the fabric of our schools, and the NHS, fall apart. I therefore welcome this Budget. It is a Budget that lifts the curse of low pay and invests in the special educational needs of our children. It is the Budget that will finally compensate those who have been wronged by the infected blood scandal. It is a Budget that will rebuild Britain.

Lifting people out of low pay and making our country more equal is probably the most effective way of preventing ill health and making our population healthier, so what I really welcome in this Budget is the huge amount of funding for the NHS—the biggest amount in 14 years. With that funding, though, need to come reform and an increase in productivity, and I want to outline a few little projects on which we need to concentrate to increase our productivity. On GP access, Dr Tom Sutherland of Dursley practice has—

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member join me in expressing concern about the rise in national insurance contributions and the impact it will have on GP surgeries, including potential closures? GPs in my constituency have been asking me about the impact.

[Dr Opher]

I understand that it will be mitigated through funding. I am not exactly sure how, but I have no doubt—[Interruption.] That is because I have not been informed, but I have no doubt that it will be coped with. I know that this Government will rebuild general practice, just as the Conservative party trashed it and broke the back of it. I am not taking any criticism from any of you about the NHS.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Please be seated. You are not taking any criticism from me. You said “you”. Please do not refer to colleagues as “you”.

[Dr Opher]

Sorry. I did get rather angry there, and I shall not get angry any more.

Let me talk about GP access. We need to get doctors, not receptionists or 111, to perform triage, and we need to start thinking in a different way. We do not want a protocol-driven NHS; what we need is a genuine doctor-patient relationship. We also need to develop neighbourhood—

[Graham Stuart]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Is it a relevant point of order?

[Graham Stuart]

It is.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Can the point of order not wait, Mr Stuart?

[Graham Stuart]

No, it is relevant here. I wonder whether it is in order for the hon. Gentleman to have been given assurances by the Government that funding will be put in place to mitigate the impact on GPs, because that information has repeatedly been refused to this House. I know, Madam Deputy Speaker that you represent all Back Benchers, like me, in making sure the truth is out.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

You can definitely raise that in your contribution later. It is not a point of order for the Chair, but no doubt the Minister and Front Benchers have heard and can respond accordingly.

Dr Opher, you will shortly run out of time, so I would be quick.

[Dr Opher]

Okay. I worked in general practice for 30 years. There is always mitigation for tax changes, and I have no doubt that the Government will look after GPs.

[Graham Stuart]

No doubt?

[Dr Opher]

I have no doubt.

I would like to finish my speech, if I may. We need to invest in neighbourhood health centres. In Suffolk, Dr Tim Reed is developing a genuinely holistic service, which will save money and increase productivity in mental health provision and among paramedics. This is something that we need to explore much more.

I spent 48 hours with a loved one in Bristol Royal infirmary’s A&E department, and I saw the huge pressure that it was under. I notice that Dr Simon Laing is using innovative ways of going out with paramedics, keeping patients at home and working with paramedics in his department. That is the type of adaptation we need in the NHS.

This Budget begins the process of transforming the NHS and will reward NHS staff up and down the country, who continue to deliver excellent unscheduled care. We must fix the foundations of care and use the new funding to ensure that more patients are cared for at home. Difficult decisions are being taken, but all of us on both sides of the House want to see the NHS become the best in the world again, and this Budget starts that process.

15:53

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

We know that growth comes from investing in productivity and skills, and I, too, welcome the £22 billion for the NHS. Long-term public investment is essential for the security and stability that the UK needs. However, we heard about the issues relating to employers’ NI contributions, which will hit doctors, dentists, care homes and local hospices, adding a significant amount to their annual cost base per employee.

There is also pressure on voluntary, community and social enterprises. In my district, Teignbridge Community and Voluntary Services tells me that the sector employs some 3% of the local population, who are now all subject to the NI increase. Although it is better than nothing, the business rates reduction from 75% to 40% will disappoint local retail, hospitality and leisure businesses—not forgetting the inheritance tax threat to Devon’s family farms. There is nothing in this Budget for social care, for Devon’s crumbling hospitals or for Devon’s essential transport.

[Ben Maguire]

Bank shares are soaring following this Budget. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrat proposal to reverse the Conservative Government’s cut to the big bank levy, raising around £4 billion a year, would mean that we would not need the GP tax, the family farm tax or the winter fuel cut and that we could fund upgrades to the Treliske, Derriford and North Devon hospitals—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. This is too long an intervention.

[Martin Wrigley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there are other ways that this money could have been found. The Liberal Democrats have long been saying that we should be looking to the banks, the big oil companies and the big international tech companies to pay their fair share, and that is where money should be sought.

There is nothing in the Budget for Devon’s essential transport. Last year’s pothole fund was a “drop in the ocean”, according to Devon County Council, and the 50% increase in this Budget still leaves a big hole. Not even mentioned in the Budget is the completion of the Dawlish rail resilience project, which is key to connecting the south-west. Without funding, the design team will soon be redeployed and all the progress to date will be lost. This project will cost millions more if it is not done now, and I urge the Minister to meet us to get it funded. Growth in the economy in Devon and Cornwall is heavily dependent on fast, reliable train services, and we saw what happened with Dawlish.

The Budget also mentioned housing and local government. Until July, I was leader of my district council, and I am proud that the Lib Dem administration started building council homes—the first in 30 years. They were cheap to rent and cheap to heat because they were well insulated and powered by air source heat pumps and solar power. Additional capital for social homes is welcome, but the frozen local housing allowance hampers housing associations that have already scaled back their plans for development, and commercial developers will still try to cut affordable homes from section 106 responsibilities.

The Budget also offers 300 new planning officers, but those are spread very thinly over the 326 planning authorities. Newton Abbot’s social housing need has increased by 50%. In my constituency—like in Ely—the average house price is 11 times the average earnings and rents have soared. The broken housing market is failing Newton Abbot, and the proposed changes to the planning rules are insufficient to fix it. Homes are unreachable for too many families. People are being denied the right to a safe and secure place to call home.

I welcome the multi-year settlements for councils and the removal of the “Hunger Games”-style bidding for grants involving huge amounts of wasted efforts writing bids and unachievable timeframes. We cannot let that centralised control continue. We need real devolution, but devolution is not just reorganisation—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Rosie Wrighting.

15:58

[Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)]

Like many of my hon. Friends, I have spent my career in business—specifically, in retail head offices—so I am proud to be a part of a Government that is pro-business and pro-worker. The last time a Labour Government delivered a Budget in this House, I was 12 years old. That Labour Government looked after our public services, focused on cutting crime, were ambitious about our education and invested in our NHS. It is because of those decisions that I had the opportunities that I did and that I am standing in this House today. Since then, those priorities have been forgotten and our constituents have had to bear the brunt.

People in my constituency of Kettering know all too well the price they have paid for the last 14 years of Tory failure: crumbling hospitals and schools, rising crime and a crisis in SEND. Working people in this country have not had a Government who have worked for them for 14 years. It is shameful that the previous Conservative Government promised funding that simply did not exist. They let our communities think that they were going to receive money, knowing that it was not there and that it would be someone else’s problem after the election.

We now finally have a Labour Government and a truly Labour Budget that prioritises working people. It is incredible to be the youngest woman in the House today, but it is even more incredible to have watched the first female Chancellor deliver the first Labour Budget in 14 years. It shows me and many young women that there is no limit to our ambitions. Regardless of what the Leader of the Opposition thinks, this was a glass ceiling shattered.

There are some hugely important measures in this Budget for the people of Kettering. Our public services deserve better than the treatment they have had for the last 14 years, and I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who are fixing the foundations and rebuilding Britain. People all over the country are waiting to see what this Government will deliver and, thanks to this Budget, we can give them hope that they will have an NHS fit for the future and a country that invites investment, without barriers to opportunity, and in which working people are at the heart of everything we do.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Charlie Maynard. Not present.

16:01

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Given the raid on family firms, it is worth pointing out that the art of a good Budget and smart taxation is plucking the goose to get the maximum number of feathers with the minimum amount of hissing. On that basis, I am afraid this Budget fails lamentably, and it certainly does in my constituency.

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade, in his opening remarks, said that 500 farms a year will be affected by the Budget’s changes to agricultural property relief. He said it casually, as if it is acceptable. Well, that is approximately one for every constituency, and very much more in rural constituencies. The prospect of this affecting, and potentially closing, two farms a year in my constituency is, frankly, horrendous. I urge the Government to think again.

I agree with the Government that it is legitimate to look at those who are land-banking to avoid inheritance tax. If that is their intention, they will have support across the House, but attacking family farms is not on, and I hope the Government will think again.

The Government say that growth is their No. 1 priority. How so? In my constituency, as we have heard, the long-awaited A303 improvements have been canned, and I suspect that the A350 improvements will follow, as the north-south strategic study that was to be the prelude to a Westbury bypass looks like it has been indefinitely delayed.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

My right hon. Friend is making a characteristically excellent speech, and he mentions the transport projects that have been scrapped. We have not heard about what is happening to the North Hykeham relief road in my constituency. Does he agree that investing in roads in this way creates growth?

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A Government who are going for growth do not can big infrastructure projects.

As the mercury drops, the removal of the winter fuel allowance is becoming a real worry to many of our rural constituents who live in old, cold homes, many of which have no access to gas.

As we approach Remembrance Sunday, the Department for Education, in its wisdom, has decided to remove funding for combined cadet forces. CCFs have tripled since 2012, and they are a powerful engine for social mobility, as are our armed forces overall. They give kids the confidence they need, for a small amount of money. The withdrawal of funding is appalling. As we all stand around our war memorials this Sunday, we will, of course, be admiring our cadets. It seems spiteful and vindictive that the Government are removing their support.

The Government need to go for growth, but damaging our farmers and our infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is not the way ahead. I urge them to think again.

11:30

[Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to speak in the debate on behalf of my constituents in Exeter. This Budget is a welcome break from 14 years of policy uncertainty, fiscal incompetence and austerity for our public services. It starts to put this country back on a firm footing, rebuilding the foundations, and investing in communities and places like Exeter. Exeter people have had a tough few years. The inflation they experienced as higher mortgage costs, higher rents, higher energy prices and higher food prices was made worse by the last Government’s catastrophic and incompetent financial management, and yet we have no apology from the Conservative Benches.

Exeter has huge potential as a thriving economy. Indeed, Exeter is the economic driver of our region, with a gross value added of around £6 billion pounds. It sits at the heart of a travel-to-work area of over 470,000 residents. Exeter is home to a world-class research-led university, and we have a best-in-class further education college and good secondary schools. We have the Met Office and the Exeter Science Park, and we are home to further cutting-edge research, including one of the UK’s supercomputers. However, Exeter has been held back over recent years by a Tory Government that have not invested in public services and our economy in the way we need to succeed. That changes with this Budget.

I am particularly pleased that this Budget commits the UK to an R&D budget of £20 billion, which will mean Exeter and the UK remain at the forefront of scientific innovation. From climate change to land management, healthcare to biotechnology and beyond, Exeter is already a hub for scientific research, but we can do even more.

I listened to my residents on the doorsteps in the Newtown area of Exeter at the weekend, who were really pleased about the investment in our NHS. From long waiting lists to our lack of NHS dentistry services and closures of community pharmacies, my residents have been affected by the huge strain the NHS has found itself under in recent years. I am pleased that this new investment in the NHS budget will begin to fix our local NHS, though people realise that will take time.

While the secondary schools in Exeter do not suffer from the awful RAAC crisis, because every single one of them was rebuilt under the last Labour Government, I know how important the new funding will be to schools around the country. Investing in our education settings is important. I will be supporting the excellent Exeter College as it seeks to grow its campus, to continue to deliver exceptional education to young people in Exeter and across the south-west.

Having a healthy, well-educated city, with opportunities to work in the high-tech sectors of the future is vital to our future economic prosperity. I close by welcoming that this is a Budget that recognises that reality, and also recognises that the south-west region, and Exeter in particular, has huge potential and will play a significant role in the growth of the UK economy in the future.

11:30

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

I congratulate all those who made their maiden speeches today.

This Budget is heralded as a Budget for rebuilding Britain, so let us take a closer look at one or two aspects of that. First, as far as I am concerned, the care sector is an integral part of our national health and wellbeing. How will the additional employer national insurance costs affect that sector? Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting the Burnbank care home in Buckie, in my constituency, one of 12 care homes run by Ron Taylor and his partners. Ron and his colleagues pride themselves on the ethos of their homes, where personalised care is provided at the expense of larger profits, and where staff turnover is low and morale is high. Ron tells me they came through the pandemic without a single case of covid in their homes. How will the national insurance changes help to rebuild the economy, when Ron and his partners must consider how they will find the substantial additional sums necessary to ensure the homes continue to operate with the same wonderful care and humanity? Can there not be an exception made for this sector?

Secondly, let me turn to farming. Food security is the bedrock of everything else. We cannot rebuild Britain without food security. Recently, during a political discussion with my daughter, I asked her, “Where do you think your food comes from?” She said, “Sainsbury’s.” Just under a year ago, the then shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs stated that the Labour party had no intention to raise additional revenue through the agricultural property relief provisions. To reverse that decision, after making an explicit promise not to do so, is shameful, and will put confidence in this Government at an all-time low, after only four months. That is quite an achievement.

Thirdly, let me press the issue of rebuilding public confidence. The new Government rightly prioritised sorting out the infected blood and the Post Office scandals, which are two important steps in rebuilding public confidence in our public services and in Government generally. But what of the WASPI women, who were referred to by the hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden)? There was no mention of them in the Budget and no understanding that this is a vital part of the process of rebuilding public confidence in what we do in this place. Compensation was recommended six months ago by the parliamentary and health service ombudsman, and I call on the Government and the Minister to address that issue. These women deserve justice, not just means-tested justice—no ifs, no buts, just do it.

Finally, the people of Scotland are left wondering exactly how this Budget, billed as rebuilding Britain, will actually work for them. I have many other questions, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will have to leave it there.

16:10

[Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today and who have spoken so powerfully.

I am very honoured to speak in this debate, as it is a Budget that breaks the mould. It breaks the mould with its delivery by Britain’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer. It breaks the mould with its ambitious investment in industry and public services, which speaks to every part of the United Kingdom. And it breaks the mould of Tory Budgets and mini-Budgets, which lumbered the country with declining living standards, a painful lack of investment, public services at breaking point, and no economic growth to show for it.

The imperative for investment in services and industry has never been greater. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has responded to that challenge, delivering a Budget that has ambition, aspiration and fairness at its heart. We are fixing the foundations so that we can rebuild this country.

The priority of this Labour Government is growth—growth for our economy, for wages, for living standards and for our public services. This means an uplift in the national living wage and the national minimum wage, giving a wage boost to those on the lowest incomes. There is a record £22.6 billion investment in the NHS, which covers 40,000 new elective appointments a week and a programme to modernise services and slash waiting times. Let me be clear: this additional funding has to make its way to frontline services in Scotland, where one in six Scots is languishing on a waiting list.

We have also had a massive increase in education funding but, again, the Scottish Government must make sure that this money makes its way to our council budgets. We must also get the money into those schools impacted by the RAAC crisis, such as St Kentigern’s academy in Blackburn where West Lothian council has not received one penny in financial support for the £35 million partial rebuild of the school.

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Conservative Members have said that they would like to see tax cuts in the Budget, but does she agree that they have not spelled out how they would pay for those tax cuts and which public services and investments they would cut to pay for those cuts?

[Kirsteen Sullivan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Investment must be paid for. I think that Members across the House are very much aware of the desperate need for investment in our public services and in industry. Investment is required in social and affordable homes across the UK, to offer security and stability to more than one million people who have nowhere to call home. Again, the Scottish Government must grasp the nettle here and deal with the housing emergency throughout Scotland. They have to deliver funding to the councils and the registered social landlords to bring down the shameful levels of homelessness that we see right across the country.

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor is delivering the largest budget settlement for Scotland in the history of devolution. As I have said, this money must reach frontline services, struggling families and local communities. No more excuses from the SNP Government. For too long, they have bungled Scotland’s finances and under-invested in public services, with many services, such as the NHS and council-run services, stretched to breaking point, all while crying, “It wisnae me,” and pointing to Westminster. No more. At the election, we said, “Don’t send a message to Westminster; send a Government,” and that is exactly what the people of Scotland did. The Budget makes good on Labour’s commitment to deliver the change that the Scottish people voted for—change that delivers for Scotland and every part of the UK.

16:14

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

I congratulate all those who made their maiden speeches today, and I congratulate President Trump on his election. While many of us in this House have legitimate concerns about what his victory presages for democracy and the rule of law, we should not undermine those values by criticising the American people for the choices that they have made.

It was a consequential presidential election, and this should have been a consequential Budget, given the cost of living crisis, record NHS waiting lists, crumbling public services and decaying infrastructure. After years of broken promises by an out-of-touch Conservative Government, people are desperate for fundamental change. Sadly, the Budget failed to deliver it. There are aspects that my party and I welcome, particularly extra investment in our NHS, although where is the structural change and reform of social care that are key to saving our NHS?

More fundamentally, despite the Government’s talking the talk, they have not walked the walk to grow our economy. In fact, much of what the Chancellor announced last week will hold us back. As the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for transport, I question whether the Chancellor is serious about economic growth, given that she has inflicted a real-terms cut to the transport budget. Our transport system should be the engine of our economy. After years of neglecting our infrastructure, the time has come to make targeted investments that would make a real difference to people’s lives by initiating organic growth, rather than the sugar rush of increased Government spending, which, as the OBR has shown, will dissipate in future years. Sadly, the Transport Secretary’s previous promises of “unprecedented funding” have resulted in little more than recycled infrastructure announcements, including some that have already been built, and increases to bus and rail fares that will hit the poorest hardest.

It is not just with regard to transport policy that the Budget disappoints. Labour claims to be championing working people and growth, but the increase in employers NI contributions is a tax on jobs, as it was when the Tories did it. It will put small businesses, which should be in the vanguard of our growth strategy, in jeopardy, and as the IFS has said, it will depress wages in the long run. We all appreciate the mess that the Government have inherited from the Conservatives. Earlier today, the Prime Minister said that his Government

“made the economy the centrepiece of our Budget”.

However, a Budget that damages the finances of families and businesses while stifling growth is not doing what it says on the tin, but rather kicking the can down the road, and doing nothing to reset our economy by laying the foundations for genuine, productive, organic growth.

16:17

[Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)]

I thank Members for their maiden speeches—such warm and thoughtful contributions. I look forward to hearing more from the Members who spoke today.

Growth for higher living standards is the defining mission of this Government, and rightly so. Labour Members know—we have seen it play out over the last 14 years—that there is a link between the health of the national economy and the health of family finances up and down the country. Why have families in this country suffered in the last 14 years? It is because productivity growth has been on the floor. Had wages in this country continued to grow since the financial crisis at the rate they had before, families would not be just £1,000 or £2,000 a year better off; on average, workers would be £10,700 better off had the Conservative party grown the economy and our productivity so that families’ living standards could improve.

I think particularly of young people and children, and the economy that they will grow up in. I want people all over the country—not just in Chipping Barnet but across the United Kingdom—to enter a jobs market where good jobs are available in every place. In elections to come in five, 10 or 15 years’ time, I want our politics to be defined not by scarcity and fighting over limited resources because we have continued on the path of decline that the Conservatives set us on, but by abundance and there being enough—maybe even more than enough—for every family. Then, children from whatever background —particularly those from backgrounds like mine, growing up in low-income families, in social housing and on free school meals—can have the opportunities that they need. This Budget has done so much to help children and families like that.

We have changed the fiscal rules so that we can invest again in our public services and infrastructure. We are reforming welfare so that we can support more people into work. We are putting money into affordable housing so that we can get to 1.5 million new homes. We are investing in transport, including Northern Powerhouse rail and here in London. I am confident that, thanks to those reforms, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which set out that it had not yet taken account of many of the reforms that the Government are implementing, will be able to revise up those growth forecasts so that, as the Chancellor said, what we have achieved so far is not the summit of our ambitions but only the beginning.

16:20

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. We have heard fantastic maiden speeches from across the House, and I am sure that we have all enjoyed the insights from them. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Dan Tomlinson). I loved the way he set out his aspiration for the kind of country of abundance that we should seek. He is entirely right, but I am just not sure that this Budget is the way to get there. If the penny drops with him over time, I hope that he will be able to engage with us in coming up with a more constructive way of delivering the growth that this country needs.

Not only is this a Budget of broken promises, but unfortunately—and this is an important issue—it is a bad faith Budget. I do not want to rehearse—although there is so much to rehearse—the 50 promises not to raise taxes or the bogus £22 billion that was not validated by the OBR, but those are serious points. It is good to see the engagement from Labour Members, because in politics one cannot afford to have a reputation for being dishonest and not doing what one says. [Interruption.] Labour Members who laugh at that should remember Cicero’s advice. He was always better at giving advice than following it, but he said:

“The foundation of justice is…good faith; that is, truth and fidelity to promises and agreements.”

Without that, we lose trust.

[Mike Martin]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip was honest at all times?

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Steve Tuckwell was a great man!

[Graham Stuart]

Yes. And with respect to the hon. Gentleman’s point, I think that the former Prime Minister and Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip was true to himself, true to his heart and true in his expressions—although, like all of us, he probably had his moments. What he never did was set out on a deliberate path to mislead people. He set out his honest view of the way the world should be.

Unfortunately, 9.7 million people, including 15,000 of my constituents, believed the promises of the now Labour Government, and even 410 Members of Parliament thought that they were being honest.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the speech that he is making. Does he agree that many of those people will now feel betrayed?

[Graham Stuart]

I think people do feel betrayed. We need to conduct our politics as honestly as we can. The Labour Government broke their promise not to raise taxes on working people, because, as the OBR has made clear, the NICs raise will overwhelmingly fall on working people. In fact, if we go through the numbers, as I did, it turns out that there is a bigger reduction in wages than there is net receipt to the Exchequer. That is quite a remarkable achievement—probably only a Labour Government could do that.

Of course, the Government have also put up the cost of getting on the bus. If ever there was a symbol of working people, travelling from my constituency to a low-paid job in Hull, that is it. It will cost them £500 a year extra out of taxed income. I do not know why the hon. Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) is grinning—I know he grins a lot, but it should not be funny to him that someone in a low-wage job who travels into Hull every day will pay £500 a year more because of the decisions his Government are making. For a couple, it is £1,000 a year. That cost is real, and it should not be glossed over.

There is just one train station in my constituency, and people who live in Withernsea have no choice but to travel 26 miles to get there. The Prime Minister’s constituents are blessed with a pick and mix of ways to get to the office: the tube, the overground, trains, Ubers, Bolts, and even Boris bikes. That is not the case in rural and coastal East Yorkshire: my constituents get the bus at 7 o’clock in the morning, and they get another bus at 6 o’clock at night. That is their lived reality, and the serious impact of this Budget should be recognised.

