EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of the 2016 EU membership referendum on the UK.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this morning, Ms Butler. May I also congratulate myself on securing this debate? It came as a bit of a surprise to me. I thought that there would be an overwhelming clamour to secure a debate to celebrate the 10 years since the Brexit referendum. I thought people would be tripping over themselves to ensure that they could tell us about all the wonderful things that have happened. It would have been an opportunity to go wandering through the sunlit uplands to celebrate the dynamic economic growth and political stability that had been secured, the fact that immigration was under control, and all the wonders of our new-found freedoms.

Do you remember, Ms Butler? We were going to have our cake and eat it, we were going to secure the easiest trade deal in history, and of course we were going to take back control. From the lofty heights up there in the sunlit uplands, we could have peered down and admired all the shiny new hospitals that we had managed to build because of the £350 million we had saved weekly from the evil and wicked EU. Perhaps, in a more reflective moment, we could have thought back and wondered why we ever put up with those bendy bananas, the vacuum cleaners that lacked that extra Brexit suction, or EU lightbulbs that would not even light, and about how, thank goodness, the existential threat to the great British sausage had been removed and Brexit had saved us from all the barmy Brussels bureaucrats.

There are some anniversaries that we look forward to, such as birthdays and weddings, and some that invite solemn reflection, such as the end of wars, the passing of great men and women, and great historical events. Then, of course, there is the Brexit referendum anniversary, which somehow feels so different from all the other things that we mark. Brexit is a rather extraordinary anniversary to celebrate.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I will just finish this point. It is 10 years since we embarked on what has turned out to be one of the most self-defeating exercises in political and economic self-harm inflicted in modern political history—a bizarre, destructive and economically illiterate political project that has made everybody in this country so much worse off. On that note, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

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[Andrew Rosindell]

I am very confused. The hon. Gentleman seems passionate about independence for Scotland, so why does he not believe in independence for the whole United Kingdom?

[Pete Wishart]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman within a second that I am all for independence—but not for the bizarre notion that keeps on coming up that membership of the European Union means automatically losing independence. Tell that to the French, the Germans, the Italians or any of the other members of the European Union, who as far as I am concerned pretty much enjoy their own independence. That is what we want to do in Scotland.

In the 10 years since the Brexit referendum, we have had seven Prime Ministers. Even a new Labour Government with a majority of 172 have not been immune from the instability of the Brexit era, barely making it to the two-year mark before they had to replace their first Prime Minister.

Let us turn first to the economy. I am grateful, as always, to the House of Commons Library, which produced an excellent briefing for this debate. I really encourage colleagues to have a look at it. It is remarkably clear about the broad economic evidence. There is now substantial and significant consensus that the UK economy is smaller than it would have been had we remained in the European Union.

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[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely. We have had this issue for seven or eight years. I remember securing the first urgent question when it was recognised as a problem. We have had a long time to fix it. I see that the Minister is taking notes; one thing he could reassure the House on is that the music will move. Get it moving, because there is no reason why it should be stuck behind the English channel.

We are told that all this is happening—and I am afraid to say that we are going to hear it again today—because it is the wrong type of Brexit. Who knew? Apparently, it was the wrong deal. Variously, it was the wrong Government—the wrong everything—but the hard Brexiteers got everything they wanted. They got everything they asked for and more: no customs union, no freedom of movement, no single market, no European court jurisdiction, no EU institutions and no going back. What we have now is not an accidental form of Brexit that just happened to emerge out of the ashes. It was everything that they fought for decades to achieve. The conclusion is that there is no magic Brexit. There is no Brexit where we get all the benefits of membership without the obligations. There is no Brexit where we have frictionless trade without accepting that the rules are necessary for frictionless trade. There is no cake and eating it.

Lastly, there is the extraordinary position of this Labour Government. They know that Brexit is an absolute and utter disaster. There is no getting away from it. The evidence is right in front of them. I listened to the Prime Minister yesterday, and he was absolutely right to reference Brexit as one of the biggest issues that has damaged this country in the last 10 years. They know that our relationship with our largest trading partner is fundamentally broken, but they have tied themselves up in knots with these unnecessary and useless red lines. Instead of actually fixing the problem, they continue to tinker around the edges. There is a little veterinary agreement here, a little customs improvement there, a bit of mutual recognition, a bit of youth mobility, a bit of this, a bit of that—a bit of a big fat nothing, because that is what it is.

