National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Committee of the whole House & 3rd reading
Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sandher]

I thank the right hon. Member for his incredibly kind words. For me, this is actually rather simple. I follow the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast, which goes through the Treasury policy costing and gets signed off. Those are the numbers I look at, and that is the money that will come in.

We are raising the money, as set out in those forecasts, in a fair way to invest in our future prosperity. We are using that money to build the homes that we need. In the mid-1990s, it took a young person around three years to save for a deposit. Now it is over 14 years, and in London it is nearly 30. That is why nearly half of young people are living at home with their parents, and why we are investing the tax revenue from the measures that we are discussing in the affordable homes programme. That means more homes for young people.

We are also using this money to create good jobs. The idea that someone could leave school and get a decent wage left our nation long ago. There are low-paid and insecure service jobs for some, but many are unable to get a job at all. Today, around 15% of young people are not in education, employment or training. Our warm homes plan, which will upgrade 300,000 homes, will also create tens of thousands of good jobs.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Analysis shows that this measure will hit the low paid and the young hardest. It will not help young people to get all the things that the hon. Gentleman describes, because they are the group who will find things most difficult as a result of it.

[Dr Sandher]

The young and the lowest paid work in the smallest businesses. Some analysis, including that from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, does not include these measures, and does not have matched employer-employee datasets. Indeed, Paul Johnson admitted as much when he came before the Treasury Committee.

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[David Chadwick]

The Liberal Democrats agree that the country’s finances are in a mess thanks to the previous Conservative Government. However, we do not agree that increasing national insurance is the way to address the problem, as doing so will undermine efforts to improve public services across the United Kingdom. For example, last month Care Forum Wales issued a stark warning that the rise in national insurance could cause a collapse in the social care system in Wales, creating a £150 million funding gap. Social care in Wales is already on its knees. Over the past four years, 40 Welsh care homes have closed. If yet more are forced out of business due to increased costs, we will have even fewer social care spaces available. We know that the scenes of ambulances left queueing for hours outside our hospitals are the result of them being unable to discharge patients due to shortcomings in social care.

It is not just care homes that are affected, but primary care too. Our GPs, dentists and pharmacies will suffer from this tax rise. A local GP practice in my constituency told me that it will have to cut one day of practice nurse time and one day of GP time from April 2025. That is a direct result of the projected £30,000 increase in its national insurance bill, alongside an overall lack of funding for GPs. A second surgery is projected to have an increase in its NI bill greater than £100,000 in April 2025. Both are clear that without an exemption for health and social care providers, the NHS in Wales could face collapse. It already has the worst outcomes of any nation across the United Kingdom.

Charities and local authorities will suffer too from this decision. In my constituency, the chief executive officer of Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations has stated that the national insurance increase will

“place considerable financial pressure on voluntary sector organisations, many of whom are crucial partners in delivering essential services.”

That is the reality of the decision taken by the Government to use such a blunt tool to try to fix the nation’s finances. Many of my constituents are asking why Labour has chosen to go after the small businesses, charities, and health and social care providers rather than target the big banks, the oil and gas giants, or the social media giants. I urge the Government to reconsider their decision to raise income in this manner and to make exemptions for the health and social care sectors as well as for charities.

[Sammy Wilson]

The outcome of the debate is of course inevitable: we know that when we go through the Lobby, we will be smashed by the overwhelming strength on the Government side, not because their arguments are strong but because of the parliamentary arithmetic. I suspect that even the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), who indicated in her speech that this measure will hit especially labour-intensive services that employ low-paid people and are vital to the smooth running of the economy, will walk through the Lobby with the Government. Some people might say, “Is that not just the politics of despair?” It is important that the arguments made are at least challenged, despite the fact that, because of the parliamentary arithmetic, it may not come to anything.

I do not actually have a political point to score here, because the DUP will never be the alternative Government in this place—though the country is the worse for it. I therefore hope that all the predictions made here today and by independent bodies that have looked at the impact of the Budget are wrong. I hope that we do not find that small employers have to go out of business, that recruitment goes down, that the real wages of those who are employed—especially at the lower end of the wage spectrum—are cut, and that the services that are so vital to the health service are impacted on. I hope that all those things do not happen. I hope that economic growth is not impacted by it, but all the economic evidence, the economic logic and the forecasts made indicate that the arguments made against this measure by Opposition Members are correct.