Another broken promise was to pensioners, who were told that they would have security in retirement—that their benefits would not be touched. Taking £300 from the very poorest pensioners is not keeping that promise. [Interruption.] The very poorest pensioners are those eligible for pension credit.

[Sam Rushworth]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Stuart]

I will not. The very poorest pensioners are those eligible for pension credit, and nearly 900,000 of them will not get that £300. That is the truth—there is no point denying it.

Finally, there is the awful betrayal of British farmers, many of whom work from dawn to dusk to ensure our supermarkets are full of fresh fruit and veg. According to my constituent William Hodgson, who runs a small family farm near Withernsea, it is a “rural catastrophe”. I ask the Government to think again.

16:26

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

One thing that people in Folkestone and Hythe said on the doorstep during the general election was that public services, particularly the NHS, do not work any more. I am proud that the first Labour Budget in 14 years has answered those calls: billions of pounds will be invested in the UK’s public services. That will be the start of a long process of rebuilding those services, which were left flat on their face after 14 years of Tory neglect.

It was interesting that in the minutes after the Budget, Folkestone and Hythe Conservatives were tweeting at me on social media, complaining about higher taxes and higher borrowing. That sounds to me like the arsonists criticising the fire service. The Chancellor was very open about what was required to start fixing the foundations of our country, and the question that the Conservatives cannot answer is what taxes they would have increased instead. If they would have borrowed less, what public services would they have cut? The truth is that after another five years of Tory rule, we would have seen more austerity, leaving our public services to rot—more hardship and literally more pain for the working people who have borne the brunt of 14 years of austerity, covid restrictions and the rising cost of living. I am proud to be a Labour MP supporting a Labour Government who chose not to go down that road. I fully accept that this Budget involved hard choices, but they were hard choices that were ducked by the Conservative party for years and years.

In addition to the headlines from the Budget, which I warmly welcome—such as the £22 billion for the NHS and raising the national minimum wage—this Budget has given hope to the hundreds of constituents writing to me about a whole range of matters, including children with special educational needs and disabilities. In Kent, the Tory-run county council’s SEND provision is on its knees; thanks to Labour’s Budget, there will now be £1.3 billion of extra help to build an education system that can cater for every child’s needs. For people in rural areas of my constituency, such as Romney Marsh, who have no, or no proper access to, broadband, £500 million will be allocated to help improve such services.

The Budget’s increase in carer’s allowance will be welcomed by the over 2,000 carers in my constituency receiving that allowance, and the extra £600 million in grant funding to local authorities for social care is especially urgent in areas such as mine, where the population is older and more vulnerable. I also warmly welcome the £100 billion of infrastructure investment over the next five years, and will continue to make the case for investment in upgrading the rail freight infrastructure in Kent, particularly to maximise the use of the channel tunnel’s rail freight capacity.

16:30

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

I congratulate those hon. Members who made their maiden speech in this debate. Their speeches were touching and very inspirational.

The Chancellor promised us that by making the necessary tough choices, the autumn Budget would provide the blueprint for unlocking growth and prosperity, yet I struggle to see the substantive improvement that my constituents will experience to their lives—and for good reason. Many people in Birmingham Perry Barr have never felt as poor, as disheartened and as ignored as they do at this moment, and it does not take much soul-searching to see why. The Budget did not deliver for the 73.7% of pensioners in my constituency who are no longer eligible for the winter fuel payment, many of whom are now forced to choose between keeping warm, feeding themselves or incurring an inordinate amount of debt.

The Budget did not hear the pleas of families in low-income households. Some 48.9% of children in Birmingham Perry Barr live in poverty, and 5,930 children in my constituency alone live in households directly impacted by the two-child benefit cap, yet despite the child poverty crisis unfolding nationally, this Government’s refusal to remove that cruel measure has limited their ability to tackle the issue head-on. In the wake of the Budget, the safety net for our nation’s most vulnerable stakeholders is unable to support the weight of living; the protections are brittle and hollowed out.

This Budget did not serve my constituents in Birmingham Perry Barr, nor did it ease the burden for Birmingham’s 1.2 million residents, who continue to face indiscriminate cuts to local government spending. Following mismanagement, Birmingham city council, which, incidentally, is Labour-run, is essentially bankrupt. Necessary services such as transport for schoolchildren with special needs, adult social care, youth centres and libraries are being cut and closed—the list is endless. What was once a far-reaching local government authority has been reduced to a minimalist, bare-bones, skeleton service. While I welcome the Government’s slight increase in local government finances, Birmingham city council needs a significant amount of funding. I urge the Government to consider increasing local government finance.

16:32

[Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great honour to speak in today’s Budget debate. This is the first Labour Budget in 14 years, delivered by the first female Chancellor in 800 years, and it lays the foundation for local and national economic growth. Like many high streets across the UK, town centres in my constituency have faced serious challenges. Over the years, businesses have closed, unemployment has risen and crime has increased—all signs of 14 years of Conservative under-investment and neglect that has hurt not only our local economy, but the very fabric of our communities.

One thing we can all agree on is that we want our town centres to come back to life. We want to restore the vibrancy that makes our high streets the heart of our communities. That is why I will speak about the possibilities that this new Budget opens for towns such as Leigh, Atherton, Golborne, Lowton and Tyldesley—towns that have been fighting back, despite years of disinvestment.

We have seen that targeted support can make a real difference. Take Leigh Spinners Mill, my former place of work: this community-owned, co-operative venture hosts more than 80 businesses, from start-ups to social enterprises, all thriving right there in Leigh. Those businesses have flourished with minimal investment, proving that when we create the right conditions, such as affordable rents and reduced business rates, local economies can thrive. As much as we celebrate projects such as the Mill, however, the question remains how we bring the same success to our high streets. The Government’s new business rates initiative is a step in the right direction, protecting small businesses and encouraging entrepreneurship.

Supporting high streets is not just about economics; it is about revitalising the unique character of our communities and creating the independence needed for businesses to grow. I am particularly encouraged by the Government’s commitment to the long-term plan for towns, despite the £22 billion black hole left by the previous Government. That strategy aligns with Labour’s manifesto priorities, reaffirming our commitment to building a sustainable, inclusive economy that benefits everybody in our communities.

16:35

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

Like everyone else, I would like to extend my congratulations to those who have made their maiden speech, and to say what a pleasure and honour it is to share the Chamber with them. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which details my professional career as an optometrist providing NHS services and owning small businesses.

This is my first Budget, just as it is for many other Members in the Chamber, and I have listened carefully to Members dissecting it and weighing up the details—as always, the devil is in the detail. As an NHS care worker, I welcome the increase in the NHS budget, but I am concerned by the absence of specific measures to address the funding crisis in professions such as dentistry, pharmacy and optometry, all of which have important roles to play in providing care to patients. Investment in such services will save millions in the long run. In my constituency, there is a real disparity in patient and GP numbers; in fact, it is the second largest such disparity in the country. For every GP, there are 3,262 patients. That is untenable. As a result, many people cannot see their GP, and that is where optometry, dentistry and pharmacy play a huge role, serving those who do not even have a registered GP. I am sorry that there is a need to do more to promote the contribution that those professions make to the NHS, and ensure that they are properly funded in the future.

I welcome the increase in funding for social care and special educational needs and disabilities, and in the national minimum wage. However, in placing a burden on pensioners and small business owners, the Budget has missed an opportunity. The Government could have used wealth taxes on those in our society with the broadest shoulders to raise the revenue necessary to fund improvements in our public services. Instead, they allowed the money to be raised from small businesses and those who are most vulnerable, such as our pensioners.

16:37

[Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the additional £47.7 billion that this Budget will deliver to the Scottish Government—the largest settlement in the history of devolution. That additional funding can rebuild Scotland and our failing public services, but the Scottish Government must now take responsibility, admit their failures and take a long-term approach that is serious about addressing Scotland’s challenges.

Economic and political stability underpin the Chancellor’s Budget. The undoubted attractiveness of Scotland for domestic and international investment requires the removal of uncertainty, which can hinder investment plans. Only when there is a Government in Scotland who seek to genuinely work collaboratively with the UK Government and the private sector on investment plans for not just the next decade but beyond will we fully reap the benefits of this Budget.

However, we have a Government in Scotland who make policy and economic decisions through the prism of the constitution, and who seek, as a matter of ideology, to find points of difference and divergence. That was demonstrated by their failure to even turn up and vote for GB Energy—unquestionably an economic opportunity for Scotland. The Chancellor has committed the UK Government to working closely with the Scottish Government on the industrial strategy and the national wealth fund, but the vehicle for promoting that collaboration—the Council of the Nations and Regions—is unfortunately being undermined by the SNP, which cannot bear the prospect of UK joint working being a success. It has been manufacturing grievances on behalf of local councils regarding representation on the council, although it has been the most centralising Administration that these islands have ever seen, disproportionately stripping local government in Scotland of power and resources. I welcome the efforts of the Secretary of State for Scotland to rise above this petty divisiveness in pursuit of a higher vision for jobs, growth and prosperity.

This Budget is a serious, strategic, long-term approach to fixing our country—an approach that we have not seen from the Scottish Government or in the last 14 years from the Conservative Government. It sits alongside an ambitious investment and industrial strategy—again, something that we have not seen from either the SNP or the Conservatives in power in the last decade or so. I am confident that, with this new approach, we can rebuild our economy and country, and I therefore welcome the measures outlined in the Budget to rebuild Britain.

16:40

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to congratulate the 47th President of the United States of America, Donald Trump. The fact that President Trump made such a comeback after one term out of office should be a warning to this Government: if they continue on a trajectory of burdening ordinary working-class people and businesses financially, and with their anti-life policies, their stay in office will be equally short.

The theme for today’s debate is rebuilding Britain, yet in reality the Budget has the potential to rock the very foundations of the United Kingdom. This Government’s Budget has dealt the most devastating blow to so many: 10 million pensioners are left reeling from the decision to cut the winter fuel payment, with many now having to choose between heating and eating; and the WASPI women have been failed again, as there is no provision to right the wrongs that have impacted so many women across the United Kingdom, including in my constituency of Upper Bann.

Prior to the Budget, I had warned this House that in the space of a month, four cafés in Portadown in my constituency closed their doors. This Budget will undoubtedly close many more. The requirement on businesses to pay additional national insurance contributions will tell a tale. This is not a Budget for working people, despite the rise in the living wage, because that rise will be swallowed up by higher retail costs due to the rise in national insurance contributions for employers. It is a cause-and-effect algorithm. This Budget hits workers and businesses.

The Prime Minister and his Chancellor have betrayed our nation’s farmers, decimated our family farms and jeopardised our proud rural heritage. The introduction of a 20% inheritance tax on family farms valued at over £1 million marks an unprecedented and unjust assault on the backbone of our nation. No farms or farmers means no home-grown food, and rising costs as we have to import food to eat. This policy threatens the survival of family-run farms, forcing many, especially in Northern Ireland, to consider selling off land or assets to meet tax liabilities, thereby undermining the continuity of farming businesses across generations. For Northern Ireland, this tax burden looms heavy. Family farms will be dismantled to cover liabilities, eroding the very fabric of rural life.

I urge the Government to stop with the spin and, more importantly, stop the farm tax, and to implement policies that support our farmers, rather than hinder them. We must prioritise the sustainability of our agricultural sector to preserve our rural communities, and to ensure the prosperity of our nation, and food security, for future generations.

16:43

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

Some have spoken today of the wait for this Budget. Depending on our perspective, we waited either 16 weeks or 14 years, and I was in the latter camp. I was proud to sit behind my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), the first woman Chancellor in the 800-year history of the office, as she delivered the Budget last week, and I was even more proud of the Budget that she introduced and what it means for working people of all ages in Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy. One in four children in my constituency are growing up in poverty; they have been failed by two Opposition parties. Save the Children Scotland said this year that the Scottish Government’s policies would not “move the dial” on child poverty, and the SNP has consistently failed to meet the targets it has set. Once again, its Members are not here to listen to the debate.

Because of this Budget, Labour’s fair repayment rate will mean that more than 1 million of the UK’s poorest households will be £420 a year better off from next April. That is expected to benefit 110,000 households in Scotland and to begin at last to drive down dependence on emergency food parcels. Many of those visiting food banks are in work, and the 6.7% increase to the national living wage and the even larger increase for 18 to 20-year-olds is an important recognition of the financial difficulty in which many of my constituents find themselves.

In Fife alone, more than 8,000 low-paid workers stand to benefit from the increase to the national living wage. The mineworkers’ pension scheme will return more than £1 billion to 112,000 former coal workers, 824 of whom are in my constituency. That means that the people who powered our country, who were so badly mistreated for so many years by the Conservatives, will receive a 32% increase to their annual pensions.

Finally, Labour’s Budget delivers the largest financial settlement to the Scottish Government in the history of devolution, with an extra £3.4 billion next year alone. It is over to the SNP now to use that competently to fix Scotland’s precious public services, which the SNP has run down over the past 17 years.

In conclusion, this Budget delivers for all age groups and all parts of my constituency in enacting our manifesto commitments to make work pay, to revive our public services and to tackle poverty. I am proud to support this historic Budget.

16:46

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I commend those who have made their maiden speeches, and I commend Members for their collegiate and warm response.

People in North Norfolk will welcome aspects of this Budget, such as the promise of greater spending on our national health service, but for all that welcome stability, they have several significant concerns. The potential for increased costs for North Norfolk’s GP surgeries and all sorts of other care providers through the national insurance rise is a huge worry.

The huge challenge facing rural constituencies from this Budget is the Government’s family farm tax. I want to share the story of Judith with the House. She is a constituent of mine who lives on her farm in Antingham. She and her husband are fifth-generation farmers, and they have reared prize-winning cattle on their small farm. Their son has been working on the farm with them for the past 40 years. He is also a carer for his father—Judith’s husband—who is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Judith is losing sleep over whether her son will be forced to sell the farm and its machinery to pay the death duties, which will mean an end to generations of family farming on their land. These are hard-working, honest Norfolk farmers, not multimillionaires or land barons. Indeed, many Norfolk farmers have contacted me before and since the Budget to share their concerns, and I am proud to be standing up for them today.

North Norfolk will also feel the brunt of the increase in the bus fare cap. Rural public transport is a lifeline for many residents living in our villages. It gets them to the shops, to the doctors and to see friends and family. Asking them to swallow an increase in cost while Londoners continue to enjoy a £1.75 cap is ludicrous. They, along with pensioners in North Norfolk who have already lost the winter fuel allowance, are starting to question the change that this Government are offering.

I honestly believe that this was a Budget of extremely good intentions from Labour, but sadly a handful of missteps have led many in North Norfolk to question the direction in which we are going. I hope to work with the Government to see how we can ensure that the positive parts of this Budget deliver for North Norfolk and remedy the issues causing the most angst. As ever, I will be putting North Norfolk residents first, standing up for constituents, raising their concerns and ensuring that their voices are heard loudly and clearly.

16:49

[Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Families in my constituency have been hit hard in recent years by rising inflation outpacing their take-home pay. I am delighted, therefore, that the Chancellor has already recognised the importance of public servants with a fair pay rise of 5.5%, or 6% for the military, meaning that nurses, teachers and service personnel are fairly recognised for their hard work. We are also recognising workers through the rise in the national living wage to £12.21 an hour, which will make a huge difference to living standards for my constituents in North East Derbyshire, enabling more people, particularly young people, to stand on their own two feet.

One of the biggest issues I hear about from constituents is the terrible state of the special educational needs and disabilities provision by Derbyshire county council. The Conservatives have determinedly and deliberately run the council into a dire financial position, leaving many children paying the price through long waiting lists for assessments and inadequate support, which costs the council even more in fines. I am proud that we in Labour will not accept this Tory neglect of vulnerable children and have allocated an extra £1 billion to reform SEND. That shows the difference a Labour Government can make to ordinary families.

We are fortunate in North East Derbyshire to have a wealth of small businesses, including retail on our high streets, and service businesses, whether in landscaping or consulting. We in Labour know the value of rewarding those who are prepared to take a risk and build their own business. I am delighted that the threshold at which employer national insurance contributions are made has been increased to £10,500, meaning that many small businesses in North East Derbyshire will see the cost of employing people fall and their ability to grow rise. Under Labour, we know the future is bright for business.

16:51

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I declare that I have a financial interest in some of the Budget measures.

The Budget is one of broken promises and poorly thought out measures for every generation. For children who attend private schools, their schools will face VAT. Quite apart from the disruption that will cause, it is unlikely to raise the money the Government suggest, because the wealthier parents have already paid, more students will need to be looked after in the state sector, there will be greater demand on SEND services and there will be a reduction in employment among staff who previously worked at such schools.

The Prime Minister told those who go to university that he wanted to abolish tuition fees. I wonder whether they are surprised that he has put them up. Young people wanting to buy their first home will see stamp duty thresholds fall, and many more will pay stamp duty on their first home.

What of those working people the Labour party has found it so difficult to define? First, they have to get to work. Those who use the bus will find that the fare has increased by 50%. Those who have commercial pick-up trucks will see that the tax on them has gone up too. What about the national insurance rise? It is a tax on every single working person and it has not been thought through, as public sector workers will also need to pay the national insurance.

The Government said to The Times that they were going to provide mitigation, but the Department of Health and Social Care does not seem to know how much it is going to cost to start with. I asked a written parliamentary question and was told it will take longer to prepare an answer. The Department does not seem to know how much it will cost directly or indirectly. Many right hon. and hon. Members have talked today about the indirect costs that will face air ambulances, hospices, general practices, opticians, care homes, mental health services and outsourced laundry, catering and human resources.

What about the private hospitals delivering waiting list initiative work for the NHS? They will also need to put up prices. Will the nurse who works at a private hospital doing a proportion of her or his work for the NHS and a proportion for private enterprise be partly recompensed, or not? It has not been properly thought through. We will need the NHS for all those old people, cold and vulnerable in their homes, who have had the winter fuel allowance snatched from them—people the Labour Government have let down. If they die, they have the prospect of further taxation on their pensions, business assets and family farms.

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raised the issue of family farms; does she agree that it has been hugely disingenuous of the Government to repeatedly say they have farmers’ backs, only to abandon agricultural property relief at the first opportunity?

[Dr Johnson]

I do. As a farmer’s wife, I particularly recognise the effort of families to work together on farms. It is not the most profitable work, but is a labour of true love.

Those who need a pint after listening to all the increases in taxation across the generations may be pleased to hear that pints are going to be a penny cheaper—woo-hoo—but with business rates relief for pubs and other hospitality having gone from 75% to 40%, and the rise in the minimum wage and in national insurance contributions, the likelihood is that prices will not go down at all, leading to further disappointment.

The Budget is bad for business, bad for growth, bad for the young and bad for the old. But most of all it is a break of trust. It is a litany of broken promises from the Labour Government to the public. Labour voters, like the Prime Minister’s favourite singer, may be saying to themselves, “Did you have to do this? I was thinking that you could be trusted.”

16:55

[Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate on the first Labour Budget in 14 years, and particularly to mention the impacts that it will have on my constituents in Kilmarnock and Loudoun, and on Scotland as a whole. This Labour Budget delivers the largest settlement for the Scottish Government in the history of devolution. It means an additional £1.5 billion for the Scottish Government to spend this financial year and an additional £3.4 billion next year. This is a Budget that keeps our promises to Scotland, ends the era of 14 years of Tory austerity, provides billions in investment in public services and prioritises economic growth. The Budget is good for the Scotland Office, good for Scottish Labour and, most importantly, good for the people of Scotland.

An aspect of the Budget that is particularly welcome is the reserved spending from the UK Government, which is necessary due to the SNP Administration in Scotland at best spending on their own priorities and, at worst, wasting money on silly vanity projects or legal fees to cover up freedom of information requests. The reserved spending will go directly to those communities who need it, such as Kilmarnock, the largest town in my community.

Despite the aforementioned biggest financial settlement in the history of devolution, the nationalists have taken Scotland in the wrong direction and have been careless with Scotland’s money. The SNP Administration cannot continue to blame others for their own economic incompetence. It is about time that they apologised to the people of Scotland for their mismanagement of public funds, but I will not hold my breath.

The problems in Scottish public services created by the SNP are not solved by having more money to spend. Put simply, the SNP needs to get smarter at spending it. The SNP wastes millions on delayed discharge and agency staff in our NHS, on ferries that never sail and on pet projects that do not deliver for Scotland, all the while decimating local communities’ funding, meaning that vital services are being lost. While Labour has committed not to increase taxes on working people, the SNP continues to try to use income tax as a substitute for economic growth, with those earning over £29,000 paying more.

Labour’s manifesto commitment to “Brand Scotland” has been realised. An initial investment of £750,000 will fund trade missions, promote Scottish goods and services around the world and help Scottish businesses export for the first time. This is the Budget that my constituents have been waiting for, the Budget that Scotland has been waiting for and the Budget that the UK has been waiting for. I fully support it.

16:57

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

I will start by welcoming a few measures in the Budget, in particular the increase in the carer’s allowance and the funding for the NHS that is sorely needed after the last Government. There is something that I am confused about, though. This, as trailed in the Labour manifesto, was meant to be a Budget for growth—indeed, that was how the Chancellor introduced it last Wednesday, and the Secretary of State in opening the debate today said that the Budget will bring growth—but it does not appear to help small businesses, which are the engine of our economy, employ over half the people in it and provide 50% of the revenue.

In my constituency of Tunbridge Wells is Adrian Scripps, which grows 10% of the UK’s apple crop. James, its managing director, tells me that its labour costs will go up by 8%, so this year, if he does nothing about it, he will lose 50% of his profits—and this is a good year, so in a lean year he would lose money. If a business producing 10% of the UK’s apple crop is to lose out from the Budget, what does that mean for the wider SME sector?

As an aside, if I were to ask James what he thinks about the Government’s policy on Europe, which is essentially a continuation of the previous Government’s, I could not repeat what he would say in the Chamber. As a result of this Budget, James will have to lay off staff. People losing jobs does not grow the economy.

I have a short time left, but I would like to talk about Toby, who runs The Chapel salon in Tunbridge Wells. He is also the head of the Salon Employers Association, which represents 1,900 salons across the United Kingdom. He estimates that more than 25% of salons may go under as a result of this Budget. Cutting hair is labour intensive and the margins are wafer thin. Businesses going insolvent does not grow the economy. I understand, and I agree, that we need to invest in our public services—I think the Government have got that bit of the Budget right—but I disagree with who is taxed to pay for it. The Liberal Democrats think that we should tax big businesses, and the Labour Government think that we should tax small businesses. That is not on.

17:00

[Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)]

After more than a decade of stagnation, this Budget provides the vital reset that our economy needs, not just to address the immediate challenges we face but to lay the foundations for a brighter and fairer future for all.

There are many welcome measures in this Budget, and of particular importance to my constituency will be the increase in the carer’s allowance weekly earnings limit, giving carers greater flexibility to work and increase their financial security. The additional £1 billion for SEND and alternative provision is a vital first step as we begin the work to rebuild the broken system, and to restore trust with parents that education can be inclusive, supportive and break from the adversarial model that is the root of the crisis they face.