The Government have their reset plans, which I am pretty certain is what the Minister will almost exclusively tell us about, but they are nothing more than the same old tinkering.

[Andrew Rosindell]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already. Sorry, but lots of people wish to speak.

None of the Government’s plans solves the real problem, which is getting back into the EU. The British public are so far ahead of them on this, it is almost unbelievable. Rejoining the EU is by far the most popular option when presented to the British public. According to Ipsos, 58% of voters would back rejoining the bloc, with almost half supporting a new referendum after the next general election. Only 33% think that the UK should stay out. If only the Government had that in their manifesto, they would be an absolute shoo-in to continue in government maybe not just for the next Parliament, but for the one after that.

Not everything that has gone wrong in the UK in the last 10 years is down to Brexit—of course not. We have had covid, the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis, inflation and 14 years of the chaotic Tories to help make matters much worse. But Brexit is a slow puncture rather than a spectacular crash, and since 2016 we have had to navigate the increasingly difficult terrain of all these international difficulties with a flat Brexit tyre.

Brexit was sold as a moment when we would open our doors and regain our freedom, but all we have done is secure more paperwork. We were told that we would take back control, but immigration has skyrocketed to record levels. We were told that Brexit would free us from Brussels bureaucracy, but we have only created our own UK bureaucracy to deal with leaving the Brussels bureaucracy.

Perhaps the best thing that we can do today is remember what was promised and what was achieved. We in Scotland most definitely remember. We remember back in another referendum—the referendum on Scottish independence—being told that the only way to secure Scotland’s EU future was to vote to stay within the UK Union. What happened to that? Brexit has been an utter disaster. It is a shameless project that has made everybody worse off. Let us reflect on that again, and hopefully in 10 years’ time we will be back in the European Union enjoying the prosperity that we deserve.

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[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

I thank the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) for allowing us to debate this issue, 10 years on from the sovereign decision of the people of the United Kingdom to leave a political union—that is the important message that seems to evade most people in this Chamber today. We were not part of a simple trading arrangement: under the Maastricht treaty, which the Conservative Government of John Major signed us up to without a referendum, our sovereignty was handed away to a political union. When my parents voted to join a common market, or to stay in a common market, in the 1970s, that was about free trade; it was about co-operation and working together as neighbours. But over the years it became a political union, and our laws—the laws that we are elected to make—were overridden by a massive unelected bureaucracy in Brussels.

Our trade has to be global—

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

It is elected—it is a Parliament.

[Andrew Rosindell]

A Parliament that had no real power, as the hon. Member knows.

Our democracy and our historic constitutional rights and liberties were gradually being eroded. I want this country to be prosperous. The real prosperity in the world today does not come with a diminishing market in the continent. The global market is there for us to grab if we take that opportunity. Unfortunately, the political establishment of this country has failed in the last 10 years to grab the opportunities that being independent has given us.

Those in the civil service, those in government under Theresa May and the establishment in this country did everything they possibly could to derail Brexit. Under Theresa May’s agreement, we would have been half in and half out of the European Union. That would have been a disaster. Fortunately, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), myself and others voted against that deal, and gave us a Brexit that actually meant something.

The opportunities are there for Britain to take if we choose to do so. The alternative is to go back into a political union and be subjected to rules, laws, regulations, the euro—all the things that come with being in the European Union—and free movement. If the people of Iceland had the good sense to say no, then we should have the good sense to think of the long-term future of our country, retain our independence, never go back to the European Union, but maintain good relations and trade co-operation with our neighbours.

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[Mike Wood]

If we chart it over the last two decades, particularly against German performance, on almost any economic chart we look at, it would be almost impossible to pick out the point at which the UK left the European Union. It is impossible to say from looking at those charts that our economy has grown more slowly than Germany’s, because it has not; it has grown more quickly. Our trade has not been disrupted more than Germany’s—[Interruption.] It really has not; they track almost identically across that chart.

Thirdly, where Britain is succeeding, we are doing so precisely because of our post-Brexit freedoms. The UK digital and tech flat white economy now represents about 15% of GDP—larger than the entire domestic goods sector. As the Growth Commission highlighted, our tech sector is flourishing and leading Europe in artificial intelligence, precisely because it is unburdened by Brussels’ heavy-handed Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act and restrictive AI Act.