[Dan Tomlinson]

My understanding is that the Office for Budget Responsibility says that growth will be higher in the short term, broadly unchanged over five years and higher in the long term.

[Sammy Wilson]

We have seen over the last five months that growth has already been impacted. Of course, the OBR has indicated that in two and three years’ time, growth will be impacted negatively as well. I do not think that one can hide behind those arguments. As I said, I hope that I am wrong, but I suspect that all the economic logic on the impact of this measure and what we are already hearing from employers indicate that that is not the case.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The reality is that those who own businesses in my constituency tell me that they will have to look at reducing wages and reducing numbers. Because of the Government’s policy, those working in doctors’ surgeries will have to look at a reduction in numbers as well. Whether Government Members like it or not, this measure will impact on small and medium-sized businesses and on GP surgeries. That is the reality. The Government are to blame for a recession—there really is talk about it. If a recession comes, the Labour party will be responsible.

[Sammy Wilson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his short speech to back up the points I have been making.

Let me look at some of the arguments presented today. The first is that the Bill will help to fix the NHS. I will not go into the arguments already made, but Members have made it clear that the NHS depends on primary services and, once people have gone through hospital, being able to discharge them into the community. The businesses that provide those services will be impacted by these tax changes. I am sure that there is not a Member here who does not already see that hospital beds are being blocked because there is insufficient capacity. People go into hospital and get mended but still need some respite before they go home, but the NHS cannot find places for them. If that is true now, then the situation will be even worse once these tax increases impact those businesses.

A&E is inundated with people who cannot get GP appointments. If the Government hit GPs, as has been outlined eloquently today, those services will be blocked and not available. Where do people go? They go to A&E. The Bill is meant to help the NHS, yet all the evidence from the people who support it and are part of the supply line say otherwise.

The Minister previously indicated that the people whose services are commissioned from the NHS can renegotiate those services and the payments for them. The very fact that the NHS is in difficulty and is having to be exempt from these national insurance changes is an indication that when they go with the bowl, they will be told that the cupboard is bare and no support will be given.

The second argument made today is that we need these changes to restore trust in politics, even though it was promised that working people would not be impacted. When evidence was given to the Treasury Committee, what did the representative from the Institute for Fiscal Studies say? They said that these changes will affect every working person. We cannot hide behind the argument that it is being done for the good of trust in politics. In fact, it will undermine trust in politics.

Another argument that was made is that we have no choice. The Government already made choices, even before this Budget. They chose to spend money even when they knew there was a black hole. They were spending the money that they want to raise from these national insurance contributions on wage increases, quangos and other things. Recently, they will not even tell us how much they are spending. The Energy Secretary went to COP and came back and told us of a £300 billion bill coming down the road for our sin of industrialising in the past, and he will not tell us how much we will have to pay. We gave away the Chagos islands, and we are going to pay for that but it is secret.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

I am enjoying listening to the right hon. Member. He is an esteemed former Finance Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, so I defer to his experience. He is setting out his opposition to the measures in the Bill. Now that he has referenced the black hole, can he tell us what he would do to address the legacy of the previous Government?

[Sammy Wilson]

This is a mentality—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I, too, enjoy listening to the right hon. Gentleman, but it would really help if he could continue to speak to the Bill at hand, and not make broader comments.

[Sammy Wilson]

The mentality is that with these national insurance increases we are imposing more taxes on small businesses and on all the sectors I have spoken about. I would ask the hon. Gentleman what spending decreases could have been looked at—have any productivity impositions been put on the public sector, for example? That should be the answer, rather than asking, “Who should we tax to pay for the black hole?” Instead, we should be asking how we can reduce and reprioritise the things that we do; looking at some of the things the Government do at present that they do not need to do, or that they could do better, or that they could save money on.

I listened with bemusement to the hon. Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson), who was relieved by a survey in The Guardian in which more than 50% of those surveyed were quite happy with this tax. If there are so many Guardian readers happy to pay more taxes, I am sure the Scottish National party would love them all to move to Scotland, because it might solve some of the problems they have. These are the kinds of strained arguments that we have had from Government Members.