Today, I will focus on housing as we strive to get Britain building once again. Having worked in the social housing sector for the past 20 years, I am convinced that whether the issue is educational opportunity for children living in overcrowded accommodation, the healthcare needs of people with the blight of damp and mould on their bedroom walls, or the cost of living pressure caused by poorly insulated or draughty homes, fixing the housing crisis is the solution. A safe, decent and affordable home is the cornerstone of a dignified life. When people have decent, safe accommodation that is suited to their needs, they have a strong foundation on which to build their lives. That, in turn, has a stabilising effect on their families and the wider community.

In recent years, we have witnessed a dramatic rise in house prices and soaring rental costs, leaving many individuals and families struggling to secure a roof over their heads. In my area, average prices have increased by 59% since 2010, while earnings have increased by only 23% over the same period. For many young, hard-working people, the dream of home ownership has slipped away. That is why the £500 million investment in the affordable homes programme is so important, as well as the long-term settlement for social rents, to give confidence to our registered providers to make their own investments.

It is important that we ensure that support is in place for vulnerable populations, which is why I welcome the additional £233 million allocated to tackling homelessness, bringing total spending in this area to £1 billion. We believe that every individual deserves a safe and stable place to call home. That is how we transform lives and strengthen communities. I am proud that we have a Labour Government in office who take the housing crisis seriously—a Government who are dedicated to delivering the change that our country so desperately needs, and delivering hope for a brighter future for everyone. This Government will build a Britain where everyone has a place to call home.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. To ensure that I can get in as many people as possible, there should be no further interventions.

17:03

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

In Mid Sussex we do not have many large employers, so small and medium-sized enterprises truly are the backbone of our economy. When watching the Budget statement, Bob from Hurstpierpoint, who is involved in multiple small Mid Sussex businesses, told me:

“the big loser was small business.”

Bob is already having to make contingency plans and think seriously about his workforce going forward. He is right to say that

“without thriving small businesses and SMEs the ability of local communities to thrive is inhibited”.

That is true in Mid Sussex and in communities up and down the country. Another constituent of mine, Ian, who has invested considerably in a local business and employs a number of local people, says that he feels “abandoned”.

The catastrophic impacts of the decision will be not just on employers but on employees—none more than those in Mid Sussex GP and care businesses who have written to me since the Budget. Niki, from Hassocks, a director in a social care organisation supporting adults with learning disabilities, raised two points. First, the national insurance changes will have a disastrous impact on the sector, with social care providers already struggling. Hit in recent years by covid, interest rate hikes, rises in the national living wage and the cost of living crisis, many are teetering on the brink. Secondly, social care providers will feel the Government’s measures acutely and disproportionately. They are people businesses, so almost their entire cost base is hit by the national insurance increase. They employ many people on low wages, so shifting the national insurance threshold to £5,000 has a huge impact.

Katie, a Lindfield GP, said that the changes would directly undermine patient access and patient care. “In our area,” she said,

“there are dwindling partner numbers, old estates, difficulties recruiting staff. We partners aren’t sure how long we can keep providing increasing healthcare for.”

My constituent Tom, a GP partner, told me that because practices do not charge patients, they do not have the option to put up their prices as a business might. He is trying to digest how he feels about partners’ bearing the brunt of these changes. GPs have told me that they are not entitled to claim employment allowance, and we need clarity on that essential point.

This is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for GPs and care providers to be exempt from national insurance rises. When those who employ us, care for us and choose to base their businesses in Mid Sussex feel “insulted, “abandoned” and “unsupported”, 1 fail to see how this decision is the right one.

17:06

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

The Budget speaks to the needs and ambitions of my constituency, supporting our communities in ways that matter deeply. It is a Budget that delivers on infrastructure, on industry and on opportunities to keep our towns and villages thriving.

On transport, the message is clear: we cannot afford to leave our communities disconnected. I have long been vocal about the pressing need for upgrades to the A50/A500 corridor, a critical route linking Uttoxeter and surrounding villages to the rest of the midlands and beyond. The road has needed vital improvements for years, not just to reduce congestion but to ensure the safety and reliability on which our residents and businesses depend. The Conservative party has failed to invest in our infrastructure—a fact well known to Branston residents, who now face a crumbling bridge and roads across my constituency riddled with potholes. Given this Government’s increased focus on local roads and public transport, I am optimistic that our ongoing efforts will soon deliver the changes that my constituents deserve.

My area has a proud industrial heritage, and the Budget provides a lifeline to manufacturing areas. With the first industrial strategy since 2017, we will finally be taking a long-term approach to training, skills and investment. This means that our skilled workers and young people in Staffordshire will not have to leave for opportunities elsewhere, but will instead find them exactly where they should be, backed by investment in green technologies and clean energy initiatives such as Great British Energy. These are not just big-ticket items; they are the jobs, training and progress that people in my constituency need.

Then there is public procurement, with our commitment to back British firms and British jobs with public tenders. With new regulations requiring faster payments and favouring British firms, we are seeing tangible support for the small and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of our society. We must buy more British, and build more British too. We will use the purchasing power of the British state to invest in our communities. By buying from local companies we are investing in local companies, and by investing in local companies we invest in local jobs, which means more money for our communities—including communities like mine in Anglesey, Shobnall and the Heath. That is real levelling up, not the pale imitation attempted by the Conservative party. It is delivering on promises that we made, not breaking them.

This Budget is a blueprint for a Britain rebuilt. It is not just about growth; it is about renewal. It is about supporting the spirit of innovation and resilience in every part of the country. It is about reminding every family in Burton and every business in Uttoxeter that they are not just part of the economy; they are part of Britain’s future, too.

17:09

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker —I was not expecting you to do so. May I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) apropos farms and farmers?

Madam Deputy Speaker, you—I can call you “you”—have heard me talk about health services in the remote far north of Scotland more times than I care to remember. Members refer to the NHS as being on its back, which is nowhere truer than in my constituency. The people in Caithness and Sutherland knew that when they came to put a cross on the ballot paper in July, which is why we got the result that we did. I would say to my hon. Friends who represent other Scottish constituencies that that is true elsewhere, too.

Two doctors in my constituency, Dr Alison Brooks in Thurso and Dr Ewen Pearson in Wick, have made it very clear to me what the effects of the increase in employers’ national insurance will mean. I do not want to bore the Chamber, because we have heard a lot about that already, but the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who is not in his place, referred to possible mitigation, and I hope that that will prove to be the case. Otherwise, we could face the diminution of services and even find that jobs will go, which would be totally and completely unacceptable.

I was sitting in the Chamber when the Chancellor announced the £3.4 billion for the Scottish Government, and I heard nine soft thuds as nine chins hit the deck behind me. The SNP had the old, wailing dirge ready: “It’s Westminster what done it. We ain’t got the cash.” Oh! None of them is here. What a shame! Well, I am just going to say what other Members have said. I hope that the SNP Scottish Government get off their backsides and spend the money properly. There is no hiding now, and there is no excuse—they have got the dosh.

Madam Deputy Speaker, how many times have you heard me talk about mums having to go on a more than 200-mile return trip to give birth in the middle of winter? Are we joking? It is amazing that something dreadful has not happened. The doctors I spoke to about national insurance contributions told me that gynae services in the far north of Scotland are on their knees. Dr Pearson told me about a mum who had to wait two years to get a hysterectomy. Is that not a disgrace?

In the county of Caithness, there is not one psychologist —a damning fact, because we know that mental health is such a problem. There is no hiding. The Scottish Government should get on with the day job and sort out the NHS in my constituency and the rest of Scotland. They have no excuses.

17:12

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

In the time allowed, I will confine myself to a few comments on the Budget’s financial settlement for the Ministry of Justice.

The MOJ is one of the smaller Departments in budgetary terms but has suffered the largest cuts in proportion to its size. Given its role in keeping us safe, providing a high-quality judicial and court system, and offering access to justice that is not dependent on means, the previous Government’s actions were not just regrettable, but reckless. I was, therefore, pleased to see substantial real-terms investment for the first time in 14 years. It is not enough to resolve all the crises, but it is a start in turning things around.

Total MOJ spending will rise from £11.9 billion in the last financial year to £13.8 billion in the next—an average real-terms increase of 5.6% a year—and the Law Officers’ budget will increase by 7.5% a year over the same period. Some of that funding has rightly been directed at prisons and probation, with £2.3 billion to be spent on new prisons, half a billion pounds on maintenance and security budgets, and the same on recruiting new staff. However, the Budget made no mention of civil and criminal legal aid, or of additional money to address the unsustainably large courts backlog. This year’s settlement funds 106,500 Crown court sitting days—not enough to address the backlog, which grows ever larger. Trials are being listed for 2027, and there are similar logjams in the civil and family courts and tribunals.

As of 4 November, the prison population was 85,794. Prisons are running at almost full capacity and the prison population is projected to increase to 94,000 by March 2025, and up to 106,000 by March 2027. Prisons are in a dire state. Prisoners are being held in unsafe, crowded conditions on an estate plagued by widespread disrepair and severe maintenance backlogs. Fire safety standards on the prison estate are woefully poor, and we have to ensure that there is a plan for probation to grow in response to measures to reduce prisoner numbers.

Legal aid is another area of acute pressure. Will any of the new money allocated to the Department be spent on legal aid? Failure to invest will deny access to justice, and it would not be possible to tackle the growing court backlog without further investment in criminal and civil legal aid. I was pleased that the Minister said yesterday, in replying to a question from me in the House, that there will be announcements in the next few weeks on legal aid. This is an excellent start, but there is a long way to go to repair our broken justice system.

17:15

[David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)]

It was a pleasure and a privilege to listen to some excellent maiden speeches. As a Welsh Liberal Democrat, I am pleased to play my part in constructive opposition. I want to see things get done for Wales, and there are certainly parts of this Budget that we welcome—for example, the increase in the carer’s allowance that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and the Liberal Democrats have campaigned so hard for. Around 10% of the Welsh population are estimated to be unpaid carers, and many of them will see a real difference thanks to this initiative.

We also thank the Government for listening to our calls for extra funding for the NHS and social care. It is now over to the Welsh Government to ensure that all consequential money is spent on health and social care, which has not always happened in the past. With 800,000 people stuck on waiting lists in Wales, which is nearly a third of the population, this could not be more urgent. We want to see further action on social care. Some 50% of beds in Powys are currently blocked, and the patients are unable to be discharged to go back to their homes and families. That is something that must end.

Fixing our health services is key, and it is for this reason that we have called for the national insurance hike to be removed for care providers and GPs. I am proud to have mining heritage in my family, and I welcome the boost to former miners’ pensions, but confusion remains over the future of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme, which has over 41,000 members, many of them across south Wales. Further clarification has not been provided so far for those former miners. Time is running out for many of them, and we urgently call on the Government to provide some reassurance to them.

We have less favourable views on other elements of the Budget, including the changes to agricultural property relief, which are causing a great deal of genuine anxiety across my constituency and Wales as a whole. If the Labour Government do not change course, they will be throwing family farms to the wolves in the same way that other industries have been let down in the past. The impact will be felt not just by young farmers unable to take on a viable farm business, but in wider consequences. The entire rural economy is dependent on farming incomes, so the changes will threaten jobs across Wales. We do not understand why the Government are not raising the revenue from other sources. Why should Welsh farmers bear the brunt of repairing the economic damage caused by the Conservatives?

17:18

[Mr Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate following the first Labour Budget in over 14 years and the first in 800 years to be given by a woman. This might not be an achievement that the Leader of the Opposition thinks is of any note, but I can tell her and the House that in my constituency of Cardiff West it is a proud moment, and one that women and girls in my constituency take great pride in.

After 14 years of chaos and instability, this Labour Government have made their choices known in this Budget. This Labour Government have chosen to deal with the £22 billion black hole left by the Tories, and to be honest about it with the British public. This Labour Government have chosen to stabilise our economy so that we can grow our economy. This Labour Government have chosen to invest in our public services and to end the austerity of the last 14 years. And this Labour Government have chosen to support and work with our devolved Governments, rather than denigrate them.

Despite our dire economic inheritance from the Tories, the Chancellor has made some tough choices while holding true to our party’s values in delivering a Budget that supports and invests in working people throughout our regions and nations. This Budget has delivered for my constituency and for Wales more generally. This is the biggest Budget since devolution. It provides a record £1.7 billion spending boost for the Welsh Government to support public services. As a result, my constituents will see the benefits both through the Barnett formula and through direct spending.

I am also proud that the Budget has set aside £100 million to support steel communities, both through the transition board and through the town centre regeneration fund. For the first time ever, it allocates funding to make coal tips safe, with £25 million in new money.

But let us not forget why the choices in this Budget were necessary. The Tories crashed the economy, and we had to fix it. In so doing, we have ensured that working people will not face higher taxes in their payslips, and we are increasing the national living wage by 6.7%.

When we talk about choices, let us not forget the choices that the Conservatives have made. They have chosen to oppose this Budget, which means they are opposed to the investment that will grow our economy. They are opposed to investing in and reforming our public services, which can only mean that they remain committed to continuing austerity.

I do not even know where to begin with the Tories’ disgraceful position of allocating no money whatsoever to their promise to pay compensation to the victims of the contaminated blood and Post Office Horizon scandals. My constituent Sue Sparkes and others have fought this injustice tirelessly.

This Budget shows the difference being made by the Labour Governments in Westminster and Cardiff, and I celebrate it.

17:21

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

The returning tide of populism that we have seen today is a sobering reminder of what can happen when people feel that the system has not been delivering for them. This reality makes fiscal events, such as a Budget delivered by a new Government, so critical. A Budget is more than just an annual accounting practice; it represents an opportunity to reassure our communities that they can trust us—all of us—to recognise their needs, aspirations and concerns. A Budget is an opportunity to meet those needs and to inoculate our communities and our country against the populist contagion that has invaded yet another host today.

Against that backdrop, I will shamelessly share some of Eastbourne’s needs. Eastbourne needs support to tackle homelessness, which has meant that our food bank was the country’s busiest last year. I therefore welcome the £230 million announced in the Budget for homelessness prevention, and I hope the East Sussex floating support service can benefit from it, but we have been let down by the lack of emergency support to help councils like mine with the unsustainable cost of temporary accommodation, as so eloquently described by the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi).

Eastbourne also needs services at our local hospital, where I was born, to be protected. I welcome the NHS investment announced in the Budget, but I am disappointed that the status of investment in our hospital via the new hospitals programme has still not been confirmed. This means that local mums, who in many cases are having to travel more than 20 miles to have their babies, are still unclear about what investment their hospital will get.

Our significant population of local pensioners and I have pleaded with the Government to review their decision to remove the winter fuel allowance from many pensioners who need it. It is unacceptable that those calls have been ignored.

Our local businesses need additional support to thrive, yet the increase in employer NICs will make it harder for them to survive—especially many of our hospitality businesses, which I am proud to represent as a patron of the Eastbourne Hospitality Association.

Eastbourne’s WASPI women, led by Angela Boas, deserve compensation, which was missing from the Budget. Eastbourne’s SEND families, supported by advocates like Kate Humphries, must benefit from the £1 billion SEND funding that was announced.

Overall, the Government have made progress, but they must go further to reassure my community that they will deliver for Eastbourne on all the counts I have described. Failure to deliver will leave my town more vulnerable to the vice of great hardship, and more exposed to the venom of populist predators.

17:24

[Claire Hughes (Bangor Aberconwy) (Lab)]

I congratulate Members on both sides of the House on their excellent maiden speeches today. It is a pleasure to speak in the debate.

For far too long, people in north Wales have suffered because of stagnant wages, falling living standards and rising costs. That is the legacy of the last Conservative Government and why our country has voted for change. Last week, we saw a Budget that turns the page on an era of unfunded policies and sticking-plaster politics. Last week’s Budget was an honest Budget, which will fix the foundations of our economy and improve living standards for people in communities like mine. I thank the Chancellor for this historic Budget and what it means for Wales. The Chancellor has delivered a record £21 billion to the Welsh Government to invest in public services, with £1.7 billion in consequentials through the Barnett formula, but there is more to welcome.

Like my hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) and for Kettering (Rosie Wrighting), before I came to this House, I worked mostly for and with small businesses. Many measures in the Budget will be welcomed by businesses in my constituency of Bangor Aberconwy. Support for pubs and smaller breweries from cutting duty and providing additional relief will mean brilliant brewers, such as Wild Horse, in Llandudno, and Cwrw Nant, will be supported to thrive.

The continued freeze on fuel duty will be welcomed not only by those who live in rural communities and depend on their cars, but by logistics businesses, such as Baynes & Son in Bangor. The increase in employment allowance is also welcome. Perhaps most importantly, more than 70,000 people in Wales will receive a pay rise next year as a result of the increase in the minimum wage, meaning more people have more money in their pockets to spend in our local economy, including in our shops and cafés and on our high streets.

I am proud that we now have two Labour Governments working hand in hand in the interest of the people of Wales and the UK. This Budget is not just about rebuilding our country; it is about rebuilding trust in politics. Nowhere is that more clear than in the return of a constructive relationship between this UK Government and our Welsh Government in Cardiff. That is the difference a Labour Government and a Labour Budget make. This Budget delivers for Wales and the people of Bangor Aberconwy. We can be proud of the Budget and I know we will see the benefits it will bring in the years to come.

17:27

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow so many excellent maiden speeches this afternoon.

The Budget marks a seminal moment in the parliamentary calendar. Irrespective of party politics, there is a collective desire that any Budget provides the foundations for our great nation to succeed.

My constituency of Solihull West and Shirley, with its range and breadth of businesses, is an important economic driver for the west midlands. Having sat down with 17 business leaders last Friday, and having visited multiple businesses in the lead up to the Budget, it is important that I convey their balanced and market-led views.

Businesses look for stability. They want to understand the Government’s growth and economic plan for an industrial strategy. However, as one CEO described it, the Budget represents private industry versus public sector, employer against employee. One cannot have well-funded public services if there is no private industry to pay for them; one cannot have high employment rates if there are no private business to spur job creation; and one cannot have economic growth if private investment is driven out of this country.

This Budget has brought businesses more complexity and uncertainty. As a consequence of last Wednesday’s announcements, businesses in my constituency have already announced recruitment freezes.

By now, the Chancellor will have received my letter, sent yesterday and signed by approximately 40 Members of this House and the other place, regarding the impact that her new national insurance contributions policy will have on general practitioners, dentists, hospices and care homes. These vital services will be forced to decrease staff numbers, thereby creating further pressures on the NHS and public services.

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. [Interruption.] Government Members do not like to hear this.

[Hon. Members]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Graham Stuart]

Not when an intervention is happening. Every Labour Government in history have ended with higher unemployment than when they began. From the look of these measures, does it not seem that this one will be exactly the same?

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. Although the hon. Gentleman will be very grateful for the intervention, may I remind Members that time is tight?

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention, and I agree with him entirely. I am mindful of the tightness of time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Will the Chancellor reconsider the exemption list, to protect the vital services I mentioned, much as she reconsidered when it came to VAT on continuity of education allowance payments? We all understand how much money the Chancellor hopes to raise, but I ask today that she sets out a realistic plan to raise the money. What is her plan to grow the economy? GDP growth predictions are lower than inflation rise predictions, which effectively means the economy shrinking over the next five years.

Finally, I ask the Minister to set a firm date for the publication of the Government industrial strategy, so that businesses have stability, rather than being on the receiving end of the Chancellor’s smash-and-grab tax raid.

17:31

[Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Let me welcome the first Labour Budget in 14 years, and the first ever delivered by a woman. The Budget’s positive interventions for Bassetlaw have the vibe of the late, great, Ian Dury’s song, “Reasons to be Cheerful”. The song has wonderful lyrics listing the joys in life; it was written in response to his band mate surviving a brutal electric shock. Well, this Budget is Labour’s response to the shock of the Truss mini-Budget, and 14 years of neglect and no economic plan.

In Bassetlaw, we now have significant support for UK fusion energy research to build on the UK’s position as global leader in sustainable energy. Building the first fusion power plant in Bassetlaw will take us to the next generation of carbon-neutral energy creation, providing huge opportunities to develop talent, skills, local jobs and wealth, and to build on business.

The massive injection of funds into the NHS means that the waiting lists at Bassetlaw hospital will be tackled head-on, with a crack team from London hospitals going in to get our operating theatres open seven days a week, and driving those waiting times down. People are waiting too long for the operations that they desperately need. They want to be in work and bringing home a wage. That is central to rebuilding our economy and lifting people out of poverty. This is our Government putting joined-up thinking into action.

I welcome the fact that in Bassetlaw, 2,500 retired mineworkers will see their pensions go up by £30 a week, as we deliver on our manifesto commitment, but it does not end there: our Government will continue to review surplus sharing arrangements, and I call for this to include those retired miners in my area who are in the scheme for supervisors and overseers. They cannot be ignored. They paid into an identical scheme and they deserve equal treatment.

When Bassetlaw people told me that they were too scared to go into our town centres, I promised that I would take action. I welcome the funding to crack down on the organised gangs that target retailers. I welcome, too, the Government scrapping the law that gives immunity for low-value shoplifting—an immunity granted by the Conservative Government in 2014.

The Tories talked the talk, but they did not walk the walk. They were all hot air, promises and no delivery. Whether it is the challenge of getting a GP or a dentist appointment, the challenge of sorting out the funding for flood alleviation schemes in Retford and Worksop, or the failure to stop Doncaster airport closing, the Tories have left it to Labour to pick up the pieces, to sort out their mess and to get Britain back on course.

16:19

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I congratulate all of today’s maiden speakers on their excellent contributions.

In her Budget statement last week, the Chancellor announced a £1 billion increase for special educational needs and disabilities. Any additional funding is of course very welcome, especially in Surrey, where the SEND system is in crisis, but it is important to put that figure in context. Estimates suggests that the national SEND budget is running an annual deficit of £4 billion, rising to nearly £6 billion in 2025. The whole system is being saved from complete collapse thanks only to a statutory override—an accountancy trick that allows councils to keep these deficits off their books until March 2026. What happens after that no one yet knows, but the National Audit Office has warned that the UK’s SEND system teeters on the brink of collapse.

Surrey county council alone is carrying an eye-watering £118 million SEND deficit, so while the Chancellor’s additional £1 billion investment may sound promising, it really only buys a little time. A few weeks ago, I spent a morning with a group of nearly 70 parents, each of whom has a child or children with special educational needs. Many of those children have been unable to attend school for months, and in some cases years, due to the lack of an appropriate setting or support. Parents are being forced into becoming full-time carers, with one or both parents giving up paid employment to take on caring responsibilities. Each year, thousands of private and public sector workers are lost from the economy because SEND provision is failing children and parents alike.