Instead of backing British enterprise, the Government are proposing to pursue unilateral dynamic alignment, shackling the 92% of British firms that do not trade with the EU to Brussels’s rulebook, surrendering our precision breeding advantages and hiking domestic carbon costs by linking our emissions trading scheme, which threaten to add up to £100 per tonne to fertiliser prices at a time when they are already crippling British farmers, while paying administrative fees to Brussels for the privilege.

That is an astonishingly one-sided bargain, a masterclass in the art of the bad deal. The lesson of the past 10 years is that national prosperity is built by businesses working across the UK, not subcontracted to the EU. The economic catastrophe prophesied in 2016 simply did not occur.

[Andrew Rosindell]

rose—

[Mike Wood]

I will give way briefly, as I am drawing to a close.

[Andrew Rosindell]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful and correct speech, offering the facts. Does he not regret that, in all those years of Conservative Government after we had left the EU, we did not seize the opportunities to be more radical, to ensure that the benefits of Brexit were properly realised? Does he also repudiate John Major’s Government for bringing in the Maastricht treaty, which created political union in the first place?

[Mike Wood]

It is one thing to look back over the past 10 years, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I plead that I was taking GCSEs in 1992 rather than paying attention to what John Major was doing. The next Conservative Government should certainly look at how to take better advantage of the freedoms available outside the European Union, because there are many opportunities. His Majesty’s Opposition will continue to champion our regulatory freedom, to back British innovation and resist any attempt to drag this country back into the EU’s regulatory orbit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Any death from suicide is a tragedy, as everybody across this House will know. We are bringing together students, bereaved families, universities and the NHS to strengthen the mental health support provided to students. We have also appointed a student support champion to drive improvement across our universities. The relevant Minister will be happy to discuss that and other matters with my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

Q7. I wonder if the Prime Minister has had the chance to study the election results in Havering: zero Labour councillors were elected in Romford, zero Conservative councillors were elected across Havering for the first time since 1964 and it is the first Reform UK London borough. That shows people’s disillusionment with the political establishment. In his final days as Prime Minister, can he do something for the people of Romford and give us the accident and emergency unit at Queen’s hospital that the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) said he would deliver, but failed to do?

[The Prime Minister]

We put record investment into the NHS to clear up the mess that the hon. Gentleman and others left behind. Since he brings up elections, I have studied the Reform candidate for Makerfield: a self-professed sexist who said women who get an abortion do it for “vanity purposes”, who encouraged people not to get the covid vaccine and who said Russia was “within its rights” to invade Crimea. Reform has nothing to offer but grievance and division yet again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens]

The simple fact is that those who oppose the building of renewable energy infrastructure risk blocking investment and job creation, while at the same time making their constituents’ bills more expensive. Upgrading and expanding the electricity network is not optional; is a national imperative and we cannot afford to delay—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked me a question, so he might want to listen to the answer.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

2. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the defence sector in Wales on the UK’s defence capabilities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Anna McMorrin)]

We are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, investing £270 billion over this Parliament. Our £50 million defence growth deal in Wales puts us front and centre to lead the way in 21st century autonomous defence technology. Alongside supporting our thriving defence sector, that will deliver thousands of skilled, well-paid jobs and help keep our country safe.

[Andrew Rosindell]

The Minister will be aware of the excellent potential of the defence sector in Wales. However, she will also be aware that the United Kingdom, under this Government, is woefully unprepared and uniquely vulnerable to global and geopolitical threats. What steps is she taking to ensure that her Department works with the Ministry of Defence in prioritising British firms in Wales over foreign suppliers so that we strengthen British capabilities and skilled Welsh jobs, rather than offshoring our security and our jobs to strategic competitors or, even worse, to our enemies?