They know the impacts the Bill will have. I am sure they are having the same conversations with their constituents as I have had with the people who have spoken to me in my constituency office—the small businesses, those in the hospitality industry, the GPs and those in the care sector and the charitable sector, who have come to me and told me the impact it will have on their organisation. I do not believe we can run away from this, despite what will happen when we vote later today.

I do not share the optimism of the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) that somehow little cabals will form on the Government Benches—that they will all start whispering, and maybe 10 of them will go to see the Chief Whip, and then next week it will be 20, and then, by the time there are 50 of them going to see the Chief Whip, this will all change. I do not share that optimism. What I do hope, however, is that the predictions that have been made about the Bill will finally resonate with the Chancellor, and we will see a change in policy.

[Carla Lockhart]

In my constituency and that of my right hon. Friend, agrifood manufacturing is a big business base and a big sector. As he will know, many agrifood businesses are saying that these changes will increase their bill by £50,000, £60,000 or £100,000. On top of the death tax for family farms, that will absolutely decimate our agrifood sector. I urge the Government to pull back from this measure; otherwise, we will see the cornerstone of our economy destroyed.

[Sammy Wilson]

Of course, agrifood is another sector that I had not mentioned, along with hospitality, food processing, all the charitable sectors and some that are supporting the health industry—all are affected by it; they cannot escape it. I believe the impact will be far worse than what the Government are hoping for. Of course, as a result of the side effects of this measure, the revenue that is hoped for might not even be obtained.

[Adam Jogee]

For accuracy, I want to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that I am far more likely to be seen reading the Antrim Guardian than The Guardian.

[Sammy Wilson]

I am pleased to hear it. I certainly do not read The Guardian, and I certainly do not share the view, held by some of its readers, that we should pay more taxes.

In closing, the Government have a huge responsibility to tax wisely and to spend wisely, and I do not think they have got that equation right. In fact, they are spending recklessly in many areas, and taxing recklessly as well. That will impact on their long-term objectives, but it will also impact on the lives of our constituents day to day.

Finance Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I believe that it is fair that the oil and gas industry makes a reasonable contribution to the energy transition. We need to ensure that during the transition from oil and gas, which will play a key role in our energy mix for years to come, the industry contributes to the new, clean energy of the future. The way to have a responsible, managed transition is to work with the industry and make sure that it makes a fair contribution, but to not shy away from making that transition at the scale and pace needed.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Let me try to understand the Minister’s logic. First, he recognises that we will need oil and gas. Secondly, he is going to tax oil and gas companies. Thirdly, he is telling them that his Government are creating an environment in which there is no future for oil and gas, but he still expects them to invest. Where is the logic?

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[Harriet Cross]

I recognise that, which is why it is so important that we protect the jobs and the investment. The companies in our supply chain have the skills and expertise that will drive the transition, as will the investment that comes in, and that is why we need to keep them.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Lady makes a good point about the mobility of investment in the oil and gas industry. Is it not ironic that, since we will need oil and gas, if we tax companies on production in the United Kingdom, they will simply produce elsewhere, other Governments will get the revenue from the tax on that production and we will pay more for imports?

[Harriet Cross]

Exactly. There must be a balance between production and demand—I will come to demand later. There is no point reducing our domestic production while our demand stays the same, because we will only fill the gap with oil and gas from abroad, which is produced with a higher carbon intensity in poorer working environments, where overseas jobs and investment will take precedence over investment at home. It makes no sense that while we are using oil and gas—the Minister himself confirmed that we will be for a while—we do not prioritise taking it from our own North sea domestic basins.

New clause 3 also asks for a review on capital expenditure and investment in the UK. In Scotland alone, oil and gas contributed £19 billion of gross standard volume. In the UK, it contributed £27 billion. A 2022 report by Experian showed that for every £1 million of investment by the oil and gas industry, 14 jobs and £2.1 million of GVA are added. This industry is blatantly a net benefit to the UK and the Exchequer, and one in which we should encourage investment and capital expenditure, not an environment where the returns do not justify the risk of investment.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies) said, the OBR’s own figures show that capital expenditure will fall by 26%, and therefore production of oil by 6.3% and gas by 9.2%, because of these changes. We must ask, can the UK afford this? Maybe those were the parameters that the Exchequer and the Treasury are looking for, if they see them as allowable. But if that is the case, what assessment has been made of the impact on the economy and jobs across the UK?