Parents tell me that when they are not educating their children, they work late into the night administering appeals processes, gathering evidence for tribunals, and seeking help from charities and agencies that might just help to unlock the broken SEND system for them. That is the daily pattern for many thousands of households across the country, yet the experience can feel crushingly lonely. The SEND system pulls working people out of their careers and out of the workforce, while permanently limiting the life and career chances of children with incredible potential. Those human and economic costs are barely accounted for in the Government’s budget-setting.

If this is indeed a Government who prioritise economic growth and seek to invest in working people, I encourage them to see reform and proper funding of special educational needs as a vital component of their national mission.

16:19

[Claire Hazelgrove (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Lab)]

When I was out knocking on doors and listening to fellow residents at the weekend, many people in Winterbourne said how pleased they were to see us begin the change that has been so desperately needed by so many for so long. From our NHS and our schools to our industry and our roads, this Labour Budget is focused on fixing the foundations, delivering change that matters, and rebuilding Britain. After 14 years of decline and neglect, simple things have become much harder than they should be, and although people know that it will take time to deliver the scale of change that Britain needs, we now have funding for 40,000 more NHS appointments a week, and money to rebuild schools that are crumbling around our children and to start to improve SEND support, so that every child can thrive, and to make life fairer for carers who look after loved ones. This is a Labour Government delivering as promised.

The Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency is a rich tapestry of towns and villages that have strong local character and great national and international impact. I am proud that our communities are at the heart of aerospace in the UK. We are the home of both Concorde and the future of flight, and major companies, supported by brilliant SMEs, are innovating every day to reduce emissions and lead the way in British enterprise. I know that local people will join me in welcoming our Government’s investment of £975 million in the aerospace sector in the Budget. That will fund vital research and development for the latest aerospace technology in our region and beyond. That is important because rebuilding Britain is also about restoring Britain’s leadership and place on the world stage. We have a strong defence sector locally, including MOD Abbey Wood, so I welcome the £2.9 billion uplift in defence funding, in addition to the funding for Ukraine for as long as it is needed. Our support must never waver.

As the first ever woman to represent my constituency, I note what an important moment it was to see the first woman Chancellor in our country’s history stand to deliver the Budget. Representation matters, as does delivering change.

This Budget does what our new Labour Government were elected to do: it sets the path for rebuilding Britain. I look forward to supporting those efforts on behalf of my community, who elected me to deliver that change.

17:39

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

Certainly, the Budget has been on the minds of many of my constituents. It was even a topic of conversation with the owner of Gurkha Sunkoshi when I collected an Indian takeaway last night. I will say more about the impact on small businesses such as his shortly, but let me start with the positives.

It is certainly excellent to see the Government commit to NHS investment, which has been the subject of a key Liberal Democrat campaign, including in my constituency. I also welcome the compensation for victims of the infected blood and Post Office Horizon scandals. I agree with colleagues who have highlighted the point that the increase in carer’s allowance and SEND provision is welcome, but does not go far enough.

Nevertheless, there is much cause for concern for my constituents, particularly small business owners. GP and dental surgeries are concerned about rising costs as a result of increases to employer national insurance contributions and the minimum wage. Alas, so far, they have not received assurances of additional funding to match the liabilities that they will face. Of course, they run the risk of needing to reduce staff recruitment or even lay off staff, which could add to pressures on the local health service.

The same issue applies to the wider small business and high-tech sectors in my constituency—including Indian restaurants. My constituency has been assessed by the Startup Coalition as No. 16 in the country for new businesses, not least thanks to our high-tech business parks: Milton park, Culham campus and the Harwell science and innovation campus. Those businesses will be worried about the ability to grow because of the costs that they face. Many of my colleagues have highlighted concerns about the proposed family farm tax. The Liberal Democrats call for an extra £1 billion a year in support for farming communities.

It is on transport policy that the Budget most disappoints. Perhaps, given the proposed increase in the bus fare cap and the above-inflation increases to rail fares, the Government are under the impression that working families only use cars. A season ticket from Didcot in my constituency to London, plus travelcard, already costs around £7,000 a year. Those policies undermine the Government’s stated objectives on economic growth, climate change and reducing congestion. I also regret that there is no commitment to local rail schemes in my constituency, such as a new station at Wantage and Grove, and electrification between Didcot and Oxford.

Today’s election result in the United States emphasises the importance of managing the economy and public services so that people feel listened to and supported. My fear is that some of the Budget measures will have the opposite effect, but I genuinely wish the Government success, and hope that they will listen to and address the many concerns raised by the Budget.

17:44

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

I congratulate hon. Members who have delivered maiden speeches today on their thoughtful contributions.

This Budget marks the end of an era of austerity inflicted by the Conservative party over the past 14 years, during which time take-home pay was cut to the bone and our public services almost reached existential crisis. In Scotland, we had the trouble of two failing Governments. The SNP promised Scandinavian-type public services, while the Conservative party promised North American levels of taxation. The result was broken public services and a complete misuse of taxpayer money.

I am proud of many things in the Budget, but I am most proud that next April the national minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour. That will lift the earnings of 200,000 people in Scotland and 3,000 people in my Glasgow South West constituency. This Labour Government will ensure that work pays, and that it is secure and dignified.

The Budget continues and increases direct investment in Scotland through the innovation accelerators programme, which supports 11 projects in Glasgow. It also establishes Brand Scotland, and supports Scottish trade abroad by contributing £750,000 to the Scotland Office. This is the biggest uplift in Scotland’s funding through Barnett consequentials since the beginning of devolution in 1999, with £3.4 billion of additional funding. Within that funding, Labour has increased the overall education budget by 3.5% in real terms and increased local government funding by 3.2%, so SNP-run Glasgow city council has no excuse to be cutting 450 teaching posts over the next three years. It must not rob young Glaswegians of their future, because theirs is the contribution that will make our economy grow.

Conservative Members used to tell us frequently that they believed in Britain, and SNP Members—conspicuous by their absence today—used to tell us that they were stronger for Scotland. What better embodiment of strength and of that belief than investing in our infrastructure and our people? We on the Labour Benches have made our decision; it is now up to them whether they back Britain or not.

17:45

[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

In this Budget debate, I am going to focus on the massive disconnect between the Government’s talk about growth and investment and what the OBR considers will be the outcome. Sadly, we can want something and talk about it, but if we do not enact the policies, we are not going to get it. That will hit everybody across the country really hard, particularly the most vulnerable. I am seeing that reality in my constituency, where a lot of employers are relocating plants abroad to the EU, rather than relocating and growing those jobs in the UK. That is not just happening in my constituency: very likely, it is happening in every other Member’s constituency as well. That is a huge problem for our public services, which are ultimately underwritten by our taxes.

As a result of this Budget, real private consumption as a share of GDP is set to fall by 0.4% by 2029, and real business investment is set to fall by 0.6%. It is not me saying that: it is the OBR. That is very different from what the Secretary of State has told us. It leaves real GDP growth lower in the outer years, in the 2027-29 forecast—again, not my words, but the OBR’s. As per OBR data, Brexit is cutting our long-run productivity by 4%, and is cutting the overall trade intensity of our economy by 15% in the long term. The UK has a free option to boost economic growth at zero fiscal cost by restoring a closer economic relationship with Europe. However, although not a single person on Labour’s Front Bench even voted to leave the EU, we find ourselves with a Government supporting daft Conservative economic policies that nobody in the country voted for, such as remaining outside the customs union and the single market.

Even before Trump’s win today, we as a country could not afford to be taking these wrong decisions. Continuing to do so, wilfully and in direct contradiction of the facts, is neglectful and shows a disregard for the wellbeing of our country. I urge the Government to change course.

17:47

[Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)]

This Budget was about rebuilding Britain after 14 years of incompetence, negligence and chaos. Conservative Members—all four of them who are left in the Chamber today—cannot even bring themselves to apologise for the inheritance that they left, not just to our Government but to the country as a whole. They should have spent the past few months reflecting on why, as we can see before us, the country rejected them so profoundly. Instead, they engaged in yet more infighting and asked people not to believe their own eyes. Even now, they tell people that the economy has never had it so good—that they should ignore their depleted bank accounts, the increased mortgage rates they have to pay, and the state of our high streets. They talk as if our hospitals and our schools were not left to crumble; as if they did not savage local government finances and the services so many people rely on; and as if the criminal justice system had not been pushed to the point of ruin. Even when they admit to the desperate state of mental health, special educational needs, dentistry, social care, homelessness and poverty, they talk as if those things had nothing to do with them. It is always someone else’s fault.

This Budget ends the cycle of Conservative decline and restores hope that things can get better. Just like our NHS, Britain might have been broken by the Conservatives, but we are not yet beaten. That is underlined by the choices this Budget makes—not always easy, but necessary: the choice to protect pensions with the triple lock, the choice not to raise national insurance, income tax and VAT for working people, the choice to unfreeze income tax thresholds so that people have more money in their pockets, the choice to increase carer’s allowance, the choice to raise the minimum wage to record levels, the choice to fund thousands of new homes for families in towns such as Ipswich and far beyond, and the choice to start rebuilding our NHS, our schools and our infrastructure. Those are the choices we have made to fix the foundations of the economy and our public services, to invest in Britain’s future and to deliver the change that people voted for.

I return to a specific issue that has been mentioned many times in this debate, special educational needs. That is now very much a national crisis, but it is one that we have been battling in Suffolk for the best part of a decade. A £1 billion injection into SEND is much needed as our Government look to repair a broken system starved of funding, resources and focus. No, money alone will not solve the multitude of issues facing families desperately trying to get the support their children need—we need bold and wide-ranging reforms too—but new specialist staff and places do not come free, and unfunded reforms are a complete non-starter. SEND cannot be treated as a Cinderella service any longer. The new funding is a much-needed statement of intent from this Government, and one that will be welcomed by families in Ipswich and Suffolk and across the country.

17:50

[Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)]

This first Budget is about cleaning up the mess of the last 14 years—five Prime Ministers and seven Chancellors—and repairing Britain’s foundations. It is about investing in Britain and backing it to succeed, and ensuring that when we need public services, they are there for us. It is an important first step. But my goodness, the Conservative party have made an incredible mess.

During the general election campaign, my team and I spoke to thousands of people across Telford. Every conversation was about decay—our crumbling NHS, the struggles of our education system and the breaking of our council services, the fact that we do not see enough police officers on our streets, high streets in need of support, a SEND system that is letting children down, roads and transport systems that do not work for working people—I could go on. There was a real sense that the Government had given up on governing and made many people believe that there was no hope, and that decline and doom, chaos and corruption was the norm.

This first Budget is a watershed moment. It marks the return to a state that cares about making sure people can get the medical treatment they need when they need it, that they feel safe on our local streets and that they can afford housing. The contrast between the hope that this Budget offers and the bleak future I described under the Conservatives is striking.

I am particularly pleased that this Budget has delivered a real-terms funding increase of more than 3% for local government next year. Before I came to this place, I was a council leader and the chair of the cross-party Local Government Association—I declare an interest on the basis that I am now the honorary vice-president of that organisation. Every councillor, regardless of political persuasion, will talk about the last 14 years, with councils of all political stripes going bankrupt almost every single year. The LGA has called this Budget

“a step in the right direction”,

but after 14 years of stumbling in the wrong direction, it is just the start of a long journey back. That journey must start with the reforms of local government. The Government recognise the urgent need to give local government leaders more skin in the game, and I look forward to seeing more reforms in that regard.

Like other hon. Members, I welcome the fact that the national living wage is increasing, which will impact 4,000 people in my constituency. This Budget is pro-growth, pro-business, pro-worker, pro-family, pro-public sector, and it is giving people a Britain they can be proud of.

17:53

[Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)]

This Budget truly marks an historic shift, with real steps to rebuild Britain for lasting change. After 14 years of Conservative mismanagement this Budget brings hope, with a commitment to rebuild and restore fairness for working families, essential workers and vulnerable communities.

I am especially pleased that the Budget has put working people at the forefront by increasing the national living wage and ensuring that they will not face higher taxes in their payslips. That will benefit thousands of working families in Erdington who have been hit hardest by rising costs, stagnant wages and insecure work. The food banks at Six Ways church and Spitfire Support Services are heartbreaking reminders of the last Government’s legacy, but now hard-working people are finally getting the fair pay they deserve.

As a nurse of 25 years, I am deeply heartened by the commitment to our NHS. Years of underfunding have left it struggling, and the Budget’s £25.6 billion investment is a lifeline, promising timely, quality care. That funding will help to reduce the painful waiting lists that have left many in my constituency suffering as they wait months, if not years, for essential care.

Community safety is also a priority. Traders on Erdington High Street have spoken about the rise in low-value shoplifting. I am grateful that the Government have pledged to scrap immunity for such crimes, restoring accountability and safety.

Education is the foundation of a fairer society. The Budget’s investment in the core schools budget and free breakfast clubs is exactly what our schools need in order to support young people and prepare them for success.

Today we reject the chaos and cuts of the past. This Budget restores integrity, fairness and hope, offering a path that allows us to invest in people, protect families and rebuild communities for a stronger Britain. I am proud to support a Budget that works for Erdington, Kingstanding, Castle Vale and South Oscott and for every community that deserves better.

17:56

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

The mission of any Budget should be to ensure that the needs of all people in this country are met and to shape our economy towards that end. After 14 years of Conservative-led Governments, working-class people do not have the standard of living they deserve. The Tories have pushed children into poverty, normalised low-paid, insecure work and increased economic inequality. Meanwhile, the public sector has been decimated by austerity. While the rich pay to go private, millions of people are stuck on NHS waiting lists, their pain increasing and their quality of life diminishing.

So I welcome a Budget that includes higher spending for public services and that funds our NHS and our schools. The increase to the minimum wage and carer’s allowance will make a tangible difference to many people’s lives. The injustices of the mineworkers’ pension scheme will finally be rectified, benefiting thousands of former miners across Nottinghamshire. And there is more—but there are also elements of this Budget that worry me.

Disabled people fear that the target of delivering savings through reforms to the disability benefits system will mean that people are excluded from the support they need. It is shameful that people have been forced into poverty by the welfare cuts of previous Governments; some have even lost their lives thanks to a system that, all too often, seeks to punish rather than to help.

We must do things differently. We must fund a social security net that gives everyone, whether in work or not, the resources they need to live a decent life. We must also prioritise ending child poverty, as previous Labour Governments have, so I am disappointed the Chancellor has not moved to scrap the inhumane two-child benefit limit.

Meanwhile, the richest 1% of Britons have £2.8 trillion between them. Although the Budget will modestly increase their contribution to our public finances, we must go further to make the super-rich pay their fair share. We should introduce a wealth tax, taxing earnings from wealth at the same rate as wages.

I am confident that this Budget takes important steps to deliver change, but is it at the scale we need after the devastation caused by the Conservative party? I am not so sure. I say that not to undermine the Budget, which stands in welcome contrast to the last 14 years, but to push for even greater ambition, because the job of a Back-Bench Government MP is to tell their party when it needs to go further.

Trump’s election is a warning to us here: if people do not see their lives improve, the populist right stands to benefit. So let us build on the good work our Government have started in the first 100 days, ensure that every person has a decent standard of living and tackle the inequality that continues to blight our society.

17:59

[Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)]

As the Business Secretary and many hon. Friends have said, the central mission of this Government is to get the economy growing after years of stagnation. Fourteen years of poor economic management and short-term decision making are writ large in my town centre in Bournemouth West and in high streets up and down the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) set out so powerfully. We see this in our creaking infrastructure and the crumbling schools that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Rosie Wrighting) mentioned and the pothole-ridden streets we drive our cars on. While the public made their views on the state of the country very clear on 4 July, the Conservative party seems still to be in denial. This Budget gives us the opportunity to turn a page, fix the foundations and rebuild our country.

I welcome the Business Secretary and Chancellor’s focus on investment. My constituency of Bournemouth West is a microcosm of the UK’s diverse economy. Just last week I visited a new manufacturing plant whose products have “Made in Britain” proudly branded all over them. We have a vibrant retail, hospitality and leisure sector and while there are some concerns about rising costs it is given confidence by the Government’s focus on growth and getting money back into people’s pockets. We have strong education and finance sectors and a burgeoning tech and creative industry sector, and I was pleased to see support for these industries reflected in our industrial strategy, giving them certainty over the long term.

Underpinning all of this are our people. This Government’s Budget will benefit the 8,300 people in my constituency on the minimum wage and the 1,880 people in receipt of, or eligible for, carer’s allowance, and the 30% of children who live in poverty and their families will benefit from the investment in our schools, hospitals and affordable homes to live in. Healthier, happier and more secure workers and constituents are good for business; it is good for growth and good for our economy.

I wish to make one point on infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) mentioned that when we knock on doors people always bring up our public services and the NHS, and they do, but every good constituency MP knows that potholes are the bane of everybody’s life, so I welcome the £500 million for potholes announced in the Budget.

We cannot achieve sustainable growth without a solid foundation with stable public finances and public services that benefit everybody. This is what we are doing with this Budget and I look forward to supporting it today.

18:02

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Several of the previous speakers, including the hon. Members for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) and for Witney (Charlie Maynard), expressed concerns about growth and productivity and I hope to draw on my previous experience working in industry to set their minds at rest, but we first need to acknowledge the dire starting point and the damage done both to our economy and to business confidence by the last Government.

I know from my time spent in industry that over the last decade and a half our country has lost out in the race for international investment from a combination of political uncertainty and a long-standing indifference to industrial policy. I listened carefully to the words of the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) and I think he must have read a different Budget from me. The Budget I read committed us to public sector investment of over £100 billion over five years, which along with our modern industrial strategy sets the scale of the Government’s ambition for increasing prosperity and security across the whole of our country.

Several Members, including the hon. Members for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), mentioned small businesses. These are the very businesses which stand to benefit from our industrial strategy as our new approach to industry and manufacturing sees the private sector crowding in investment, producing well-paid jobs and exports that will support our small businesses in supply chains. This will also reverse the tide of deindustrialisation, a frankly bizarre policy of inaction enacted by Conservative Governments over many years that has left much of our industry, including steel, chemicals and ceramics, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), at a serious disadvantage.

It seems clear that to grow our economy we need to boost productivity and simply build more factories, but I know as an advocate of industrial strategy that this position is not a settled one, particularly in the party opposite. That is in big contrast to the collaborative approach of this Government, who work pragmatically with business leaders. We have heard some warm words from Conservatives about industrial strategy, including from Opposition Front Benchers, but they perhaps have not had time to consult with their new leader, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), who has described such policies as part of the law of diminishing returns.

Having seen my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade secure £63 billion of private sector investment, we can be sure, to borrow a metaphor from the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), that had their goose not been cooked at the last election, returns would most certainly have been the diminished.

This Budget will be of benefit to my constituents in Stockton, Billingham and Norton who value well-paid industrial and manufacturing sector jobs. I can understand the confusion of the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart)—he is not used to a Government who deliver on their manifesto—but this Government are determined to do that. We will release the finances required to restore the public services that the people of Britain deserve and only a Labour Government can deliver.

18:05

[Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)]

People in my constituency of Altrincham and Sale West voted for change at the last election, and last week the Chancellor delivered a Budget to start changing their lives for the better. As Members from all parts of the House have reflected, the first Labour Budget in 14 years comes at a time of challenging economic circumstances, with the £22 billion black hole in the public finances, 14 years of sluggish economic growth, a massive squeeze on living standards, creaking national infrastructure and public services on the floor. Our first female Chancellor has never been one to back away from a challenge, and despite the dire inheritance left to her, there was so much in our Budget that will change our country and the lives of my constituents for the better, be it our record investment in the national health service, our pay rise for 3 million low-paid workers, funding for breakfast clubs in every primary school and our £1 billion lifeline for special educational needs provision. That will be transformative for families in Altrincham and Sale West.

As I said in my maiden speech, my constituency is also a place of business, full of thriving smaller enterprises that offer so much to our local economy and culture. That is why it is so important that even in the face of the dire economic circumstances we inherited, the Budget ensured that smaller firms—those least able to shoulder additional costs—have been protected. Some 865,000 employers now will not pay any national insurance next year and more than 1 million will pay the same or less than they did previously. The Budget enables those firms to employ four national living wage workers full-time without paying national insurance on their wages at all by more than doubling the employment allowance. For the small businesses that make up the high streets and market of my constituency, that change will make a huge difference. I am pleased that the Federation of Small Businesses has welcomed our changes to the employment allowance as a huge help for small firms.

There is still much to do, but this Budget starts to turn the corner, fixing the foundations of our economy to deliver a brighter future. It accepts the huge challenges we face, but is optimistic about our ability to overcome them. This Budget sets out a serious path to rebuilding Britain for the benefit of our people and my constituents.

18:08

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

This is a truly landmark Budget, not only for its glass ceiling smashing—I sincerely hope that the girls and young women in my constituency will be inspired to see the first female Chancellor for England after 800 years—but because it provides the basis for a clean break from the race to the bottom, trickle-down economic drivel, riddled with vested interests, to which the Conservatives have subjected the country for the past 14 years, with austerity, recession, dodgy personal protective equipment contracts and economic collapse. The public should never forgive and never forget what the Conservatives have done to our country.

This Budget marks an end to using public finances and the British people as guinea pigs in an economic experiment that sent interest rates and mortgage rates soaring and living standards plummeting and saw families gripped in the vice-like clutch of the Conservatives’ cost of living crisis. When I listened to the response of the former Leader of the Opposition—it is hard to keep up—it was crystal clear to me that the born-to-rule Conservatives simply have not understood that they are not ruling any more. I only wanted to hear one word from the former Leader of the Opposition: sorry. That word never came.

As someone with over 30 years of private sector experience, I am getting a bit bored of the trope that no one on this side of the House has any private sector experience—

[Graham Stuart]

What about on the Front Bench?

[Perran Moon]

The right hon. Gentleman asks about the Government Front Bench. I appreciate that a large proportion of Conservative MPs now serve on the Front Bench; that begs a question about the quality of the people left behind.

On the one hand the Budget places desperately needed money in the hands of the lowest-paid workers, where it will be spent locally, and on the other hand it heralds a new era of much-needed infrastructure investment—the kind that will stimulate growth in the economy and thousands of new jobs across the country, based on a coherent industrial strategy. It sets us on a course to rebuild depleted public services and lays the foundations for the pillars of a decade of economic and social renewal.

The Budget recognises the importance of the shared prosperity fund, which the Conservatives wanted to scrap to pay for their hare-brained national service plan —a decision that would have been devastating for the people of Cornwall, as well as for many other communities around the UK. The Budget places British workers at its heart—those same British workers who rejected the failed economic experiments of the Conservatives, along with the chaos, infighting and fiscal incompetence. They voted decisively for stability and security—a sea change from the previous 14 years. They voted for change; this Budget delivers it.

18:11

[Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I start by thanking Members across the House for their well wishes, and I give my sincere thanks to the Metropolitan police officers who were with me till the early hours of Tuesday morning—they were brilliant and a credit to the force.