[Anna McMorrin]

To be quite frank, the hypocrisy is astounding. It is—

Middle East

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I acknowledge the concern of my hon. Friend’s constituents, as many of our constituents will be concerned. That is why it is our duty to take measures to protect them first and foremost, and to de-escalate the situation.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

I hope the Prime Minister agrees that current events show how vital military infrastructure is in the middle eastern region of the world. However, at the very moment when Diego Garcia is relied on as a critical asset, the Prime Minister proposes to transfer sovereignty to Mauritius and to lease back the airbase for our use. Does he not realise what a catastrophic policy this is? Will he abandon this misguided plan and ensure that the Chagos islands remain under British sovereignty?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

Mr Speaker, there is obviously a great deal of interest on the Liberal Democrat Benches in their ten-minute rule Bill, which I look forward to reading in due course.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to help improve the cyber-security of national infrastructure.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Dan Jarvis)]

The Government recently introduced the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill to strengthen the resilience of UK critical national infrastructure. Yesterday, I visited BT, which has worked with the National Cyber Security Centre to block almost 1 billion attempts to access malicious content in just six months. In spring, the Government will publish a business-first national cyber action plan, and we have already engaged with over 400 stakeholders as part of its development.

[Andrew Rosindell]

The United Kingdom is increasingly and uniquely vulnerable to malicious cyber-activity targeting national infrastructure and democratic institutions, including Parliament itself. That poses a serious risk to our national security. Experts have warned of a critical data leak, a new scale of severe blackouts, transport disruption and even Government being brought to a halt. What action is the Minister’s Department taking to ensure that the Government are prepared and sufficiently resourced to meet this pernicious national security threat?

[Dan Jarvis]

I understand why the hon. Gentleman raises this issue, and he is right to do so. The Government take the threats we face incredibly seriously. That is one of the reasons why the Prime Minister took the decision back in September to ensure that the Security Minister sits across both the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, so we are better placed as a Government to co-ordinate our national security response in the areas the hon. Gentleman outlined. I can give him and the House an absolute assurance on the seriousness we attach to these issues. We take them very seriously and we are working at pace to address them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Hefin was a proud Welshman and a champion for Caerphilly. We send our love and support to his partner, Vikki, and his daughters, family and friends.

Wales has a thriving defence sector and I am delighted that it will host one of our new defence growth zones. That is investing £250 million to make defence an engine for jobs and growth across the United Kingdom. That is what we get when we have a Labour Government in both Cardiff and Westminster working together to deliver for Wales.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

Q11. My local borough commander in Romford tells me how much valuable police time is being wasted investigating trivial social media posts and non-crime hate incidents. Should the police not be patrolling our streets rather than moderating the internet? Will the Prime Minister commit to urgently updating the Public Order Act 1986 to reflect the realities of the digital age, so that our police are focused on tackling real crime and upholding freedom of speech, rather than suppressing it?

[The Prime Minister]

I have been clear on a number of occasions: I do want the police to concentrate on serious crime and on crime that matters most to our communities in each of our constituencies. I have said that before, and I say it again today.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

There are always arguments about age, but I agree with my hon. Friend the shadow Minister and I am glad we got rid of the ageist principle—there is nothing wrong with people over the age of 80, or indeed in their 70s—they are just as useful. Indeed, a lot of people in their 80s and 90s do a brilliant job, and some people in their 30s or 40s are completely useless—not, of course, in this Chamber. I think I have made my point.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I commend the Father of the House for everything he is saying; he sums everything up perfectly. This is constitutional vandalism, and it is destroying the continuity that has made this place so effective and so special for so many centuries. This is clearly being done with a political motivation, which I think is thoroughly wrong. If we make a constitutional reform, at very least the British people should have a say in a referendum.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Well, the Whip is looking at me. He wants me to sit down. My hon. Friend has made the point brilliantly, and I shall now sit down.

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[Mark Sewards]

I congratulate the hon. Lady for having so many friends in the other place. I could not agree with her more—it is almost as if she has read my speech and hence made her timely intervention.

[Andrew Rosindell]

If the hon. Gentleman agrees that the hereditary principle is wrong and that no one should be in this Parliament by dint of DNA, surely he is saying that we should abolish the monarchy. The Crown is part of this Parliament and Royal Assent is part of the legislative process. If we go by his principle, the hon. Gentleman is basically saying that the monarchy itself is no longer relevant. Is that what he is saying?

[Mark Sewards]

All I would say is, “Long live the King.” What we do with our hereditary peers today does not affect what we do with our monarchy. As I was saying, no one should serve in the other place and make our laws simply because of the family that they were born into. No one should—not them, not me, not my children and not theirs. That is a basic principle that I hope we can all get behind.