The OEUK has put the projected drop in production down to a rapid decline due to underinvestment over the decade. Under new clause 3, we can assess the impact of the changes to the EPL and head this off to begin with because, as I said, it is important that while we have demand, we have production. It has been confirmed that we will need oil and gas in the UK for years to come, but through the changes to the EPL in the Bill, in particular clauses 15 and 16, which increase the EPL by 3% and remove the investment allowances, the Government are choosing to make our homegrown domestic energy sector so uncompetitive that current investment falls away and future investment is no longer on the cards.

We cannot afford to lose investment because, as I said, it will drive the transition. It is so important that it is protected now, to help us bring the transition forward quickly and efficiently into the future. Clauses 15 to 18 were introduced without adequate consultation on the impact assessment. New clause 3 simply asks for proper scrutiny of their impact. If the Government are confident in their approach, why resist a responsible request for transparency? My Gordon and Buchan constituents, and people in Scotland working in the oil and gas sector and across the UK, deserve to understand how these changes will impact their livelihoods.

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[Sammy Wilson]

The Government have set a number of objectives that they wish to achieve over the next five years. Central to those objectives are growth, highly paid jobs, energy security, and increased investment. However, when I look at clauses 15 to 17, I ask myself, “Have the Government gone mad?” They are undermining the very objectives that they are seeking to achieve through their policy of taxation, a policy that I believe is driven more by green ideology and by prejudice against some high-earning companies than by any economic logic. The economic logic of these proposals, and indeed the predictions made by those who have fed in the data and the information about them, indicate that, at least in our major oil and energy industry, investment will go down, production will go down, and highly paid jobs will go down.

The hon. Member for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang) said that hers was the party that was interested in ordinary workers. As has already been pointed out, no Scottish Labour Members are taking part in the debate. I suggest that the 100,000 workers in Scotland who depend on the oil and gas industry feel abandoned today because there is no one here to defend them—although I have to say that if I were a Scottish Member I might not want to stick my head over the parapet, defend measures such as these, and then have to go back to my constituents to explain. I suspect that they will go through the Lobby and vote for those measures, but—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley (Imogen Walker) is opening her arms and saying that she is from Scotland. I look forward to hearing her speak later in the debate in defence of these measures, which will cost jobs.

We have heard that those jobs will be replaced by highly paid, skilled jobs in the renewables industry, but there is little evidence of that so far. Indeed, if we look at the sources of the materials and the providers of, for instance, wind turbines, we see that the skilled jobs are not in Britain. We are making ourselves dependent on countries such as China which have control of the earth metals and valuable metals that are required to provide the necessary equipment for the renewables industry.

[Mr Snowden]

The right hon. Member has touched on an important point. Meeting the Government’s 2030 target and creating the green jobs to which he has referred will require two technologies that have not yet been tried and tested at scale, carbon capture and battery storage. Why would we gamble such an important 100,000-job industry in favour of technologies that have not even been tried and tested at scale?

[Sammy Wilson]

It is not just that they have not been tried and tested. There is also an acceptance—indeed, it is the Government’s own stated position—that even with those technologies, we will be reliant on, and will need, oil and gas not until 2030 and not even until 2040, but beyond 2050. If we do not extract as much oil and gas from our own resources here in the United Kingdom, where will we get it from? We will get it from abroad, which brings us to the issue of energy security.

The places where energy is likely to be produced will not be stable countries, countries that will always be favourable towards us, or countries that are ruled by rational rulers. It will come from countries where rulers are irrational, and take political decisions about who they do or do not trade with on a whim. The idea that we will rely on fossil fuels until well beyond 2050 but not produce them ourselves—in fact, we are going to discourage companies from producing them in the United Kingdom, even though we know that we have the resources—and somehow or other we will still guarantee security of supply, and security of energy, for our constituents is just madness.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I have a very simple question to ask the right hon. Gentleman: does he believe that climate change is happening and that we need to get to net zero by 2050, or does he believe it is all a hoax?