Labour is the party for working people and the Chancellor’s Budget has confirmed that. With the increase in the national living wage, thousands of people in Blackpool South, where work is often precarious, are set to receive a 6.7% pay rise. Our 18 to 20-year-olds will see their wages increase by 16.3%, which is a huge boost for young people in my home town, who often face barriers to opportunity and well-paid work.

Much of the work available to my constituents is in hospitality and tourism. As the leading voice and chair of the all-party parliamentary group for hospitality and tourism, I am proud that I can now represent Blackpool’s voice with this platform. Blackpool’s tourism economy is valued at £1.7 billion a year and supports more than 22,000 jobs. We deserve a seat at the table. Like many British seaside resorts, Blackpool faced significant periods of decline in the latter half of the last century. But unlike others, our tourism trade never collapsed.

My home town has adapted and reinvented itself. We are now on the cusp of a new era of growth, in which our economic development can help to tackle our social problems by improving lives and inspiring pride in the place that we call home. In 2022, Blackpool’s tourism figures topped the 20 million mark and accounted for more than 30% of all visits to Lancashire. Well after the summer season is over, we are welcoming 4,500 tourists a day, adding £200,000 to the local economy daily.

Just as Blackpool is an outlier in most statistics, businesses there operate in a unique economy that is traditionally seasonal, with low per capita spend per visitor. I welcome the Chancellor’s move to permanently lower business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure, and the decision to extend some business rate relief to next year to avoid the cliff edge that businesses faced thanks to the previous Government.

But I know that businesses in my constituency are hoping for more reassurance from the Government. Those businesses include grassroots music venues such as the Bootleg Social, which is already fighting to keep its doors open, but makes a huge contribution to our cultural landscape in Blackpool. I have reassured business owners in Blackpool that the Government’s approach to the economy is both pro-worker and pro-business, but I would welcome the opportunity to discuss with the Government the individual circumstances of small businesses in my constituency.

The tourism and hospitality sector in Blackpool welcomes investment in our town’s transport, to make the town more accessible and fit for the future. I am grateful to the Chancellor for supporting towns like mine. The Conservatives left behind a huge economic mess for Labour to clear up, but we are the party of working people and we are getting on with that job.

18:14

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I congratulate all hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. The economic inheritance from the last 14 years could hardly have been any worse. Conservative Governments have serially undermined our public services: they stripped them of funding, made it harder to deliver and demoralised dedicated public servants. The impact of their political choices could not have been clearer. In multiple crises, which spanned from our NHS and social care to local authority services, schools, prisons, policing and criminal justice, housing and universities, instead of reinvesting to rebuild, they promised billions of pounds of entirely unfunded tax cuts in a desperate bid to cling on to power. They have been the vandals of our public services and our economy, and they have left this new Labour Government with a colossal and daunting task to restore and rebuild.

I welcome the Budget, which seeks to fix the foundations and begin the restoration that is needed. I regret that the actions of the previous Government mean that the road to recovery is so long. The additional £1 billion in the Budget for SEND is as welcome as it is essential. The crisis in the SEND system is the biggest current challenge in the education system, with far-reaching consequences for children and families who are being let down, schools that cannot meet the needs of their pupils, and local authorities that are being driven to the edge of bankruptcy by the costs. I urge the Government to ensure that SEND remains at the forefront of discussions in the comprehensive spending review, because £1 billion, while welcome, is only a third of the current in-year deficit in the SEND budget. The statutory override, which protects local authority general fund accounts from SEND deficits, is due to come to an end in March 2026, and local authorities will soon need certainty about what will happen after that date. Without a clear plan, more local authorities will be issuing section 114 notices—that is not something that the Government can allow to happen.

As a constituency MP, I want to use my remaining time to raise two other issues arising from the Budget. The additional funding for the NHS is desperately needed. The allocation for individual areas and health trusts has not yet been made. I want to make a particular plea for capital funding for King’s College hospital. King’s is currently facing severe financial challenges, which it is working hard to address, but that is made harder by a lack of funding for the essential equipment that staff need to increase productivity and deliver the services that patients need.

Finally, while the additional injection of £100 million for social housing in London and changes to the regulations on right to buy are welcome, the crisis in London is so deep that the Government must turn their attention to the local housing allowance, which must keep pace with rents in London to avoid even more families being forced into temporary accommodation, with knock-on consequences for local authority budgets.

The Budget seeks to fix the foundations and undo the damage that the Conservatives have done. There is much more to do, but the Budget is a very welcome first step on the road. I am pleased to vote for it today.

18:17

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

This is a Budget that answers the call made by many of the constituents I spoke to during the general election. It is a Budget for change: change for our national health service, change in the living standards of working people and change to our declining investment in infrastructure. Yes, there were tough decisions; we on the Government Benches do not shy away from that fact. The key difference between this Government’s approach and that of our predecessor for the last 14 years is that we simply refuse to place the burden of those tough choices on the backs of working families.

There has been lots of talk about business during the debate, but the Opposition do business a disservice, as if the only thing that business cares about is the tax bill. Businesses also rely on a functioning health service, a quality education system and investment in our broken infrastructure. They also rely on their customers having money in their pockets to spend in the local economy. I am, therefore, delighted to see a transformational uplift in the minimum wage, which will positively impact thousands of workers in my constituency of Crewe and Nantwich.

I welcome also the commitment to extending High Speed 2 to Euston and the recognition that spending on major infrastructure does not merely carry a cost to the taxpayer but has the potential to pay back to society through economic growth and wider societal benefits. It is imperative that we now turn our focus towards delivering a solution between Birmingham and Manchester. The Birmingham to Crewe leg of the original HS2 project was due to return £1.91 for every £1 spent. I welcome the Government’s new approach to infrastructure investment, and I look forward to working with them to realise the potential of my constituency as a transport hub.

My constituents did not elect a Labour Government to continue the failed, miserable image of the future projected by the Conservative party—a future where public services can only decline, where growth flatlines and where the only figures rising are debt, destitution and the number of failed Prime Ministers in a single Parliament. They voted for change, and that is what this Government delivers, so I commend the Budget to the House.

18:20

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

I am proud to stand up on behalf of my constituents in Calder Valley and thank this Government for the Budget delivered by our Chancellor—a Budget that rebuilds the country and protects the NHS. As someone who spent eight years in local government before coming to this place, I recognise some of the huge steps that this Budget takes to cement local government, guaranteeing funding for high street projects like those in Calder Valley, and ending the beauty contests that see communities pitted against one another for meagre funding. There was £600 million guaranteed for social care and a commitment to longer-term, proper funding for our highways and the scourge of potholes. Most importantly, we get three-year funding settlements—no more annual scrabble in December to work out how to make a budget fit. Local authorities and businesses can plan long-term, which is what they want, and it is the stability that we need.

It has been quite something to sit through this Budget debate for the past few days, because it seems like there have been two Budgets. One was delivered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which fixed our foundations, supported hospitality and the high street, provided billions for the NHS, found funding for SEND and opened breakfast clubs. Then, there has been the Budget that exists in the imagination of Opposition Members. Today, the Leader of the Opposition claimed that it did not mention the word “defence”. The speech mentions it six times, and the Budget has a whole section in the funding settlement for defence.

Today, we heard from the hon. Members for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) and for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) about the problems of social care. That should not be a new concern for Conservative Members. Andrew Dilnot released his report in 2011. We were then promised that we would get some kind of proposal in 2014. In 2017, the Conservative Government released their proposal, but then withdrew it because they had an election. They then delayed it in 2018. It came back in 2021 and was delayed again in 2022. Then they said that they would deliver it in 2024, but did not find the funding.

Throughout all that, there has not been a shred of contrition or acknowledgment from the Conservatives that they left the country on its knees. They have no idea yet why the public rejected them so resoundingly at the last election. I hope that as they sum up, they will perhaps show some contrition and answer the Budget as it is, not the one that exists only in their imagination.

18:23

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My wife is employed as a special educational needs co-ordinator in one of our local authority schools.

My constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford have been clear: they want a country and community where public services work and the economy is growing. Our Government have been bequeathed an inheritance of 14 years of low to no growth, the impact of the Conservatives’ Kamikaze mini-Budget and the £22 billion black hole left in the public finances. This Budget invests in public services—the OBR has outlined that the direct effect of policy changes in this Budget is the largest sustained increase in spending in at least the past 15 years.

The path to rebuilding Britain will include building the homes that we need, and I welcome the investment in the affordable homes programme in this Budget to kickstart progress towards 1.5 million new homes over the Parliament. It will include investment in the capacity of local planning authorities. In my local authority in Bexley, applications from the council’s own development company take 15 months to reach committee from submission. If our local economy is to grow, applications need to be determined more quickly than at present.

Phase 1 of the spending review provides record levels of capital investment for health. My local authority’s local plan has identified sites for new homes, but not the sites to deliver the additional local health provision that is required. I will be pressing for this capital investment to deliver a new neighbourhood health centre to help the Government’s objectives.

The Budget delivers £6.7 billion of capital funding for education in England, alongside the increase in funding for the core schools budget. I particularly welcome the £1 billion to support the special educational needs and disabilities system. While we await the detail, my local authority signed a safety valve agreement to avert effective bankruptcy, and, like other authorities we have heard about today, it now faces a ticking time bomb signalling the running out of the statutory override in 2026. Its finances will be boosted by the increased spending power provided in the Budget. It is three years since my Conservative council sought a capitalisation order and made 15% of staff redundant to stave off bankruptcy, and I believe that this Government will work with local authorities to ensure that the impact of austerity is not repeated.

For those reasons, I will be supporting the Budget this evening.

18:25

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Finally, after 14 years of patching up, we have a Budget that puts down the first bricks as we start to rebuild our country. With this Budget we will be able to start to put the NHS back on its feet with a £25 billion boost, provide a shot in the arm for our schools with extra funding including £1 billion for SEND, and invest in our transport and energy infrastructure.

On a local level, the Budget contains positives for my constituency and for Cornwall more widely. Local transport in rural areas will receive £650 million, and the Chancellor named Cornwall in particular as an area that will benefit directly in terms of connectivity. The freeze in fuel duty, and fixing those potholes, will help people who still have to rely on their cars in rural areas such as ours. We are also getting some solutions for our housing crisis with a stamp duty rise of up to 5% for second home buyers, which should lead to more houses on the market for local people. The Budget provides extra money for councils to build affordable and social housing, as well as limiting the discounts on selling off council houses and changing the rules so that councils can build more social housing with the proceeds.

I am pleased that Cornwall Council has been supported with extra funding, although I do want to raise the case of the other councils—such as town and parish councils—that have taken on so many of the services of which the unitary authorities have divested themselves, and as a consequence are often large employers with big budgets. I am also pleased that the important shared prosperity funding for Cornwall has been extended for another year at a national figure of £900 million, so that all the investment in schemes to get people into work and into Cornish businesses can continue. However, I should like to hear confirmation that the funding formula continues to recognise the huge loss that Cornwall suffered when we lost the EU structural funding.

The Government are also boosting public investment, and next year will publish a new industrial strategy setting out high-growth areas where the UK has real competitive advantage. Some of the areas ripe for investment will be renewables, technology, food, and the creative industries, in which Cornwall has real strengths. In my constituency we look forward particularly to investment in floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea and in ports such as Falmouth, as well as investment in our vital creative arts.

Our Chancellor has chosen the bold path to save and rebuild the NHS, schools and other public services and invest in the country’s infrastructure, while also ensuring that people do not face higher taxes in their pay packets. This is a big Budget of renewal, which will set us on the road to recovery.

18:28

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Chancellor on delivering the first Labour Budget in 15 years, and on doing so as the first ever female Chancellor.

Speaking to residents in and around the Stocklake area of my constituency over the weekend, I was glad to hear positive feedback and optimism following the Budget. Of course we had to make tough choices, but people get that, and personally I am very proud of the choice we have made to invest in our public services first and foremost and to get them working for people again.

There is much to commend in the Budget, and I want to highlight four points. First, the national minimum wage has increased to £12.21 per hour, which has been very well received by my constituents. Over 9,000 people in Buckinghamshire are on the national living wage, and they are all set for a pay rise. Secondly, the core schools budget has increased by £2.3 billion, and £1 billion has been allocated to support children with SEND, which I know cannot come soon enough for my constituents. Thirdly, there is a commitment to infrastructure investment, including the commitment to East West Rail, which I know will unlock growth and opportunity. I will keep pushing for the Aylesbury spur to link up with that. Finally and most importantly, we have made a huge commitment to the NHS in this Budget, including through a £22 billion increase to day-to-day spending and £3.1 billion of capital investment, which will be used to bring waiting lists down, invest in new technology and deliver 40,000 extra appointments every week, including at Stoke Mandeville hospital. I am excited about the budget for mental health, which will be crucial.

I am conscious that improving our nation’s health will take time, and that our goals are necessarily long term. I was reminded of that at this morning’s parliamentary launch of the fantastic Health Equals campaign, which highlights the work that we have to do to tackle the social determinants of health inequalities and halve the gap in healthy life expectancy. However, this Budget delivers the biggest cash injection into the NHS outside covid years since 2010, which has put us firmly on the road to recovery. This Budget is firmly on the side of those who need our support, and firmly on the right side of history, and I cannot wait to see what it delivers for my constituents in Aylesbury.

18:30

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

My constituents go to work to make trains, planes and automobiles at Alstom, Rolls-Royce and Toyota, and they work in their supply chains. This Budget delivers ambitious plans for rail infrastructure, nearly £100 million in R&D funding for aerospace, and £2 billion to support the automotive sector. To get to work, many of my constituents commute; 1.2 billion vehicle miles were travelled on Derby’s roads last year. The fuel duty freeze and the extra half a billion pounds to fix potholes are hugely welcome.

My constituents teach and learn at our great university and schools. They treat others and are treated at the Royal Derby hospital. They work in our shops and restaurants, and on the building sites where the regeneration of our city is taking shape. We in Derby are laying the foundations for growth—literally. Building is under way on a new university business school, a new mental health unit at Kingsway and a new performance venue at Becketwell. At Friar Gate goods yard, which has stood derelict for over 50 years, new homes and businesses are being built. There is also investment in our theatres—£20 million of funding that this Budget underwrites.

We needed and got a Budget that supported our ambitions. Last week, I went from the Budget statement to a meeting of small businesses in my constituency, which was organised by the Federation of Small Businesses. We discussed how this Budget will grow the cake, from investment in skills and reform of business rates to the approval of the east midlands investment zone and start-up loans. This is a Budget that is, at last, honest about the public finances being in a mess, and we have made tough decisions so that our businesses can have the stability and certainty they need.

To rebuild Britain, however, we also need to reset the broken contract with working people. For 14 years, in Budget after Budget, from austerity to Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, working people were barely offered crumbs from the table, while productivity and growth flatlined—but no more. Working people now have a proper seat at the table. The minimum wage will increase from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour next April, which will affect one in 10 Derby North workers. For 18 to 20-year-olds, there will be a 16% increase to £10 an hour. Derby has the second highest average salaries outside London, so for those moving on with their careers, there will be a rise in the income tax and national insurance contributions thresholds from 2028-29. Finally, investment—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I call Sam Rushworth.

18:34

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Conservative party was keen for us all to declare our membership of trade unions in the debate on the Employment Rights Bill, so we should probably all declare that most of us received funding from businesses during the general election campaign. I certainly did, and I pay tribute to the small businesses in my constituency. Some 89% of them are considered microbusinesses with fewer than 10 employees, so the majority will pay less national insurance under this Budget. I thank the Chancellor for protecting working people and small businesses.

Listening to Conservative Members, as we have been doing for the past five hours, it seems that many of them see the business community as caring about nothing but quick profits and avoiding tax, but the local businesses that I speak to are proud not only to deliver quality products and services, but to create good jobs and strengthen the local economy. They have been doing that in trying circumstances, and many of them have supported Labour candidates at this election because they want a Government who match their ambition. When I ask them what they want to see from Government, they say they want not only a fair tax system but investment, and that is what this Budget delivers. They want a secure power supply. They also want faster planning decisions, including the young farmer who came to see me because he has been pushed back for two years now in his attempt to just build some pig pens.

The biggest barrier, however, is that businesses cannot get the staff, and this is true from manufacturing to hospitality. Britain is held back by a skills shortage, so I welcome a Budget that will invest in Britain’s most precious, productive asset: her people. When we invest in faster NHS appointments, in emergency dentistry, in mental health, in SEND provision, in specialist teachers in STEM subjects and in childcare, we invest in business too, because these are the people who will rebuild Britain.

The people of Durham have been held back for too long. In the past 14 years, our life expectancy has fallen behind. Our children are shorter, and the number of children in care has increased by 250%, so we can see the impact of austerity in people’s bodies and family life. I welcome a Budget that has brought the end of austerity and begun the long, hard job of rebuilding this country. I also welcome a Budget that has put more money in people’s pockets, including by honouring the triple lock, which the Conservatives failed to do in 2022, costing pensioners in my constituency £488.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

We come to the final Back-Bench speaker, Patrick Hurley.

18:37

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

When I stand to speak in this House, I often criticise the former Government, and to be fair, there was a lot to criticise, but Liz Truss at least got one thing right. She claimed to make economic growth the driving force behind her plans, but while Truss took a reckless big-bang approach to tackling the stagnation that this country has experienced since 2010, our focus is on long-term investment, not short-term tax cuts. This speaks to one of many big problems with recent Tory Governments—a problem that any business owner in this country could tell you about. It is all about return on investment. Over the last 14 years, there has been too little return because there has been too little investment. To combat that, we have secured £63 billion in private investment, and we have put £2 billion into electric vehicle development. I note, too, that the UK Space Agency says that the space industry is worth £17 billion a year to our economy. It is no doubt helping to ensure that we get early warning of any new super-massive black holes we might not be aware of.

This Budget is the beginning of the change our country voted for. It will make Britain better off; there will be more money in people’s pockets, an NHS that is there when people need it, businesses creating wealth and opportunity for all, the house building that we need, the transport infrastructure that we are crying out for, wages that make work pay, and a state pension that is uprated as it should have been all along. This is a Budget of change, a Budget of investment and growth, a Budget to put more money in working people’s pockets, and a Budget to get our public services back on their feet. It is the most welcome Budget for many years—a Budget in line with the values of the British people. I am proud to support this Labour Budget.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

18:39

[Richard Fuller (North Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I thank the 67 Back-Bench Members who have spoken in this debate, and I commiserate with the two Labour Members who did not get in. I am sure that they will have their opportunity in future.

I congratulate the four Members who gave their maiden speech: the hon. Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) and for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh). Many in this House will remember their maiden speech and will know how anxious those four Members were before they stood up to speak, and how relieved they were when they reached the end and could sit down. That feeling does not go away.

We end this Budget debate where we began: with the deceit that the Labour party showed to the British public about its intention to launch one of the biggest tax grabs in our history. At the election, Labour Front Benchers toured the country, staging photo ops, snapping cheeky selfies and soliciting reassuring quotes from businesses, farmers and senior citizens, saying to each in turn that they could trust Labour and that a Labour Government would have their back. This Budget of broken promises shows that they have all been conned.

My Conservative colleagues have laid bare, always clearly and frequently with strong feeling, the consequences of the political choices this Labour Government have made with this Budget. Colleagues have spoken on behalf of Britain’s farming families, on behalf of our country’s small businesses, on behalf of parents with children in education, on behalf of GP surgeries and hospices, and, above all, on behalf of the working people they represent, who have been targeted by this Budget.

This is a Budget of choices, and the choices are Labour’s, and theirs alone—their choice to increase taxes, their choice to increase debt, their choice to change the fiscal rules, and their choice to rip up election promise after election promise. Just as the Labour Government have made their choices, today we must start to make our own choices. Our choices are to help the small business owner, to help the aspiring entrepreneur, to help those thinking of using their talents to help build Britain, to help the farmers whose parents and grandparents have toiled in our fields, to help the children who will be turfed out of their schools in the middle of the year—some having no school place to go to—and to protect the workers of Britain who believed what Labour said at the election and who now know they were conned. That is why we will vote against Budget resolutions this evening.

Two groups of people have been clobbered drastically by this Budget, groups who are the cornerstone of our economy. As we have heard throughout these debates, the Labour Government’s decision to increase employers’ national insurance contributions is not only a manifesto breach but a barrier to growth. Sadly, this Labour Government do not understand that there will never be a sustainable public sector without a thriving private sector. The private sector in this country is a delicate fabric of small and medium-sized businesses. Many have been just scraping by for years, but each is spurred on by the endeavour that is the spirit of free enterprise.

Running a small business—Labour Members may want to take a note—is not easy. Our constituents run some 5.4 million small and medium-sized enterprises across the UK, so when the Minister responds, will she explain to those people, in my constituency and across the country, what they are to do in the face of Labour’s jobs tax—the massive increase in employer national insurance contributions? The Office for Budget Responsibility said that the jobs tax would be passed on by “most” firms to their employees through reduced wages; the Resolution Foundation said it will have the biggest proportional impact on low-paid workers; and the Federation of Small Businesses said it will cause “many SMEs” to “struggle”. That is the truth, and a far cry from the warm words the Labour Chancellor offered businesses during the election campaign.

When the Prime Minister, in February this year, looked farmers in the eye and said that they “deserved better”, was he already hatching Labour’s family farm tax? The NFU has said:

“The shameless breaking of those promises on Agricultural Property Relief will snatch away much of the next generation’s ability to carry on producing British food”.

The truth is that the Labour Party does not understand even the basics of farming. Reducing the relief and imposing inheritance tax on farmland will devastate family farms and pose a serious risk to domestic food security and food prices.

Throughout the debate, Labour MPs have sneeringly referred to those farmers as “millionaires”, but many family farmers are not rich. They eke out a modest and—[Interruption.] Labour Members should have been here for the debate. Many family farms eke out a modest and highly uncertain income, year after year. That is why we ask taxpayers each year to subsidise British farmers so they can continue growing food for Britain. The family farm tax is not just taxing farmers; it is taxing Britain’s farmland, the very land we need to grow the food we eat.

This Budget of broken promises sends a series of clear messages: don’t start your own business, because Labour will tax you; don’t have a plan to hire new employees because Labour will tax you; don’t take a risk and expect to keep a reward, because Labour will tax you; don’t invest in the education of your children, because Labour will tax you; and don’t, whatever you do, farm your land to grow British food, because Labour will grind you into that very same ground, and tax you too.

Finally, I say to the Minister that the trust that has been broken in this Budget will not be recovered. People will never forget what happens when Labour is given its chance. They will never forget the harm done when Labour makes its choices, and they will never forget that Labour’s first Budget was a Budget of broken promises.