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[Jack Rankin]

My right hon. Friend is right. Our national story has brought us to a place where this House is rightfully dominant among the three parts of Parliament in exercising the sovereignty of the King in Parliament, but we should be careful of the wholesale execution of one of those arms. Let us be clear: that is what the unilateral removal of the hereditary peers would do. The other place without them is no more a House of Lords than my terraced house in Sunninghill is. A Cromwellian purge, it would leave that place the preserve of political cronies and failed advisers. Is that what we want? Is that progress?

The House of Lords today is difficult to justify, but it works. This place has the attention span of a TikTok-addled teenager, as we jump to half-hourly news cycles driven by Twitter and rolling news.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend is making the correct argument. The hereditary peerage in the House of Lords represents continuity in our country and wisdom throughout the ages. Most of the House of Lords is appointed, but that hereditary element is vital as part of the mix of our very successful parliamentary constitution.

[Jack Rankin]

My hon. Friend’s point is right, and I thank him for it.

We walk through the Division lobbies, directed by the Whips, often having had no time, because of the impossible juggling act, to develop real knowledge of the topic in question or to think through properly the implications. Some of the stuff that leaves this place with a massive majority might have well been written in crayon. Thank God for the other place. Do not remove long-serving public servants and outstanding legislators. Do not pick at the threads of our constitution. The other place is one of the parts of our constitution which works best. We should retain Lords amendment 1 and 8.

I talked of a tension, a conflict in my thinking. I have tried to articulate a deeply conservative instinct, but I also feel excitement, as I will explain. My view is that the British state is way off course, dangerously off course. It needs deep and radical change. To take one issue, immigration, almost nothing is now too radical to consider. Whether we look at the asylum system or legal migration, the radical change that the country needs will be of significant scale. None of that will be possible in the Blairite constitutional straitjacket that is at direct odds with our historic constitution.

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[Gareth Snell]

It is hard to overestimate the valuable contribution that the Cross-Bench peers make to the House of Lords, not least the number of retired members of the judiciary who come in to fulfil certain judicial or pseudo-judicial responsibilities. The hon. Gentleman probably has an element of a point that I would almost agree with: there is a conversation to be had about how we ensure that the Cross Benchers continue to have representation that reflects the breadth of the country and the skills that Parliament needs. Obviously, there is a role for the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which can make recommendations for new Cross-Bench peers. How that works going forward I am sure is something that will be considered.

Again, there will still be 151 Cross-Bench peers even after the number of hereditary peers have been expelled from the House. That is a large number of peers, all of whom bring an expertise to the House that should be looked at. If there are new Cross-Bench peers to come in, I am sure that the commission will make that recommendation.

The idea that the House of Lords will somehow cease to function by virtue of the immediate abolition of hereditary peers does not hold water or make sense. We should simply say, “We are going to have a clean break. Thank you very much for your service—we appreciate it. If you wish to come back to politics or to Parliament, you can be nominated to the House of Lords for a life peerage, or you can seek election to this House.” If the Conservative party really wanted to ensure that some of those hereditary peers were able to come back to this place, they could say, “We’re going to make sure you are our candidates” for the 25 safest Conservative seats—if there are 25 safe seats for any party these days. It could say, “You can make a valuable contribution to politics in a way that gives you a seat in one of the two legislatures.” There are ways of doing it that simply do not allow for the withering of the situation that we have.

[Andrew Rosindell]

What I am puzzled about is this: how does the abolition of these great people who have come to this place with a duty of service that they have inherited and served the country benefit the people of Stoke-on-Trent? How will our constituents benefit by this change to our constitution? Does the hon. Member really think that this country will be so much better for having got rid of our hereditary peers, who have such a great duty of service to our country?

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman poses a fair question. I would argue that having a ringfenced number of seats reserved almost exclusively for white men sends the wrong message to my constituents. I fully accept that there are Members of the House of Lords at whom my constituents can look and think, “They have done something spectacular with their lives.” [Interruption.] Before the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire jumps up, there are Members who have come in through the by-election process after making good contributions in their careers, and their being there does bring something, but I do not believe that my constituents would be diminished or harmed by their expulsion. I cannot see any justification for keeping 92 people in this legislature by virtue of appointments made many decades ago.

[Andrew Rosindell]

It is a small element.

