Government Record on Education, Employment and Welfare

Baroness Gill Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gill (Lab)]

My Lords, parliamentary tradition prevents me using the precise words required to describe the inheritance that the previous Government left behind on the topics of this Motion. Allow me to remind the House of that baseline: a classroom workforce in freefall, an economy addicted to insecure labour and a welfare state that ran up a staggering £2.8 billion bill. Nevertheless, I welcome and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, for the opportunity to set up this Government’s record of achievement. We have had to step in to make good the severe macroeconomic impacts of a botched Brexit deal, the real impact of which has been felt up and down the country, permanently fracturing our supply chains, driving up core costs, squeezing our public finances and giving us the cost of living crisis. They built the crisis on their watch, yet in just two years this Government have systematically reversed their negative trends and delivered measurable progress.

Let us look at the hard numbers in education. The noble Baroness’s party oversaw a catastrophic depletion of our classrooms, leaving just under half a million full-time equivalent teachers with real-terms wages slashed by 9%. This Government have not just lamented the crisis: they have fixed the system. They have set an ambitious target to recruit 6,500 new, expert teachers in critical shortage subjects such as maths and physics. In just two years, the data shows that we have already successfully delivered over 70% of that workforce. Furthermore, this Government have funded the national rollout of free breakfast clubs in primary schools—although I will not go into that: my noble friend Lady Lister has spoken amply on that topic—proving that opportunity in Britain is once again a basic right and not an afterthought.

In employment, the previous Government built an entire economic model on low-wage, insecure, low-productivity labour. That allowed exploitative zero-hours contracts to explode. I spoke to countless people in my old West Midlands constituency who shared the reality of zero-hours contracts with me. They did not know whether they were going to work that day, they did not know how long they would be working and they did not know how much they would be paid. Try to sort out your childcare, or manage your weekly shop, with that reality. That is why this Government brought in the Employment Rights Act. In under 24 months, we have legally banned exploitative zero-hours contracts, instantly granting a statutory right to guaranteed hours to over 2 million workers.

My final couple of points are on welfare. The previous Government used the DWP to penalise vulnerability, pushing people into destitution. In two years, we have transformed the DWP into a genuine Department for Work, launched a £240 million Connect to Work scheme to move 100,000 people safely back into careers, and introduced a Right to Try guarantee. This Government did not create the post-Brexit fiscal headwinds, nor did we cause the decay of our public services, but we are fixing them. In two years, we have done more to restore education, worker security and basic human dignity than the previous Administration managed in over a decade. The data is quite clear. The reversal is under way and Britain is finally moving forward.