18:44

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Tulip Siddiq)]

It is an absolute honour to make the closing speech on this historic Budget. It is historic for two reasons. First, it is the first ever Budget to be delivered by a woman—the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer after 800 years. She has smashed the glass ceiling, and I hope all the women and young girls watching know that they can be in the driving seat of a Labour Government. Secondly, it is historic because we are finally wiping the slate clean and turning the page on 14 years of Tory incompetence, chaos and outright instability. This Budget will make meaningful change by focusing on the fundamentals.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that one of the best ways of celebrating this Budget is with a pint of locally brewed beer? Does she agree that the consultation on the pubs code announced by the Government in the Budget statement will be joyful to the ears of local, independent breweries in all our constituencies?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I know that she is a doughty champion of the pubs in Carlisle. The pubs in my constituency are celebrating the penny off pints.

Let me get back to the previous Government, who were wrong when they claimed that they would fix the roof while the sun was shining. While chasing a budget surplus— for which, 14 years later, all they had to show was catastrophic public finances—they merely painted over the ever-growing cracks in the bedrock of our society and our country. That is why this Government are right to focus on fixing the foundations of our economy, because that is the only way that we can change the country, deliver for working people and rebuild Britain. Of course, buying a home is harder if the seller has misled us about its true condition by underestimating the size and cost of any required repairs. In that sense, rebuilding our economy is no different, because the previous Government’s public spending plans existed only on paper; there was no real allocation of money to back up any of the spending plans. They behaved no better than some huckster trying desperately to sell a flat that they know will never be built.

That is why the OBR has said that, had it been made aware of the scale of the spending pressures during the spring 2024 Budget, its assessment of the previous Government’s spending plans would have been “materially different”. That is why it was right that we took our time to conduct a full survey of the economic inheritance that they left us.

[Graham Stuart]

Will the Minister give way?

[Hon. Members]

No!

[Tulip Siddiq]

The right hon. Gentleman has intervened 18 times. I shall not give him another chance.

Let me continue. That is the only way that we can really fix the foundations. Of course, that involves taking tough decisions, particularly on spending and taxation, but I will take no lectures from those who were content to levy a £22 billion pound tax on this country’s future, and, through their unfunded spending commitments, attempt to undemocratically bind the hands of a future Government. Well, guess what? This Government will do things differently. While the previous Government allowed investment in our country to fall to its lowest level on record, this Government will put investment at the heart of everything that we do.

That is why we held the international investment summit in October—to show firms at home and abroad that Britain is open for business once more. That is why we have introduced a new fiscal rule—the investment rule—which, alongside appropriate guardrails provided by the OBR and our new stability rule, means that this Government can meaningfully invest in our country’s future.

Of course, investment means taking a long-term view. As anyone who has bought a property, built a business or raised a family will know, the early days are always the hardest. But if they take the hard calls now, in time they will get back far more than they put in. I pick those examples deliberately, but with regret. The sad truth is that, for working people—particularly young people—up and down the country, home ownership, entrepreneurship and starting a family have never been more distant. This Budget will start to change that.

Our manifesto made a clear commitment to get Britain building again. This Budget puts the first shovels in the ground, with a commitment to spend an average of 2.6% of GDP on public sector net investment over the course of this Parliament. This will include an additional £500 million in new funding for social and affordable homes, which brings total investment in housing supply to more than £5 billion and supports the delivery of tens of thousands of new homes.

We will build more than just homes; we need to build communities. Infrastructure is key to tying those communities together while ensuring that they plug into the wider economy. [Interruption.] The shadow Foreign Secretary asks how. If she listens, she will learn, so she should pay attention. Getting our country moving again will be key to growing the economy. [Interruption.] She should not chunter from the Front Bench. She needs to listen, because our commitment to infrastructure investment will help us to do so—by, for instance, increasing local roads investment by £500 million in 2024-25. These are the things that the previous Government failed to do, but we will deliver for our country. For working families, that means less time wasted dodging potholes and more time for the things that actually matter. Of course, infrastructure helps not just families but firms. In an increasingly volatile world, Government should play an important role in securing our energy supply so that firms can price that into their business plan.

We heard powerful and authentic maiden speeches today from my hon. Friends the Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) and for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh). We will see them as huge assets to Parliament. Some of them mentioned that their families did not think that they would get here; I am really pleased that their families were wrong.

I will finish by echoing something that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), said. It is not often that I agree with him, but he said that we had choices. The truth is that we did have choices, and guess what? We chose to act. In 10 years’ time, the country will look back on this Budget as the moment when we got Britain’s future back. In the future, the economy will have grown because at this moment we chose to prioritise a healthy workforce; we will have record levels of investment because we prioritised fiscal and economic responsibility; and people will have more money in their pockets because we prioritised protecting hard-working people’s payslips. The merry-go-round of austerity and economic irresponsibility is over. We made a choice—a choice to rebuild Britain.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That income tax is charged for the tax year 2025-26.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Let me explain what will happen next. I am now required under Standing Order No. 51(3) to put successively, without further debate, the Question on each of the Ways and Means motions numbered 2 to 62, and the money motion on which the Finance Bill is to be brought in. These motions are set out in a separate paper distributed with today’s Order Paper.

The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the motions made in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Standing Order No. 51(3)).

2. Income tax (main rates)

Resolved,

That for the tax year 2025-26 the main rates of income tax are as follows—

(a) the basic rate is 20%,

(b) the higher rate is 40%, and

(c) the additional rate is 45%.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

3. Income tax (default and savings rates)

Resolved,

That—

(1) For the tax year 2025-26 the default rates of income tax are as follows—

(a) the default basic rate is 20%,

(b) the default higher rate is 40%, and

(c) the default additional rate is 45%.

(2) For the tax year 2025-26 the savings rates of income tax are as follows—

(a) the savings basic rate is 20%,

(b) the savings higher rate is 40%, and

(c) the savings additional rate is 45%.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

4. Income tax (starting rate limit for savings)

Resolved,

That—

(1) For the tax year 2025-26 the amount specified in section 12(3) of the Income Tax Act 2007 (the starting rate limit for savings) is “£5,000”.

(2) Accordingly, section 21 of that Act (indexation) does not apply in relation to the starting rate limit for savings for that tax year.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

5. Income tax (appropriate percentage for cars)

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made taking effect in a future year increasing the appropriate percentages mentioned in sections 139 to 142 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003.

6. Capital gains tax (the main rates)

Question put,

That—

(1) In section 1H of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (the main rates of CGT)—

(a) omit subsection (1A) (which sets out the rates for residential property gains accruing to individuals),

(b) in subsection (3) (which sets out the rates for gains accruing to individuals that are not residential property gains or carried interest gains)—

(i) for “10%” substitute “18%”, and

(ii) for “20%” substitute “24%”,

(c) omit subsection (4A) (which sets out the rates for residential property gains accruing to personal representatives),

(d) in subsection (6) (which sets out the rates for gains accruing to personal representatives that are not residential property gains or carried interest gains), for “20%” substitute “24%”,

(e) omit subsection (7) (which sets out the rates for residential property gains accruing to trustees), and

(f) in subsection (8) (which sets out the rates for gains accruing to trustees that are not residential property gains or carried interest gains)—

(i) omit “Other”, and

(ii) for “20%” substitute “24%”.

(2) The amendments made by this Resolution have effect in relation to disposals made on or after 30 October 2024.

(3) If an asset is transferred on or after 30 October 2024 under an unconditional contract made before that date, the disposal is, despite section 28(1) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, to be treated for the purposes of the amendments made by this Resolution as taking place at the time the asset is transferred (rather than at the time the contract is made) unless the contract is an excluded contract.

(4) A contract is an excluded contract if—

(a) obtaining an advantage by reason of the application of section 28(1) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 was no purpose of entering into the contract, and

(b) where the parties to the contract are connected persons, the contract was entered into wholly for commercial reasons.

(5) A contract is not to be regarded as an excluded contract unless the person making the transfer makes a claim which includes a statement that the contract meets the conditions to be an excluded contract.

(6) But no claim is required if the total amount of—

(a) the chargeable gain accruing on the disposal, and

(b) the chargeable gains accruing on all other disposals made under excluded contracts, does not exceed £100,000.

(7) For this purpose the amount of any gain accruing on a qualifying business disposal is to be taken to be the amount of the gain under section 169N(2) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992.

(8) If the person making the transfer makes—

(a) a claim under section 169M of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 in relation to a qualifying business disposal (business asset disposal relief), or

(b) a claim under section 169VM of that Act (investors’ relief) in relation to a disposal, section 169M(2) and (3) of that Act, or (as the case may be) section 169VM(1) and (2) of that Act, apply to a claim under paragraph (5) in relation to the disposal as they apply to a claim under the section concerned.

(9) In this Resolution “qualifying business disposal” has the meaning given by Chapter 3 of Part 5 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992.

(10) In this Resolution any reference to the transfer of an asset includes its conveyance.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

18:57

Division 28

Ayes: 401

---

Labour: 372
Independent: 11
Scottish National Party: 9
Green Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 120

---

Conservative: 111
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1
Independent: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

7. Capital gains tax (business asset disposal relief)

Question put,

That provision may be made increasing the rate specified in section 169N(3) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, including (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision taking effect in a future year.

19:12

Division 29

Ayes: 400

---

Labour: 369
Independent: 11
Scottish National Party: 9
Green Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 120

---

Conservative: 110
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1
Independent: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

8. Capital gains tax (investors’ relief)

Question put,

That—

(a) provision may be made increasing the rate specified in section 169VC(2) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, including (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision taking effect in a future year, and

(b) provision may be made reducing the amount specified in sections 169VK(1) and (2) and 169VL(2) and (3) of that Act.

19:26

Division 30

Ayes: 400

---

Labour: 368
Independent: 11
Scottish National Party: 9
Green Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 122

---

Conservative: 110
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1
Independent: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

9. Capital gains tax (rates on carried interest gains)

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rates at which carried interest gains are charged to capital gains tax.

10. Corporation tax (charge and main rate for financial year 2026)

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made—

(a) for corporation tax to be charged for the financial year 2026, and

(b) for the main rate of corporation tax for that year to be 25%.

11. Corporation tax (standard small profits rate and fraction for financial year 2026)

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made—

(a) for the standard small profits rate to be 19% for the purposes of Part 3A of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 for the financial year 2026, and (b) for the standard marginal relief fraction to be 3/200ths for those purposes for that year.

12. Energy (oil and gas) profits levy (increase in rate)

Question put,

That—

(1) In section 1 of the Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022 (charge to tax), in subsection (1), for “35%” substitute “38%”.

(2) The amendment made by paragraph (1) has effect for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 November 2024.

(3) In the case of an accounting period (a “straddling period”) beginning before 1 November 2024 and ending on or after that date—

(a) the Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022 is to apply as if so much of the straddling period as falls before that date, and so much of the straddling period as falls on or after that date, were separate accounting periods, and

(b) the company’s levy profits or loss determined for the straddling period (on the assumption that the whole of that period were a qualifying period) are apportioned to the two separate accounting periods in accordance with section 17 of that Act, which is to apply for the purposes of this Resolution as it applies for the purposes of sections 15 and 16 of that Act.

(4) In the case of a straddling period, the Instalment Payments Regulations 1998 are to apply separately—

(a) in relation to the levy, and

(b) in relation to any other tax chargeable on the company.

(5) In their application as a result of paragraph (4)(a), the Instalment Payments Regulations 1998 are to have effect in relation to the levy—

(a) as if the two separate accounting periods deemed to arise under paragraph (3)(a) were accounting periods for the purposes of those Regulations and as if the levy were chargeable for those deemed accounting periods, but

(b) as if the final instalment payment for the deemed accounting period ending on 31 October 2024 became due and payable on the date on which the next instalment payment after 31 October 2024 would have become due and payable for the straddling period in the absence of this Resolution.

(6) Any reference in the Instalment Payments Regulations 1998 to the total liability of a company is accordingly to be read—

(a) in their application as a result of paragraph (4)(a), as a reference to the levy, and

(b) in their application as a result of paragraph (4)(b), as a reference to the amount that would be the company’s total liability for the straddling period if the levy were left out of account.

(7) For the purposes of the Instalment Payments Regulations 1998—

(a) a company is to be regarded as a large company as respects the deemed accounting periods under paragraph (3)(a) only if it is a large company for those purposes as respects the straddling period, and

(b) any question whether a company is a large company as respects the straddling period is to be determined as it would have been determined apart from section 1 of the Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022.

(8) In this Resolution “the Instalment Payment Regulations 1998” means the Corporation Tax (Instalment Payments) Regulations 1998 (S.I. 1998/3175).

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

19:40

Division 31

Ayes: 455

---

Labour: 369
Liberal Democrat: 65
Independent: 12
Green Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

Noes: 125

---

Conservative: 108
Scottish National Party: 9
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1

13. Energy (oil and gas) profits levy (relief for investment expenditure)

Question put,

That—

(1) The Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022 is amended as follows.

(2) For section 2 substitute—

“2 Additional expenditure treated as incurred for purposes of section 1

(1) This section applies for the purposes of section 1 if, in a qualifying accounting period, a company has incurred investment expenditure.

(2) Expenditure is “investment expenditure” of a company so far as the expenditure—

(a) is capital expenditure on the de-carbonisation of its upstream petroleum production,

(b) is incurred for the purposes of oil-related activities,

(c) is not incurred for disqualifying purposes, and

(d) does not consist of financing costs or decommissioning costs.

(3) For the purposes of section 1 the company is to be treated as if, in addition to the investment expenditure incurred by it in the accounting period, it had incurred in that period expenditure of an amount equal to 66% of the amount of that investment expenditure.

(4) For the purposes of this section—

(a) if investment expenditure is incurred partly for the purposes of oil-related activities and partly for other purposes, the expenditure is to be attributed to the oil-related activities on a just and reasonable basis, and

(b) if a company incurs expenditure part of which is capital expenditure on the de-carbonisation of its upstream petroleum production and part of which is not, the expenditure is to be apportioned on a just and reasonable basis.

(5) This section needs to be read with section 6 (which prevents recycling etc of assets to generate relief).”

(3) Omit sections 3 and 4 (definitions of “operating expenditure” and “leasing expenditure”).

(4) In section 7(1) (when investment expenditure is incurred)—

(a) in paragraph (a), omit “in the case of capital expenditure,”, and

(b) omit paragraph (b).

(5) In section 18(1) (interpretation), omit the definitions of “leasing expenditure” and “operating expenditure”.

(6) The amendments made by this Resolution have effect in relation to expenditure incurred on or after 1 November 2024 (and section 7 of the Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022 applies for the purposes of this Resolution as it applies for the purposes of that Act).

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

19:55

Division 32

Ayes: 454

---

Labour: 365
Liberal Democrat: 63
Independent: 12
Plaid Cymru: 4
Green Party: 3
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

Noes: 124

---

Conservative: 108
Scottish National Party: 9
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1

14. Energy (oil and gas) profits levy (period for which levy has effect)

Question put,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made for extending the period for which the energy (oil and gas) profits levy has effect until 31 March 2030.

20:10

Division 33

Ayes: 450

---

Labour: 363
Liberal Democrat: 64
Independent: 12
Green Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

Noes: 120

---

Conservative: 103
Scottish National Party: 9
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1

15. Oil and gas (decommissioning of carbon storage installations)

Resolved,

That provision may be made for relief to be given in the case of payments made into a decommissioning fund in accordance with provision made under Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Energy Act 2023 (decommissioning of carbon storage installations).

16. Pillar Two (Pillar Two territories etc)

Resolved,

That—

(1) The Finance (No. 2) Act 2023 is amended as follows.

(2) In section 241 (Pillar Two territories) at the end insert—

“(4) A territory outside the United Kingdom is to be treated as a Pillar Two territory for the purposes of any accounting period that concluded before the first regulations under this section have been made if it is a territory in which a tax applies for that accounting period—

(a) that is a Qualified IIR for the purposes of the Pillar Two rules, or

(b) that it is reasonable to conclude is likely to be a Qualified IIR for the purposes of those rules.”

(3) In section 256 (qualifying domestic top-up tax) at the end insert—

“(5) A tax (other than domestic top-up tax which is always a qualifying domestic top-up tax) is to be treated as a qualifying domestic top-up tax for the purposes of any accounting period that concluded before the first regulations under this section have been made if—

(a) it is a Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax for that accounting period for the purposes of the Pillar Two rules, or

(b) it is reasonable to conclude that it is likely to be a Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax for that accounting period for the purposes of those rules.”

(4) In Schedule 16A (qualifying domestic top-up tax safe harbour election)—

(a) in paragraph 1(3), in the words before paragraph (a), for “may only be made” substitute “is only valid”, and

(b) in paragraph 2—

(i) the existing text becomes sub-paragraph (1), and

(ii) after that sub-paragraph insert—

“(2) A qualifying domestic top-up tax is to be treated as accredited for the purposes of any accounting period that concluded before the first regulations under this paragraph have been made if—

(a) the tax falls within Chapter 5.5 to 5.7 of the QDMTT safe harbour guidance, or

(b) it is reasonable to conclude that the tax is likely to fall within Chapter 5.5 to 5.7 of that guidance.

(3) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2) the “QDMTT safe harbour guidance” means Chapter 5 of Tax Challenges Arising from the Digitalisation of the Economy – Administrative Guidance on the Global Anti-Base Erosion Model Rules (Pillar Two), July 2023, published by the OECD on 17 July 2023.”

(5) The amendments made by this Resolution come into force on 7 November 2024.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

17. Pillar Two (UTPR etc)

Resolved,

That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made—

(a) for the purpose of implementing the UTPR within the meaning of the Pillar Two rules,

(b) for the purpose of ensuring that changes (or anticipated changes) to those rules are taken into account in the provision made by Parts 3 and 4 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023 and otherwise in connection with the application of those rules, and

(c) about the exclusion from Part 4 of that Act of certain entities which are not members of a multinational group.

18. Offshore receipts in respect of intangible property

Resolved,

That provision may be made repealing Chapter 2A of Part 5 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005.

19. Application of PAYE in relation to internationally mobile employees

Resolved,

That provision may be made for replacing section 690 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 in cases where employees are internationally mobile.

20. Advance pricing agreements

Resolved,

That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made for the purposes of section 219(2) of the Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Act 2010.

21. First-year allowances (electric vehicles)

Resolved,

That provision may be made extending the date by which expenditure must be incurred to qualify for an allowance under section 45D or 45EA of the Capital Allowances Act 2001.

22. Commercial letting of furnished holiday accommodation

Resolved,

That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made abolishing the special rules relating to the commercial letting of furnished holiday accommodation.

23. Expenditure on visual effects in films and television programmes

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made amending Part 14A of the Corporation Tax Act 2009 so as to provide for the payment of credits to companies in respect of expenditure incurred on the use of computer technology to create or alter images for inclusion in a film or television programme.

24. Relief for films, television programmes and video games (certification etc)

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made amending Part 14A of the Corporation Tax Act 2009 in relation to—

(a) the certification of films, television programmes and video games, and

(b) the treatment of expenditure that is not paid within a specified period after the end of an accounting period.

25. Research and development

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made—

(a) about the application of Chapter 2 of Part 13 of the Corporation Tax Act 2009 in relation to Northern Ireland, and

(b) substituting a new sub-paragraph (4) for paragraph 21(4) of Schedule 1 to the Finance Act 2024.

26. Employee-ownership trusts (requirements as to trustees etc)

Resolved,

That—

Introduction

(1) The Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 is amended as follows.

Requirement for trustees of employee-ownership trusts to be UK resident

(2) In section 236H(4) (disposals to employee-ownership trusts), before paragraph (a) insert—

“(aa) that the trustees of the settlement are resident in the United Kingdom at the time of the disposal and continue to be UK resident for the remainder of the tax year in which that time falls,”.

(3) In section 236O(2) (no section 236H relief if disqualifying event in next tax year), before paragraph (a) insert—

“(aa) the trustees of the settlement cease to be resident in the United Kingdom,”.

(4) In section 236P (events which trigger deemed disposal and reacquisition by

trustees), after subsection (3) insert—

“(3A) See also section 80 (trustees ceasing to be resident in UK), which provides for similar consequences in circumstances where the trustees of the settlement cease to be resident in the United Kingdom.”

(5) In section 236Q(1)(c) (relief for deemed disposals under section 71), for “236H(4)(a)” substitute “236H(4)(aa)”.

Trustee independence

(6) In section 236H(4), after paragraph (b) insert—

“(ba) that the settlement meets the trustee independence requirement (see section 236LA) at the time of the disposal and continues to meet that requirement for the remainder of the tax year in which that time falls,”.

(7) After section 236L insert—

“236LA Trustee independence requirement

(1) A settlement meets the trustee independence requirement if—

(a) less than 50% of the trustees are persons who are excluded participators, and

(b) excluded participators do not have control of the settlement.

(2) In this section “excluded participator” means—

(a) a person that is an excluded participator within the meaning given by section 236J, other than a person who is an excluded participator only as a result of a connection falling within section 286(3) (trustees regarded as connected with settlors etc), or

(b) a company not falling within paragraph (a), if 50% or more of its directors are persons falling within that paragraph.

(3) Excluded participators have control of the settlement if one or more excluded participators, acting alone or together without the trustees who are not excluded participators, have power under the trust instrument or by law to—

(a) dispose of, advance, lend, invest, pay or apply settlement property;

(b) vary or terminate the settlement;

(c) add or remove a person as a beneficiary or to or from a class of beneficiaries;

(d) appoint or remove trustees or give another individual control over the settlement;

(e) direct the exercise of a power mentioned in sub-paragraphs (a) to (d).”

(8) In section 236O(2), after paragraph (b) insert—

“(ba) the settlement ceases to meet the trustee independence requirement,”.

(9) In section 236P(2) (events which trigger deemed disposal and reacquisition by trustees), after paragraph (b) insert—

“(ba) the settlement ceases to meet the trustee independence requirement,”.

Temporary breach of trustee independence requirement or residence requirement arising from death of trustee

(10) In section 236O, after subsection (2) insert—

“(2A) Where—

(a) a disqualifying event falling within subsection (2)(aa) occurs (trustees cease to be resident in the United Kingdom),

(b) the event only occurs as a result of the death of a trustee of the settlement, and

(c) within the period of 6 months beginning with the death of the trustee, the trustees become resident in the United Kingdom, the disqualifying event is to be ignored.

(2B) Where—

(a) a disqualifying event falling within subsection (2)(ba) occurs (trustee independence requirement ceases to be met),

(b) the event only occurs as a result of—

(i) the death of a trustee of the settlement, or

(ii) the death of a director of a company that is a trustee of the settlement, and

(c) within the period of 6 months beginning with that death, the settlement meets the trustee independence requirement, the disqualifying event is to be ignored.”

(11) In section 236P, after subsection (2) insert—

“(2A) Where—

(a) a disqualifying event falling within subsection (2)(ba) occurs (trustee independence requirement ceases to be met),

(b) the event only occurs as a result of—

(i) the death of a trustee of the settlement, or

(ii) the death of a director of a company that is a trustee of the settlement, and

(c) within the period of 6 months beginning with that death, the settlement meets the trustee independence requirement, the disqualifying event is to be ignored.”