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[Sammy Wilson]

Only a fool would say that climate change is not happening. Climate change has occurred in all the time that the earth has been in existence. Of course it happens, and of course it is happening. The hon. Lady asks me a question to which I think anybody could give an easy answer. Yes, climate change is happening, but does that mean that we have identified all the sources of the change in our climate? Does it also mean that we should distort our economy, in such a way as she would suggest, to try to make changes to the world’s climate, especially given that other countries are not making any changes to their economy and are not following our lead? They are simply ignoring us and doing what they believe is best for their own economies.

The second point I want to make is that we are leaving ourselves open to a situation in which companies that we need to invest in energy production will not do so. The OBR has made that quite clear, but even if it had not made its predictions, economic logic should make us understand that if we take investment allowances away from people and tax them, they will have less money to invest.

The Minister makes a great point: by putting all these measures on the statute book, he creates certainty for the industry. He does create certainty, because anybody looking at the Bill knows for certain what the future entails: they are going to be taxed until the pips squeak, so they will look for other places to go and make their investment. He argues that putting out a tax plan somehow gives assurance to companies, but sometimes it confirms their prejudice that Britain will not be a place where they have a future, or where they wish to invest.

I turn to the third impact of these measures, building on a point made by the hon. Member for Earley and Woodley. The Government’s whole approach is to tax oil and gas companies, get money, and help working people by putting it into schools and so on. But the predictions are that we will not get more revenue, because if there is less production, there is less tax to be paid. If there is less tax to be paid, the Government have less revenue to invest in the things that hon. Members on both sides of the House would wish them to invest in. Where does that tax go? It will go to foreign countries, because that is where production will take place and where the oil companies will be taxed. They will get taxed where they make their profits. If they are not making any profits in the United Kingdom, they will not pay any revenue in the United Kingdom. They will take their production and tax revenue elsewhere.

There does not appear to be any economic logic to this proposal, other than that the oil companies are seen as bad so the Government have to tax them, even though they are taxed heavily already, and that the Government want to ensure that we have this transition to net zero, even though we know that we will still need the product that the oil companies produce for many decades into the future and we will be turning our back on that production in the United Kingdom.

If the Government are so sure that this cunning plan is going to work—I think Baldrick would have been embarrassed by this cunning plan, I have to say—they should not fear any examination of it. They should welcome it. In fact, maybe once the assessment is done, they will be able to point to red faces on the Opposition side of the House. If I were as certain as the Minister is that his plan was going to work, I would be saying, “Right, we’ll do the assessment and we’ll make you eat your words.” I suspect that the reason that new clause 2 will be rejected today is that the red faces and the eating of words are going to be on the Government’s side of the House. Unfortunately, the people who will suffer will be the hundreds of thousands of people facing rising fuel bills, the 100,000 workers who will face redundancies and an industry that we very much need in this country going into decline.

[Dave Doogan]

On a point of order, Madam Chair. The last but one speaker, the hon. Member for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang), called me out regarding my perfectly legitimate comment that there was not a single Scottish Labour MP in here. I chose my words carefully, taking part in this debate. I appreciate that there is a Labour Member here who, unless I am very much mistaken, is fulfilling the role of a Parliamentary Private Secretary and therefore will not be taking part in the debate. I ask your guidance, Madam Chair, on whether it is legitimate to call somebody out in a debate and not give them an opportunity to respond. I tried to intervene on the hon. Member for Earley and Woodley to correct the record, but she refused to give way. How can we correct the record to underline the fact that there is not a single Scottish Labour MP in here taking part in this debate on Scotland’s energy?

Oral Answers to Questions

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance to communities of having access to cash and banking services, which is why we have committed to rolling out more banking hubs across the country—100 by the end of this year and a total of 350 through our commitment. We want to work with local communities across the country to deliver that, so that all areas, like Ossett, can benefit from a local banking hub.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The heavy burden of business rates and the national insurance contributions that the Government are going to impose on small businesses is taxing businesses to death. Does the Minister recognise that in doing so, he is going to cause unemployment, higher inflation and lower growth, and that we are heading for higher taxes in future because of the downward economic spiral?