[Gareth Snell]

It is a small element, as the hon. Gentleman says, but by that same logic, the removal of that small element will not have a big impact. We are grasping at straws.

Let me address the suggestion that this is an attack on the hereditary principle. The hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) is probably one Member of the House who understands quite well the role of the Earl Marshal. He will continue to be an officer of the House of Lords, and the role will still be intrinsically linked to the families of the Duke of Norfolk, but he will simply not be able to vote in Divisions or participate in debates. I do not believe therefore that this is necessarily an attack on the hereditary principle per se; it is simply about saying that there is no place for the hereditary principle in a modern-day democracy.

I will move on the point about giving out titles as rewards. I do not believe that the amendment is necessary to achieve the Conservative party’s aims, not least because the monarch, as the font of all honour, can create whatever titles and styles he likes, with whatever caveats he likes, through letters patent. It does not immediately mean that one has to become a Member of the House of Lords by virtue of having a life peerage if the letters patent say something different. I am sure that the shadow Paymaster General is well read up on the Wensleydale decision of 1856, when a life peerage was created for Sir James Parke but it was specified that he could not be a Member of the House of Lords. The principle of establishing titles and styles for reward and recognition without tying them to seats in the Lords already exists, so the amendment is entirely unnecessary.

My final point, which has not been the subject of much discussion—as it is not a party knockabout issue—relates to Lords amendment 4, on the capacity of colleagues in the House of Lords. It is clear that many Members of the House of Lords have served our country and their communities well, but some find themselves in old age and declining health. They deserve the dignity of being allowed to retire from that place without it becoming a story of capacity. The amendment, which was accepted by the Government and the Opposition in the Lords, is an important way of recognising that we can make small changes every day to the House of Lords, as the previous Government did on the ability to retire and take a leave of absence. This Government are ensuring that resignation can be granted for Members subject to power of attorney—that is an important change and I hope that it gets cross-party support.

To summarise what my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson) said, this legislation has been a long time coming and is part of the evolution of the House of Lords. The Opposition amendments do nothing to improve the Bill; they would simply slow the pace of reform and add bits that do nothing more than frustrate the passage of the Bill when it goes back to the other place. I urge the House to reject the Opposition amendments and to support the Government in bringing dignity to those who need to retire with capacity issues, so that we can progress with building a more modern and successful democracy.

Trade Negotiations

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

The United Kingdom is a leading advocate for human rights around the world, and we remain committed to the promotion of universal human rights. When we have concerns, they are raised directly with partner Governments, including at ministerial level. The horrific recent terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir was utterly devastating, and my thoughts remain with the victims, their loved ones and the people of India. It is, however, for India and Pakistan to find a lasting solution and resolution to the Kashmir dispute, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

Today’s news of a free trade agreement between the United Kingdom and India is wonderful—some of us have argued for greater free trade arrangements with Commonwealth countries for many years. Mr Modi, the Prime Minister of India, should be commended for adopting a free-market system that has brought wealth and prosperity to India, eliminating poverty and enabling India to work with countries like the United Kingdom. Will the Minister accept that none of this would have been possible had we not been sovereign and able to negotiate our own free trade agreements following our departure from the European Union? Was Brexit not the right thing to do?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about making Britain a clean energy superpower. We are committing £2.3 billion to support hydrogen projects, and I recognise the huge potential of South Dorset to become home to a storage hub. We are ensuring that public and private investment work together, which is exactly what the Crown Estate Act 2025 does, unlocking significant investment, boosting offshore wind and kickstarting economic growth.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

As the Leader of the Opposition has mentioned, the Prime Minister will meet today the family of our dear late colleague, Sir David Amess, who was so brutally murdered at his constituency surgery three and a half years ago. I plead with the Prime Minister to reverse the decision to deny the family a public inquiry, despite similar inquiries being held into other tragic instances. Will he please stop this shameful saga and heed the call from the Amess family—a heartbroken family—for a judge-led public inquiry into David’s death and the related failure of the Prevent programme?

[The Prime Minister]

May I acknowledge just how heartbroken they are? It is difficult to imagine what they have gone through and what they continue to go through. That is why it is very important that I meet them this afternoon, which I will, to discuss all the questions they want to raise with me. Sir David was a colleague respected and loved across the House. As I say, I absolutely understand how his family must feel about the tragic circumstances in which he died and everything that followed thereafter.