Consideration requirement

(12) In section 236H(4), after paragraph (c) insert—

“(ca) that the trustees have taken all reasonable steps to secure that—

(i) the consideration for the disposal does not exceed the market value of the ordinary share capital at the time of the disposal, and

(ii) where some or all of the consideration for the disposal is deferred, that the rate of any interest payable in relation to the deferral does not exceed a reasonable commercial rate,”.

(13) In section 236Q, in subsection (1)(c), for “(d)” substitute “(c) and (d)”.

Extended period for disqualifying events

(14) In section 236O—

(a) in the heading, for “tax year” substitute “four tax years”, and

(b) in subsection (1)(b), for “the tax year” substitute “any of the first four tax years”.

(15) In section 236P(1), after “end of the” insert “fourth”.

(16) In section 236R—

(a) in the heading, for “tax year” substitute “four tax years”, and

(b) in subsection (1)(b), for “the tax year” substitute “any of the first four tax years”.

Commencement

(17) The amendments made by this Resolution have effect in relation to disposals made on or after 30 October 2024.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

27. Employee-ownership trusts (claims and reliefs)

Resolved,

That provision may be made—

(a) about the information to be included in claims under sections 236H and 236Q of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992,

(b) for relief for bonus payments under Chapter 10A of Part 4 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 not to be precluded by the exclusion of directors from the scheme under which the payments are awarded, and

(c) for a relief from income tax on distributions made to trustees of an employee-ownership trust by the company to which the trust relates to meet the costs of the trust acquiring ordinary share capital of the company.

28. Pensions (overseas transfer charge)

Resolved,

That—

(1) In Part 4 of the Finance Act 2004 (pensions), omit section 244C (exclusion from overseas transfer charge where receiving scheme in EEA state or Gibraltar, and member resident in UK or EEA state).

(2) Paragraphs (3) to (5) contain amendments consequential on the repeal made by paragraph (1).

(3) In Part 4 of the Finance Act 2004—

(a) in section 244J (persons liable to charge), in subsection (4), omit “or 244C”, and

(b) in section 244K (meaning of “transferred value”), in subsection (6), omit “or 244C”.

(4) In the Pension Schemes (Information Requirements for Qualifying Overseas Pension Schemes, Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Schemes and Corresponding Relief) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/208)—

(a) in regulation 3 (information to be provided to QROPS) in paragraph

(2C)—

(i) for “neither” substitute “not”, and

(ii) omit paragraph (b) and the “nor” before it,

(b) in regulation 3AF (information provided by member to QROPS: inward and outward transfers), in paragraph (1)(b)(ii), omit “or 244C”,

(c) in regulation 3AG (provision of information about liability for overseas transfer charge), in paragraph (2)(d), omit “or 244C”, and

(d) in regulation 3AH (accounting for overseas transfer charge where change of circumstances), in paragraph (1)(a)(ii), omit “or 244C(3)”.

(5) In the Registered Pension Schemes (Provision of Information) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/567)—

(a) in regulation 11BB (information provided by members to scheme administrators), in paragraph (1)(b)(ii), omit “or 244C”, and

(b) in regulation 12A (information provided by scheme administrators to members), in paragraph (2)(d), omit “or 244C”.

(6) Subject to paragraphs (7) and (8), the amendments made by this Resolution have effect in relation to transfers made on or after 30 October 2024.

(7) The amendments do not have effect in relation to a transfer that is made—

(a) in execution of a request made before 30 October 2024, and

(b) before 30 April 2025.

(8) Where—

(a) the repeal made by paragraph (1) does not have effect in relation to a transfer, but

(b) the tax consequences of that transfer depend on the tax consequences of a later transfer in relation to which the repeal does have effect,

the tax consequences of the earlier transfer are to be determined as if the repeal did not have effect in relation to the later transfer.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

29. Pensions (schemes established or administered in EEA states)

Resolved,

That provision may be made about pension schemes established in, or administered by persons resident in, EEA states, including (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision taking effect in a future year.

30. Alternative finance arrangements (capital gains tax etc)

Resolved,

That provision may be made for the purposes of capital gains tax, income tax and corporation tax in relation to alternative finance arrangements where the customer has a beneficial interest in an asset and disposes of some or all of that interest to the financier.

31. Statutory neonatal care pay

Resolved,

That provision may be made in relation to statutory neonatal care pay.

32. Persons not domiciled in United Kingdom

Resolved,

That provision may be made for the purposes of income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax for replacing rules which operate by reference to the place where a person is domiciled with rules which operate by reference to where a person is (or is not) resident during a specified period, including—

(a) provision for a new temporary tax to be chargeable on amounts designated by persons who have been subject to the remittance basis as a result of being domiciled outside the United Kingdom, and

(b) provision amending the application of the replaced rules in cases where they continue to have effect.

33. Minor amendments relating to trusts

Resolved,

That provision may be made—

(a) amending sections 645 and 646 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 (settlements),

(b) amending Chapter 2 of Part 13 of the Income Tax Act 2007 in relation to sections 721 and 728 of that Act and repealing section 742A of that Act (transfer of assets abroad),

(c) repealing section 1E(4) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 and amending section 87G of, and paragraph 6 of Schedule 5 to, that Act (provisions relating to trusts), and

(d) amending sections 80(1) and 81(1) of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 (provisions relating to trusts).

34. Value added tax (private school fees)

Question put,

That—

(1) The Value Added Tax Act 1994 is amended in accordance with paragraphs (2) to (5).

(2) In Schedule 9 (exemptions)—

(a) in Group 6 (education)—

(i) in item 3(b)(i), after “5A” insert “(or would be so exempt but for item 1 or 2 of Part 3)”, and

(ii) in item 4, after “item 1” insert “(whether or not that supply also falls within item 1 or 2 of Part 3)”, and

(b) after Part 2 (the groups) insert—

“Part 3

Exceptions

Item No.

1 The provision of education by a private school, other than—

(a) the provision of the teaching of English as a foreign language,

(b) the provision of education in a nursery class, or

(c) the provision of a higher education course.

2 The provision of vocational training by a private school.

3 The provision of board and lodging which is closely related to a supply of a description falling within item 1 or 2.

Notes:

(1) A “private school” means an institution which is either—

(a) a school—

(i) at which full-time education is provided for pupils of compulsory school age or, in Scotland, school age (whether or not such education is also provided for pupils under or over that age),

(ii) where fees or other consideration are payable for that provision of full-time education, and

(iii) which is not a nursery school, or

(b) an institution—

(i) which is wholly or mainly concerned with providing education suitable to the requirements of persons over compulsory school age (or, in Scotland, school age) but under 19,

(ii) at which full-time education is provided for such persons,

(iii) where the provision of full-time education falling within sub-paragraph (ii) is wholly or mainly provision in respect of which fees or other consideration are payable, and

(iv) which is not an independent training or learning provider.

(2) In Note (1)(b) an “independent training or learning provider” means an institution—

(a) at which education or training is provided for persons over compulsory school age (or, in Scotland, school age) but under 19 under a contract with a relevant contracting authority, and

(b) where the consideration for the provision falling within paragraph (a) is payable by the relevant contracting authority under that contract.

(3) For the purposes of Note (2), a “relevant contracting authority” means the Secretary of State, Medr (Commission for Tertiary Education and Research), the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland or Skills Development Scotland.

(4) For the purposes of items 1 and 2, the provision of education or vocational training at a private school by any eligible body other than a private school is to be treated as provision by a private school if—

(a) the eligible body and that private school are connected within the meaning of section 1122 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 (connected persons), or

(b) the provision by the eligible body is a result of arrangements the main purpose, or one of the main purposes, of which is to secure that the provision is an exempt supply.

(5) For the purposes of Note (4)—

(a) “arrangements” include any agreement, understanding, scheme, transaction or series of transactions (whether or not legally enforceable), and

(b) an “eligible body” has the meaning given by Note (1) to Group 6.

(6) For the purposes of item 1—

(a) a “nursery class” means a class that is composed wholly (or almost wholly) of children who—

(i) are under compulsory school age or, in Scotland, school age, and

(ii) would not be expected to attain that age while in that class, and

(b) a “higher education course”—

(i) in relation to England and Wales, has the meaning given by section 83(1) of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017;

(ii) in relation to Scotland, means a course of any description mentioned in section 5(3) of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005;

(iii) in relation to Northern Ireland, means a course of any description mentioned in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Further Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 (S.I. 1997/1772 (N.I. 15)).

(7) For the purposes of item 2 “vocational training” has the meaning given by Note (3) to Group 6.

(8) In these Notes, “compulsory school age”, “pupil”, “school” and “school age” have the meanings given by the Education Act 1996, the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 and the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 (S.I. 1986/594 (N.I. 3)) in relation to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.”

(3) In section 31 (exempt supplies), in subsection (1), for “Schedule 9” substitute “Part 2 of Schedule 9 and it is not of a description specified in Part 3 of that Schedule”.

(4) In section 8 (reverse charge on supplies received from abroad), in subsection (4A), for “Schedule 9” substitute “Part 2 of Schedule 9 and not specified in Part 3 of that Schedule”.

(5) In section 43 (groups of companies), in subsection (2A)—

(a) in paragraph (b), for “Schedule 9” substitute “Part 2 of Schedule 9 or are within any of the descriptions specified in Part 3 of that Schedule”, and

(b) in paragraph (c), for “Schedule 9” substitute “Part 2 of Schedule 9 or which do fall within any of the descriptions specified in Part 3 of that Schedule”.

(6) Paragraph (7) applies to the provision of education services during a school term if a payment in respect of the services was received by the person providing the services on or after 29 July 2024 and before 30 October 2024.

(7) That provision is treated for the purposes of the charge to VAT as a supply taking place on the later of—

(a) 1 January 2025, and

(b) the first day of that term.

Accordingly, that provision is not to be regarded (as a result of provision made by or under the Value Added Tax Act 1994) as a supply taking place at any other time.

(8) But paragraph (7) does not apply to the provision of education services by a school if the school is approved under section 342 of the Education Act 1996 (approval of non-maintained special schools).

(9) In paragraphs (6) to (8) “the provision of education services” means a provision of education, vocational training or board and lodging falling within Part 3 of Schedule 9 (exceptions).

(10) Paragraphs (6) to (9) are to be read as if they were contained in the Value Added Tax Act 1994.

(11) This Resolution comes into force on 30 October 2024 and has effect in relation to any provision of education, vocational training or board and lodging on or after 1 January 2025 (whenever that supply is treated as taking place for the purposes of the charge to VAT).

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

20:25

Division 34

Ayes: 383

---

Labour: 357
Scottish National Party: 9
Independent: 7
Green Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 184

---

Conservative: 106
Liberal Democrat: 62
Independent: 5
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

35. Stamp duty land tax (additional dwellings: purchases before 1 April 2025)

Question put,

That—

(1) Section 1 of the Stamp Duty Land Tax (Temporary Relief) Act 2023 (which provides for reduced rates of stamp duty land tax for transactions before 1 April 2025) is amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (3) (which deals with purchases of additional dwellings), for the Table A mentioned there substitute—

“TABLE A: RESIDENTIAL

Part of relevant consideration	Percentage
So much as does not exceed £250,000	5%
So much as exceeds £250,000 but does not exceed £925,000	10%
So much as exceeds £925,000 but does not exceed £1,500,000	15%
The remainder (if any)	17%”.

(3) The amendment made by this Resolution has effect in relation to land transactions the effective date of which falls on or after 31 October 2024 but before 1 April 2025.

(4) But the amendment made by this Resolution does not have effect in relation to a land transaction which—

(a) is effected in pursuance of a contract entered into before 31 October 2024, and

(b) is not excluded.

(5) For this purpose a land transaction is excluded if—

(a) there is any variation of the contract, or assignment of rights under the contract, on or after 31 October 2024,

(b) the transaction is effected in consequence of the exercise on or after that date of any option, right of pre-emption or similar right, or

(c) on or after that date, there is an assignment, subsale or other transaction relating to the whole or part of the subject-matter of the contract as a result of which a person other than the purchaser under the contract becomes entitled to call for a conveyance.

(6) In consequence of the provision made by the preceding paragraphs, the Stamp Duty Land Tax (Temporary Relief) Act 2020 is amended as follows.

(7) In section 1 (reduced rates of SDLT in relation to land transactions the effective date of which falls in the period beginning with 8 July 2020 and ending with 30 June 2021)—

(a) in subsection (6) (which provides an exception from section 44(8) of the Finance Act 2003 where the contract is completed after 30 June 2021), for the words from “that the modifications” to the end substitute “the reason given by subsection (6A)”, and

(b) after subsection (6) insert—

“(6A) For this purpose, the sole reason is either—

(a) that the modifications made by this section have no effect in relation to that conveyance, or

(b) that both paragraph (a) applies and the increased rates provided for by Resolution 35 of the House of Commons (stamp duty land tax (additional dwellings: purchases before 1 April 2025)) would have had effect in relation to that conveyance.”

(8) In section 1A (reduced rates of SDLT in relation to land transactions the effective date of which falls in the period beginning with 1 July 2021 and ending with 30 September 2021)—

(a) in subsection (5) (which provides an exception from section 44(8) of the Finance Act 2003 where the contract is completed after 30 September 2021), for the words from “that the modifications” to the end substitute “the reason given by subsection (5A)”, and

(b) after subsection (5) insert—

“(5A) For this purpose, the sole reason is either—

(a) that the modifications made by this section have no effect in relation to that conveyance, or

(b) that both paragraph (a) applies and the increased rates provided for by Resolution 35 of the House of Commons (stamp duty land tax (additional dwellings: purchases before 1 April 2025)) would have had effect in relation to that conveyance.”

(9) In a case where—

(a) as a result of section 44(4) of the Finance Act 2003 the effective date of a land transaction is before 31 October 2024, and

(b) the contract concerned is completed by a conveyance on or after that date, section 44(8) of that Act is not to apply in relation to that conveyance if the sole reason that (but for this paragraph) it would have applied is that the increased rates provided for by this Resolution would have had effect in relation to that conveyance.

(10) Section 44(10) of the Finance Act 2003 applies for the purposes of paragraph (9).

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

20:37

Division 35

Ayes: 378

---

Labour: 361
Independent: 7
Liberal Democrat: 5
Green Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 116

---

Conservative: 102
Independent: 5
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

36. Stamp duty land tax (additional dwellings: purchases on or after 1 April 2025)

Question put,

That provision may be made amending paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 4ZA to the Finance Act 2003 so as to increase the rates of stamp duty land tax mentioned there.

20:49

Division 36

Ayes: 373

---

Labour: 360
Independent: 9
Green Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 110

---

Conservative: 100
Reform UK: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Traditional Unionist Voice: 1
Independent: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

37. Stamp duty land tax (purchases by companies)

Resolved,

That—

(1) In—

(a) paragraph 3(1)(a) of Schedule 4A to the Finance Act 2003 (higher rate of SDLT for purchases by companies etc), and

(b) step 4 in section 74(1A) of the Finance Act 2003 (exercise of collective rights by tenants of flats where condition in paragraph 3(3) of that Schedule is met), for “15%” substitute “17%”.

(2) The amendments made by this Resolution have effect in relation to land transactions the effective date of which falls on or after 31 October 2024.

(3) But the amendments made by this Resolution do not have effect in relation to a land transaction which—

(a) is effected in pursuance of a contract entered into before that date, and

(b) is not excluded.

(4) For this purpose a land transaction is excluded if—

(a) there is any variation of the contract, or assignment of rights under the contract, on or after 31 October 2024,

(b) the transaction is effected in consequence of the exercise on or after that date of any option, right of pre-emption or similar right, or

(c) on or after that date, there is an assignment, subsale or other transaction relating to the whole or part of the subject-matter of the contract as a result of which a person other than the purchaser under the contract becomes entitled to call for a conveyance.

(5) In a case where—

(a) as a result of section 44(4) of the Finance Act 2003 the effective date of a land transaction is before 31 October 2024, and

(b) the contract concerned is completed by a conveyance on or after that date, section 44(8) of that Act is not to apply in relation to that conveyance if the sole reason that (but for this paragraph) it would have applied is that the increased rates provided for by this Resolution would have had effect in relation to that conveyance.

(6) Section 44(10) of the Finance Act 2003 applies for the purposes of paragraph (5).

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

38. Annual tax on enveloped dwellings (alternative finance arrangements)

Resolved,

That provision may be made for the purposes of annual tax on enveloped dwellings in relation to land sold to a financial institution and leased under alternative finance arrangements.

39. Stamp taxes (testing of financial market infrastructure technologies or practices)

Resolved,

That provision may be made conferring power on the Treasury to make provision about stamp duty or stamp duty reserve tax in connection with regulations made under section 13 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023.

40. Inheritance tax (nil rate band etc for tax years 2028-29 and 2029-30)

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made amending section 86 of the Finance Act 2021 so that the nil rate band, the residential enhancement and the taper threshold remain at their current amounts for the tax years 2028-29 and 2029-30.

41. Inheritance tax (employee benefit trusts)

Resolved,

That provision may be made for the purposes of inheritance tax in relation to property becoming subject to a trust for the benefit of employees.

42. Inheritance tax (agricultural land subject to environmental management agreement)

Resolved,

That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made for treating land and buildings as agricultural property for the purposes of agricultural property relief from inheritance tax where the land is subject to an agreement entered into with a public authority for the purpose of protecting, restoring or enhancing the natural environment, or natural resources, of land or water.

43. Inheritance tax (statements about national savings accounts)

Resolved,

That provision may be made revoking regulation 55 of the National Savings Regulations 2015 and regulation 90 of the National Savings (No. 2) Regulations 2015.

44. Rates of alcohol duty

Question put,

That—

(1) Part 2 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023 (alcohol duty) is amended as follows.

(2) For Schedule 7 (main rates) substitute—

“SCHEDULE 7

RATES OF ALCOHOL DUTY

TABLE 1

Alcoholic strength of alcoholic product	Rate of duty per litre of alcohol in the product
Less than 3.5%	£9.61
At least 3.5% but less than 8.5%	See Table 2
At least 8.5% but not exceeding 22%	£29.54
Exceeding 22%	£32.79

TABLE 2

Description of alcoholic product (of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5% but less than 8.5%)	Rate of duty per litre of alcohol in the product
Still cider Sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength not exceeding 5.5%	£10.02
Beer	£21.78
Spirits, wine and other fermented products Sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength exceeding 5.5%	£25.67”.

(3) For Schedule 8 (reduced rates for qualifying draught products) substitute—

“SCHEDULE 8

Qualifying draught products: reduced rates

Description of alcoholic product	Rate of duty per litre of alcohol in the product
Alcoholic products of an alcoholic strength of less than 3.5%	£8.28
Still cider of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5% Sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5% but not exceeding 5.5%	£8.63
Beer, spirits, wine and other fermented products of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5% (but less than 8.5%) Sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength exceeding 5.5%	£18.76”.

(4) For Schedule 9 (duty discount for small producer alcoholic products)—

“SCHEDULE 9

Small producer alcoholic products: duty discount

PART 1

Alcoholic products, other than qualifying draught products, of an alcoholic strength of less than 8.5%

Alcoholic products, other than spirits, of an alcoholic strength of less than 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	9.61	-
2	5	50	2.44	48.05
3	50	100	1.47	157.99
4	100	200	0.49	231.28
5	200	600	-	280.15
6	600	1000	-	280.15
7	1000	4500	-0.08	280.15

Spirits of an alcoholic strength of less than 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	6.35	-
2	5	50	2.44	31.76
3	50	100	1.47	141.70
4	100	200	0.49	214.99
5	200	600	-	263.86
6	600	1000	-	263.86
7	1000	4500	-0.08	263.86

Still cider of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%; sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5% but not exceeding 5.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	10.02	-
2	5	50	2.55	50.10
3	50	100	1.53	164.78
4	100	200	0.51	241.24
5	200	600	-	292.21
6	600	1000	-	292.21
7	1000	4500	-0.08	292.21

Beer of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	19.94	-
2	5	112.5	11.08	99.68
3	112.5	225	9.97	1290.33
4	225	450	5.54	2411.75
5	450	900	3.32	3657.77
6	900	1350	-	5153.00
7	1350	4500	-1.64	5153.00

Wine and other fermented products of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%; sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength exceeding 5.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	25.67	-
2	5	50	2.61	128.35
3	50	100	2.61	245.84
4	100	200	1.31	376.37
5	200	600	-	506.91
6	600	1000	-	506.91
7	1000	4500	-0.14	506.91

Spirits of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	20.89	-
2	5	50	2.61	104.43
3	50	100	2.61	221.92
4	100	200	1.31	352.46
5	200	600	-	483.00
6	600	1000	-	483.00
7	1000	4500	-0.14	483.00

PART 2

Qualifying draughts products of an alcoholic strength of less than 8.5%

Alcoholic products, other than spirits, of an alcoholic strength of less than 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	8.28	-
2	5	50	2.11	41.40
3	50	100	1.26	136.13
4	100	200	0.42	199.28
5	200	600	-	241.38
6	600	1000	-	241.38
7	1000	4500	-0.07	241.38

Spirits of an alcoholic strength of less than 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	5.47	-
2	5	50	2.11	27.37
3	50	100	1.26	122.09
4	100	200	0.42	185.24
5	200	600	-	227.34
6	600	1000	-	227.34
7	1000	4500	-0.06	227.34

Still cider of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%; sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5% but not exceeding 5.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	8.63	-
2	5	50	2.20	43.15
3	50	100	1.32	141.93
4	100	200	0.44	207.78
5	200	600	-	251.68
6	600	1000	-	251.68
7	1000	4500	-0.07	251.68

Beer of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	17.17	-
2	5	112.5	9.54	85.86
3	112.5	225	8.59	1111.41
4	225	450	4.77	2077.34
5	450	900	2.86	3150.59
6	900	1350	-	4438.49
7	1350	4500	-1.41	4438.49

Wine and other fermented products of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%; sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength exceeding 5.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	18.76	-
2	5	50	1.91	93.80
3	50	100	1.91	179.66
4	100	200	0.95	275.06
5	200	600	-	370.46
6	600	1000	-	370.46
7	1000	4500	-0.11	370.46

Spirits of an alcoholic strength of at least 3.5%

Discount band	Start threshold (hectolitres)	End threshold (hectolitres)	Marginal discount (£)	Cumulative discount (£)
1	0	5	15.26	-
2	5	50	1.91	76.32
3	50	100	1.91	162.18
4	100	200	0.95	257.58
5	200	600	-	352.98
6	600	1000	-	352.98
7	1000	4500	-0.10	352.98”.