[James Murray]

As the right hon. Gentleman will see in the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill that we will be debating this afternoon, we have doubled the employment allowance to help small businesses to employ up to four people earning the national living wage without paying a penny in national insurance. That is dedicated support to help those small businesses, in the context of what, I admit, is a tough decision. If the right hon. Gentleman has a chance to contribute to the debate, he might say whether he supports the extra public services funding that comes from those difficult decisions.

National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, but eligibility for the employment allowance is not changing. It is the same as it was before, and we are maintaining that provision. On protecting small businesses and charities, the crucial thing for us is the doubling of the employment allowance. In individual cases, I would recommend that organisations get the right advice, but the eligibility criteria for the employment allowance will not change as a result of the Bill.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Murray]

I will, one more time, and then I will make progress.

[Sammy Wilson]

Is not the fact of the matter, despite what the Chancellor has said, that businesses have been abandoned? There is no safety net for them. To use the words of the Chancellor,

“What we have done with the increase in employer national insurance is leave it to the business to work out”.

Businesses are bearing the brunt of this, and it is really too bad. As far as the Chancellor is concerned, they will have to grin and bear it.

[James Murray]

I am sorry, but there are tough decisions that we have to take, and there are difficult decisions that businesses will have to take. The only people to have abandoned businesses were the Conservatives when they were in government. They abandoned any pretence of economic stability, fiscal responsibility, and supporting businesses to invest and grow. That is the difference between the Opposition and the Government.

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[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Bill represents a major breach of the promises made by the Government when they stood for election. The previous speaker, the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Dan Tomlinson), was right: people should be cynical, and people are cynical about the way in which politics is sometimes conducted in this country. He talked about his amazement at the anger expressed from the Opposition Benches. I assure the House that, were the situation reversed—with the Conservative party on the Government Benches, introducing measures that the Office for Budget Responsibility, the IFS and everybody else said would hurt ordinary working people—Labour Members would be incandescent with rage.

That is the whole point. A promise was made: “We will not tax working people.” At the end of the day, when people have to pay for their goods, their shopping and so on, it really does not matter to them whether their income has been reduced as a result of direct taxation being taken out of their pay packets in the form of income tax, or whether it has been reduced indirectly by taking the money from their employer. In turn, as the IFS, the OBR and others have said, that will impact on real wages. As the IFS pointed out, it will especially impact the real wages of the lowest paid—that is the whole point. We can play with words, but the truth of the matter is that a tax increase has been imposed on employers, and the OBR says that in 76% of cases, the impact on wages will be felt by ordinary working people. That is a broken promise, no matter how we look at it.

The Government’s excuse has been that they will try to alleviate that impact. People have talked about different sectors so far in the debate, and I am not going to go through all of them, but let us just look at two examples. The first is small businesses. We are told that they can deal with the impact because they are geniuses. What will they do? They will increase productivity. Funnily enough, the public sector is to be protected—the Government are not looking for any increases in productivity there.

We are told that small businesses will find ways of decreasing their expenditure, but funnily enough, the Government are actually looking for ways of spending more money. They are spending £9 billion on a quango, Great British Energy. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero came back from COP29 and told us that the Government were now committed to giving £300 billion away to foreign Governments for climate change, but he would not even tell us how much the Government were going to pay out to those Governments. For the nationalisation of the railways, again, there is an open cheque book. We are told that there are no alternatives. Businesses have to find alternatives, but the Government happily spend the revenue that they are taking.

Then, of course, the social care sector and GPs are told, “Go to the NHS and renegotiate your contract.” The NHS does not have to pay the national insurance rise itself—it is exempt. Do we really believe that when the GPs and the social care sector go to the NHS and say, “We want to renegotiate our contracts,” the NHS is going to say, “Oh, you need money for national insurance? There you are—take it.” All the excuses have been given today: we are told that there is no money, but it can be spent on other things. We are told that the social care sector and GPs can renegotiate, and that the private sector will be inventive. Let us see some invention by the Government, rather than broken promises.