Income tax (charge)

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will try to be reasonably quick.

I pay tribute to the maiden speeches we have heard today, which were exceptional. In particular, I associate myself with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) when she said that she stands for working class life and communities, and will do everything she can for them. That is how I have seen my 28 years in this place, too.

I think I am probably the only person on the Labour Benches today who was here in 1997, so I want to say something to the Government and to all our Back Benchers. I was there when Labour came into office—I was elected in 1996, so I was here in ’97—and the same lack of humility shown then by the Conservative party, which had been thrashed by the electorate, is being shown today. There is the same short-term memory of the failures their Government had committed under John Major and the other Prime Minister before that, and the same lack of remorse. There is a lack of remorse for what we have now: food bank Britain, with millions of people in poverty. Not a word from those on the Conservative Benches. There are millions of people on NHS waiting lists. No remorse from the party opposite for that. There is no remorse for the fact that our economy has not been properly invested in throughout their whole period in office. This country was the lowest investor in the whole of the G7. There is no remorse for all the other failures either, and no sense of humility when the public told them that they had made a series of mistakes.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

No, I am going to try to be quick. I am not going to take any interventions.

All those matters, and others too, require us to make a change in the direction of our economy. That is what this Budget has begun to do; we are turning the page.

One final reflection on ’97. When Labour introduced the minimum wage, one of the great reforms of the century, the Tories kept us in the Lobby night after night after night. We were proud to do it. The arguments they made then have a parallel with the arguments they are making about our Budget today—that there will be job losses, an impact on profitability, small firms will be in trouble and so on. Let me say this. Eventually, they accepted the minimum wage because it was the right thing to do. There were no job losses and there was no impact on profitability. So, I say to those on the Government Front Bench: continue in the direction you are travelling, but move faster and be even more radical. I recommend that they have a look at Spain, where a socialist Government are in place. They have—I think I am right in saying—the highest rate of growth in the G7. They introduced a 0.5% wealth tax on estates worth more than €3 million a year and they are getting high growth. That shows that a determined Government restructuring the economy, as we need to do, can deliver change and not damage a country’s economic success.

I represent 23 villages, all former mining communities that were treated brutally by the Tory party 40 years ago. It is a distant memory for many, but I remember every single moment of the strike. They destroyed the mining industry and have done nothing to replace it in the last 40 years, so we have widespread poverty, as there is in all post-industrial communities throughout our country. They perpetrated a hoax on those communities by saying that they would level up. The levelling-up fund was not directed to where poverty was. In any event, it was a competition in deprivation between one area and another. My communities got nothing, yet we are struggling desperately to achieve growth. Levelling up was a great slogan, but it was used as a trick to persuade people to vote Conservative in 2019. What happened? People have learnt their lesson.

Let me come on to one point that I am worried about and then on to a general point. On transport, the differences in the distribution of funding for transport are extraordinary. The previous Government—that lot—spent £418 per head on transport in Yorkshire. In London, it was £1,200. That is three times as much per head per year spent on transport in London than in Yorkshire, and that leaves us with problems. I represent 23 villages—rural communities in many ways, deprived communities, post-mining communities. To get from one community to another, bearing in mind over 20,000 people in our area do not have a car and the trains do not work very well—the train service has left us without adequate public transport by train—the only option is the bus. Buses often do not start until 8 o’clock, but people begin work at 7, or leave home at 7. I have met women walking from one village to another in the dark on unlit streets because the bus service has not yet started. That is a problem the Conservatives created.

I regret this Government’s decision to raise bus fares from £2 to £3. I do not suppose there is anybody in this whole Parliament who does not have access to a car, but there are many people across the country who do not have a car because wages are so low. People are walking in the dark at 7 o’clock in the morning to get to work from one village to another. And for those of us who do have a bus service, it is going up by 50%. It will be roughly £6 a day to get to and from work. That is £30 a week and £1,500 a year in bus fares to get to work and back. Clearly, that gives us a problem. In my constituency, there are villages that are only seven miles apart, yet the bus takes one hour and 19 minutes to get from the one you live in to the one where you work. That is completely unsatisfactory. If we are going to raise bus fares—that is the decision that has been made, which I regret—we need to reform the way buses operate so that they are accessible to communities. The Government have made some announcements in relation to that already, which is welcome.