(5) In consequence of the amendments made by the preceding paragraphs of this Resolution, in Schedule 2 to the Travellers’ Allowances Order 1994 (which provides in certain circumstances for a simplified calculation of excise duty on goods brought into Great Britain)—

(a) in the entry relating to beer, in the second column, for “£0.88” substitute “£0.91”,

(b) in the entry relating to still wine, in the second column, for “£3.28” substitute “£3.40”,

(c) in the entry relating to sparkling wine, in the second column, for “£3.28” substitute “£3.40”,

(d) in the entry relating to cider, in the second column, for “£0.44” substitute “£0.46”,

(e) in the entry relating to sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength not exceeding 5.5% by volume, in the second column, for “£0.44” substitute “£0.46”,

(f) in the entry relating to sparkling cider of an alcoholic strength exceeding 5.5% but less than 8.5% by volume, in the second column, for “£1.73” substitute “£1.80”,

(g) in the entry relating to other fermented products, in the second column, for “£3.28” substitute “£3.40”, and

(h) in the entry relating to spirits, in the second column, for “£11.88” substitute “£12.30”.

(6) The amendments made by this Resolution come into force on 1 February 2025.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

21:00

Division 37

Ayes: 371

---

Labour: 357
Independent: 6
Green Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1

Noes: 77

---

Liberal Democrat: 59
Scottish National Party: 8
Conservative: 7
Independent: 1
Democratic Unionist Party: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

45. Abolition of duty stamps for alcoholic products

Resolved,

That provision be made repealing section 112 of, and Schedule 12 to, the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023.

46. Rates of tobacco products duty

Resolved,

That—

(1) In Schedule 1 to the Tobacco Products Duty Act 1979 (table of rates of tobacco

products duty), for the Table substitute—

“TABLE
1 Cigarettes	An amount equal to the higher of— (a) 16.5% of the retail price plus £334.58 per thousand cigarettes, or (b) £446.67 per thousand cigarettes.
2 Cigars	£417.33 per kilogram
3 Hand-rolling tobacco	£476.83 per kilogram
4 Other smoking tobacco and chewing tobacco	£183.49 per kilogram
5 Tobacco for heating	£343.91 per kilogram”.

(2) In consequence of the provision made by paragraph (1), in Schedule 2 to the Travellers’ Allowances Order 1994 (which provides in certain circumstances for a simplified calculation of excise duty on goods brought into Great Britain)—

(a) in the entry relating to cigarettes, for “£422.80” substitute “£446.67”,

(b) in the entry relating to hand rolling tobacco, for “£412.32” substitute “£476.83”,

(c) in the entry relating to other smoking tobacco and chewing tobacco, for “£173.68” substitute “£183.49”,

(d) in the entry relating to cigars, for “£395.03” substitute “£417.33”,

(e) in the entry relating to cigarillos, for “£395.03” substitute “£417.33”, and

(f) in the entry relating to tobacco for heating, for “£97.66” substitute “£103.17”.

(3) The amendments made by this Resolution come into force at 6pm on 30 October 2024.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

47. Rates of vehicle excise duty

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rates of vehicle excise duty in Schedule 1 to the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994.

48. Vehicle excise duty (zero-emission vehicles etc)

Resolved,

That provision may be made for the purposes of vehicle excise duty—

(a) aligning the treatment of zero-emission vehicles with electronically propelled vehicles, and

(b) treating in specified circumstances an EU certificate of conformity or UK approval certificate as specifying a CO₂ figure of zero.

49. Rates of HGV road user levy

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rates of HGV road user levy.

50. Rates of air passenger duty (current and future years)

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rates of air passenger duty, including (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision taking effect in a future year.

51. Rates of climate change levy (future years)

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made taking effect in a future year increasing the rates of climate change levy.

52. Rates of landfill tax

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rates of landfill tax.

53. Rate of aggregates levy

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rate of aggregates levy.

54. Rate of plastic packaging tax

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rate of plastic packaging tax.

55. Rates of soft drinks industry levy

Resolved,

That provision may be made increasing the rates of soft drinks industry levy.

56. Avoidance involving limited liability partnerships

Resolved,

That—

(1) After section 59A of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 insert—

“59AA Limited liability partnerships: deemed disposal

(1) This section applies where—

(a) a member of a limited liability partnership (the “LLP”) contributed an asset to the LLP in circumstances where section 59A(1) applied in relation to the LLP, and

(b) the LLP disposes of the asset, or part of the asset, to the member, or a person connected with the member, in circumstances where section 59A(1) has ceased to apply in relation to the LLP.

(2) The asset is deemed to have been disposed of and reacquired by the member—

(a) immediately before it was contributed to the LLP, and

(b) for a consideration equal to its market value at that time.

(3) But—

(a) any chargeable gain or allowable loss accruing under subsection (2) is to be treated as accruing at the time the asset, or part of the asset, is disposed of by the LLP (as described in subsection (1)(b)), and

(b) for the purposes of Schedule 2 to the Finance Act 2019 (returns for disposals of UK land), the disposal under subsection (2) is to be treated as completed at that time.

(4) Any chargeable gain accruing on the deemed disposal is to be reduced by an amount that is just and reasonable, having regard to any chargeable gain that has otherwise accrued to the member by reference to the asset or part of the asset.”

(2) The amendment made by this Resolution has effect from 30 October 2024 but does not have effect where section 59A(1) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 ceased to apply in relation to the limited liability partnership before that date.

And it is declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution should have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968.

57. Loans to participators

Resolved,

That provision may be made repealing section 464B of the Corporation Tax Act 2010.

58. OECD crypto-asset reporting framework

Resolved,

That (notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the practice of the House relating to the matters that may be included in Finance Bills) provision may be made amending section 349(2) of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023 to add a reference to the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (published in 2022).

59. Vaping products (preparing for new tax)

Resolved,

That provision may be made conferring power on the Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to prepare for a new tax relating to vaping products.

60. Carbon border adjustment mechanism (preparing for new tax etc)

Resolved,

That provision may be made—

(a) conferring power on the Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to prepare for a new tax relating to emissions embodied in imported goods, and

(b) about the disclosure of information for any purpose connected with the new tax.

61. Correction of wrong cross-reference etc

Resolved,

That provision may be made correcting errors in section 151I(1) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, section 1179AE(2) of the Corporation Tax Act 2009 and section 4(2)(a) of the Taxation (Post-transition Period) Act 2020.

62. Incidental provision etc

Resolved,

That provision (including provision having retrospective effect) may be made which is incidental to, or consequential on or otherwise connected with, provision authorised by any other Resolution.

FINANCE Bill (MONEY)

King’s recommendation signified.

Resolved,

That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session relating to finance, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(a) any expenditure incurred by the Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs which is attributable to amendments of Part 14A of the Corporation Tax Act 2009, and

(b) any expenditure incurred by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State in connection with the disclosure of information for any purpose connected with a new tax relating to emissions embodied in imported goods.

Ordered,

That a Bill be brought in upon the foregoing Resolutions;

That the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Darren Jones, Tulip Siddiq and James Murray bring in the Bill.

Finance Bill

Presentation and First Reading

James Murray accordingly presented a Bill to make provision in connection with finance.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Monday 11 November, and to be printed (Bill 125).

Business without Debate

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

Delegated Legislation

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6),

Constitutional Law

That the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Specification of Devolved Tax) (Building Safety) Order 2024, which was laid before this House on 10 September, be approved.—(Christian Wakeford.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6),

Immigration

That the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2024, which was laid before this House on 12 September, be approved.—(Christian Wakeford.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6),

Animals

That the draft Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Enforcement Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 12 September, be approved.—(Christian Wakeford.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6),

Electronic Communications

That the draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 12 September, be approved.—(Christian Wakeford.)

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6),

Public Passenger Transport

That the draft Franchising Schemes (Franchising Authorities) (England) Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 9 September, be approved.—(Christian Wakeford.)

Question agreed to.

Road Fuel Market

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Christian Wakeford.)

21:14

[Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)]

The topic for this, my first Adjournment debate, is fair fuel pricing, an issue that has been raised repeatedly with me by residents of Dunfermline and Dollar since I was elected in July, and that has been examined by previous Governments of all colours and by the Competition and Markets Authority.

In July this year, the CMA said that weakened competition in the fuel sector is negatively impacting drivers’ wallets. Its examination found that, in 2023 alone, high prices cost motorists a staggering amount of money. In the midst of a cost of living crisis, that seems especially egregious. The CMA’s warning was not, however, the first or even the second significant warning on fuel pricing. After launching a market study in July 2022, which reported a year later and made a series of recommendations to protect consumers, the CMA has issued three interim reports. In those reports, the CMA found that drivers were overcharged at the petrol pump by £900 million in 2022 and a further £1.6 billion in 2023. That means that, in just two years, drivers were overcharged by some £2.5 billion on their fuel in the midst of a cost of living crisis. That is shameful profiteering, which we know hits lower-paid workers and families the hardest. The cost of living crisis has meant that changes in the prices of utilities and fuel have been sorely felt.

We have long understood the argument that rural drivers might pay more for fuel due to the increased logistical costs and additional staffing costs. I do not always find such arguments convincing, but they at least have a perceived logic to them. However, fuel is not a luxury; it is a lifeline. It enables people to commute to work, take their children to school, and provide care and support to loved ones.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing the debate forward. I spoke to him beforehand; he and I share the same concerns in relation to fuel. Drivers in rural constituencies, such as ours of Strangford and Dunfermline and Dollar, are very much at the mercy of those who seek to charge more for fuel. Some have to travel far to get cheaper fuel, and it is debatable whether that is competitive or even logical. Does he agree that when it comes to competitiveness, we must have fairness and equality for every postcode, and recognise that prices in Kircubbin, the Ards peninsula and Dunfermline are similar, yet in Manchester fuel is almost 8p a litre cheaper?

[Graeme Downie]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention; I believe that taking an intervention from him is a rite of passage in this House. I could not agree more, particularly in relation to constituencies such as my own, where there is a mix of urban and rural areas and the rural pricing hits particularly hard. Those are often areas that have poorer public transport as well, so the impact is felt even more.

Most small businesses rely on efficient and cost-effective transport for their deliveries, staff and customers, and that often means running and fuelling a car or van. High prices at the pumps have a direct impact on small businesses and squeeze already thin margins in the ongoing crisis in the cost of living and of doing business. Research by the Federation of Small Businesses shows that more than three quarters of small businesses saw their costs go up in the last quarter, and of those more than a quarter said that the increased price of fuel was one of the main reasons for that rise.

My constituency is just 20 miles from Scotland’s oil refinery in Grangemouth, yet residents in Dunfermline consistently pay a full 5p a litre more than those nearby in Glasgow, Stirling, Glenrothes or Kirkcaldy. That is despite the local supermarkets Tesco and Asda, as well as a host of other outlets in the city such as BP, all supposedly competing to be the driver’s choice. What we see in Dunfermline is a cluster of prices around the same level within the city, and price clustering around Dunfermline as well, with all supermarkets and suppliers at roughly the same price. That is not local competition; that is a local cartel. Even worse, my constituents are paying 134.7p per litre at Asda in Dunfermline, whereas in the Asda Bridge of Dee store in Aberdeen, 112 miles further north, they pay just 121.7p at the pump. Never mind 5p—that is a difference of 13p per litre.

In rural and semi-rural areas, as was said earlier, where public transport infrastructure is less entrenched—certainly in my constituency, where the train service is frequently short-formed, delayed or cancelled at short notice—fuel is not a choice; it is a necessity. My Dunfermline and Dollar constituents rely on their vehicles more heavily, yet often face the highest prices. That is an issue of basic fairness. I am all in favour of market forces being used to shape prices, but not where the market is demonstrably broken, and fuel pricing has all the signs of a broken market mechanism.

It is nothing short of outrageous that the most essential aspects of daily life are subject to broken competition, a non-functioning market and what appears to be price clustering by retailers. Across the constituency, small businesses and sole traders such as plumbers, builders, florists and taxi drivers, along with families, are paying the price. As we might say in Scotland, small businesses are being pumped at the pumps. Like many fellow Members of this House, I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement in the Budget, which we passed this evening, on freezing fuel duty, which will help people who are still feeling the impact of out-of-control inflation on their take-home pay. However, while this pricing behaviour by retailers continues, I am concerned that the full benefit of the Government’s efforts to keep down fuel costs will not be passed on to my constituents.

To help the House understand fully the consequences of this kind of price clustering and the effects of a broken market, I will share the experience of one of my constituents, Aimee, a 20-year-old apprentice who wrote to me last month. Aimee was proud to secure her apprenticeship, which she started this autumn, earning the apprentice minimum wage of £6.40 an hour. With just over £1,000 a month to live on, Aimee uses £200 a month of her hard-earned wages on fuel. She gets her petrol at Asda in Dunfermline where, as I mentioned, unleaded was 134.7p per litre yesterday. Her £200 is buying her 148.48 litres of fuel. However, if Aimee was buying her petrol at Asda Bridge of Dee in Aberdeen, where unleaded was 121.7p a litre yesterday, she would have paid just £180 for the same amount of fuel. That is a full £20 a month difference. Over the course of a year, Aimee would have to work an additional 36 hours just to pay for the difference in price of petrol for her to get to and from work. That is not justifiable. Aimee, who is learning while earning, is experiencing a real-terms pay cut differential due not to anything she has done, but to the effects of this broken market.

We encourage the use of greener transport, but we have seen the failures of the SNP Government and ScotRail to provide Fife with a reliable service, so that is not an option for people such as Aimee, with short trains and unreliable service, particularly in West Fife. One step that the SNP-Green coalition at Holyrood did take was to remove peak fares, which saw a 6.8% increase in train usage. However, that encouragement of behavioural change was swiftly removed—just like the Scottish Greens from the coalition—when the financial incentive of fairer train fares was also removed.

Behavioural change of a positive nature does not happen overnight, but the switch back to the car from the train does, and has. That short-sighted decision—like the short-formed trains that often serve the region—has put people off using green transport. Having been let down by the Scottish Government, commuters in Dunfermline are being taken advantage of by fuel retailers and market competition in my constituency.

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I have also noticed in my constituency that many fuel retailers are not passing on benefits to drivers and, as he recognises, the Competition and Markets Authority has said that those competition practices are unfair. I notice that the Government are taking forward a fuel finder app, which will allow customers and drivers to find out more information about different retailers and will drive competition. Does he agree that the Government should do that as soon as possible, so we can get that transparent and accurate information, and drivers in my constituency and others are able to get savings on fuel?

[Graeme Downie]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will come on shortly to the action the Government are taking and where I think there is still more to be done.

The impact goes beyond personal strain; it creates an uneven playing field for businesses, hindering economic growth by harming small business owners in Dunfermline who rely on vehicles for operation. In this Budget the Government have taken a wide range of steps to help working people across the country, including in my constituency: a wage rise for 200,000 Scots, record funding to Scotland, fixing the mineworkers’ pension scheme, protecting the pensions triple lock and, as I have said, committing funds to maintain the freeze on fuel duty that the Conservatives failed to do and which would otherwise have seen people like my constituent Aimee paying even more for fuel.

I am also pleased that this new Government have confirmed that they will implement two of the CMA’s recommendations: an open data scheme called fuel finder that will require all fuel retailers to share their prices in real time, and a road fuels monitoring function that will report on the state of competition in the road fuel market. Scenario modelling by the CMA suggests that pump prices could reduce by between 1p and 6p a litre as a result of these measures, helping to ensure that drivers get a fair deal for fuel across the UK. I am keen to hear from the Minister what more she thinks the Government can do specifically around ensuring a fair and functional fuel market, so that pricing is fair and not allowed to cluster into local price-fixing, as seen in Dunfermline.

Fuel prices are undoubtedly subject to a range of external factors, as we have seen over the years, but by increasing transparency and ensuring real competition between forecourts, we can have a functioning market where competition helps drive down prices. However, nothing is preventing fuel retailers from choosing to do the right thing right now and to stabilise fuel prices, to remove price clusters like we see in Dunfermline and to ensure that people such as Aimee are not financially penalised for where they live. I hope this Government will build on the excellent start they have made to protect working people and small businesses, and I hope we will be able to do more to stop fuel retailers profiteering on the back of hard-working people up and down the country.

21:29

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Sarah Jones)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on securing this debate, making such an excellent contribution and championing the needs of consumers, both in his constituency and across the UK, where so many people have the same struggles.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the important matter of the road fuel market. This Government are committed to fixing the foundations of the economy, delivering change by protecting working people and rebuilding Britain. It cannot be the case that fuel retailers register record profits and do not pass on savings when the burden is being unduly felt by hard-working families and businesses. That is why I am so grateful for my hon. Friend’s story about Aimee. Her story is one that I suspect is familiar to many other MPs from their constituencies. We are committed to supporting people with the cost of living and the cost of fuel.

I agree with my hon. Friend that, for so many, vehicles are more than just a means of transport; they are a lifeline. They play an integral role in connecting working people, families, communities and businesses, especially in rural areas. In the case of young people, including Aimee, their car is a means to forge a career and earning meaningful, well-paid work. This Government are committed to delivering for drivers, but also providing a range of transport options to make it possible that people such as Aimee should not have to worry about how they get to work.

That is why this Government made the decision at last week’s Budget to freeze fuel duty for a further year, which I know my hon. Friend has welcomed. I commend his dedication to campaigning against high fuel prices and for families, working people and small businesses to get a fairer deal on fuel across his constituency and Scotland. It is imperative that we have a well-functioning, transparent and competitive road fuel market. We want to ensure that drivers can get a fair price for their fuel, and that fuel retailers remain transparent and do not overcharge. We expect all fuel retailers to pass on any savings at the pump.

As my hon. Friend set out, the Competition and Markets Authority published its road fuel market study in July 2023, and it found that competition across the retail market had weakened. The CMA found problems in relation to three aspects of the retail market: national, local and motorway.

At a national level, the CMA found that retail margins had risen significantly since 2019, with the supermarket retailers following a similar trend of increased margins on fuel. The historic price leaders in the market—primarily Asda, but also Morrisons to some extent—had taken a less aggressive approach to pricing and had significantly increased their margins over recent years. The rest of the fuel retailers took a passive approach and followed that trend.

At a local level, the CMA found significant price differences between local areas, with lower prices at a forecourt typically associated with having a supermarket competitor nearby. I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about that and recently raised it with the Leader of the House at business questions, as he has done today in this debate by sharing Aimee’s experience.

On motorway pricing, the CMA found that drivers without access to fuel cards, which account for 20% to 25% of fuel sales on motorways, were paying significantly more to fill up at a motorway service area than they would elsewhere, due to limited competitive pressure.

As a result of those factors, the CMA found that drivers have been paying more than would otherwise have been the case. It is estimated that the financial impact of the 3% increase in average supermarket fuel margin from 2019 to 2022 resulted in a combined additional cost of around £900 million for customers of the four supermarket fuel retailers in 2022 alone. That is equivalent to approximately £75 million a month for this period.

While fuel prices are now a lot lower than at the all-time peak in July 2022, weakened competition persists. The CMA’s latest monitoring update in July this year estimated that the increase in retailers’ fuel margins compared with 2019 resulted in increased fuel costs for drivers in 2023 of over £1.6 billion. Weak competition is still failing consumers; that is hugely concerning. The price of petrol and diesel is an important issue. When prices are high, the impacts are felt by everyone. We expect all fuel retailers to pass on any savings at the pump.

As my hon. Friend said, to address these issues, the CMA made recommendations for the Government to implement an open data scheme for fuel prices, requiring retailers to share their prices on a real-time basis and allow drivers to be better informed on prices and easily compare prices, and to launch an ongoing monitoring function for the retail market to assess how well competition is working. The Government accepted those recommendations.

On the CMA’s first recommendation, as part of the Budget last week, we confirmed that we will implement a statutory open data scheme called fuel finder. It will require all retail petrol filling stations in the UK to report prices and when a fuel becomes unavailable within 30 minutes of a change. The data will be shared openly and freely to third parties so that it can be incorporated into their price comparison websites or apps, sat-navs and other consumer-facing products that consumers can use. Fuel finder will empower drivers to compare prices more easily and make more informed decisions on where to buy their petrol and diesel. That will increase pressure on fuel retailers to compete strongly to attract consumers by lowering their prices or improving their services at the forecourt.

The Government are committed to implementing fuel finder as quickly as possible. We will begin procurement for the fuel finder aggregator in early-2025. The Data (Use and Access) Bill that the Government have introduced will provide the legislative basis to set up fuel finder. Subject to parliamentary timings, we aim to launch fuel finder by the end of 2025.

On the CMA’s second recommendation, it will receive statutory information-gathering powers through the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 to undertake the permanent monitoring function. We are aiming to commence those provisions by January 2025. The CMA will be able to assess and monitor the state of competition in the retail market, both nationally and locally, provide ongoing scrutiny of prices and advise the Government if further intervention is needed to protect consumers.

The transition from fossil fuel to zero carbon vehicles is likely to lead to further risks of weakening competition in the remaining fossil fuel-based road fuels market. The transition is likely to be felt particularly by less well-off consumers and those living in rural areas. The CMA will be able to monitor the market through the transition and benefit consumers by ensuring that the market continues to function properly.

The CMA will therefore publish an annual report on the state of competition in the sector, three shorter updates on prices, costs and margins, and information on price trends across the UK and over time. Taken together, fuel finder and the CMA monitoring function will reinforce each other in providing a new source of competitive pressure in favour of greater competition in the road fuel retail sector.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

One of the interesting things brought to my attention by residents in Harrogate and Knaresborough is that while we are quite rural, being on the periphery of North Yorkshire, there is an aspect about being an area with tourists, along with higher housing and other costs more generally. When we are talking about trying to reduce fuel prices, can the Minister give any further information on what consideration will be given to regional and inter-regional inequalities in pricing?

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That is why we need to start monitoring the situation properly. When we all have access to that real-time data and can understand exactly what is happening—the CMA can be monitoring that and reporting to the Government—the Government can say, “Actually there is a more systemic problem here that we need to tackle. We need to make more interventions.” The Government stand ready to look to do those things, but the first stage of having the data available so that we understand properly what is going on will help us to do that.

Fuel prices are inevitably uncertain and sensitive to wider global factors, but our published impact assessment estimates that increasing transparency and encouraging competition between petrol filling stations could result in fuel cost savings for drivers totalling £7.7 billion over 10 years. That amounts to savings of 1p to 6p per litre at the pump. I am sure that my hon. Friend and others will agree that that would be welcome.

In addition, at the Budget the Chancellor announced that the Government are extending the temporary 5p cut to fuel duty rates for a further 12 months, until 22 March 2026. Alongside that, the Government will not increase 2026 rates in line with the retail price index, or RPI. Taken together, that is a tax cut worth £3 billion in 2025-26. The freeze in fuel duty will save the average car driver £59 in 2025-26. These actions have been welcomed by stakeholders such as the RAC and the AA.

Let me assure the House and my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to delivering for drivers. Our ultimate goal is to increase the levels of transparency for consumers and encourage fuel retailers to become more competitive. That way, consumers will send the clearest signal to them that they will not pay extortionate prices when given a range of options to choose from. We are confident that these measures will help facilitate a competitive road fuels retail market, increase price transparency and protect consumer interests. I thank hon. Friend again for securing this important debate.

Question put and agreed to.

21:35

House adjourned.