My final point is on the lack of investment the Conservative party presided over for years. I heard the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) saying today, “Okay, there might have been a black hole in the public finances, but we were going to cover it with cuts.” That is effectively what he said. The cuts were always taking place to investment and they were going to cut more investment. If we measure my constituency by GDP per head—a controversial measure, but the one we are familiar with—that lack of investment means the average worker produces £29,000 per year of GDP. Wages are pegged to productivity, as we all know, so we have low wages—less than £30,000 a year. But listen to this. In Camden—we know it is a different economy in Camden—GDP per head is £174,000. The regional differences between output, capacity and productivity are all the result of that failure to invest.

The Budget sets out to invest, and to invest big and go for growth, but I will be pressing, for all the held-back, post-industrial communities up and down our country— not only the coalfields but in the midlands and elsewhere —for the investment we achieve and the growth we deliver to be more equitable than it has been under the Conservatives.

With those few thoughts, and an encouragement to be more radical and even more bold for the future—let us bear in mind ’97—I wish the Budget well.

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[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell). It was enlightening for me to listen to her because she listed a huge array of things on which the Government are now going to be spending a lot more money. They are all very good causes of absolute benefit to the people of our country. The one problem I have listening to her, and to all the Labour Members, is that we do not have any money left: we have spent it all. We had to spend half a trillion pounds on the pandemic, but I notice that no one has mentioned that. We are, in effect, running on tick. We are living beyond our means, we are spending money we do not have, and all we are doing, laudable though it may be to spend the money we are discussing today, is handing huge debts to future generations.

I have to remind Labour Members that every Labour Government we have ever had in my lifetime has left this country with higher debt, more unemployment and an economy in a worse state. I would also remind them that it was in 1979, after years of failed socialist government, that we finished up having to rebuild the economy under a Prime Minister who had the determination to do what was right for our country, and those economic reforms led to years of prosperity.

[Andy MacNae]

It sounds as though the hon. Member is giving up on Britain. He seems to be saying that there is no point in trying to find a better future for ourselves because there is no money left, and the previous Labour Government left no money. Would he recognise that the level of debt left in this country at the end of the recent Conservative Administration is twice what was left by the Labour Government in 2010?

[Andrew Rosindell]

The hon. Member forgets about the pandemic and its associated costs. The reality is that we have to create the wealth before we spend it. For many years I have heard Labour Members talk about how to spend money. I very rarely hear how we actually create the wealth we need to spend on our public services, and that is where it all goes wrong.

[Andy MacNae]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Andrew Rosindell]

No, I will not give way.

The Chancellor yesterday painted a dire picture of our country’s future. Under Labour, it is not the economy that is booming but the size of the state, with an ever-increasing burden of taxation on working people. Under this Government, it is not the businessmen in my constituency of Romford who are being supported with the future success of their enterprise but the climate alarmist, with a public energy company that will not even produce any energy. How sensible is that? It is not the young family in areas such as Collier Row or the pensioner in Rush Green—both in my constituency—who are being supported by, for example, a decrease in stamp duty or help with energy payments, but, of course, the union bosses who are able to deliver over-inflated pay rises to the public sector, and the private sector is once again paying for that.

Despite the Government’s talk of growth, this Budget is preparing us for the return of the dark days of the 1970s, with hard-working people paying the price. Indeed, the Government are so lacking in aspiration for this country that they want the Office for Budget Responsibility not only to mark their work but, it seems to me, to do their homework completely. They are even gifting the OBR more powers, as was outlined in the King’s Speech.

In my view, Britain’s potential is far greater than a high-tax, low-growth and dysfunctional big state. Far from my “giving up on Britain”, as the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) said—quite the opposite—I love this country, I believe in this country, and I hate to see what socialism has done to this country over the years. Labour Governments always end up in a worse situation than when they started, and Conservative Governments always have to come in and pick up the pieces, and restore the economy back to prosperity and vibrancy again. In five years’ time, I am sure we will have to do the same.

It is now clear that, under this Labour Government, the British people face a tyranny of taxation. Not content with the record-breaking tax burden that already exists, Labour is adding to the load on the shoulders of hard-working people. Under Labour, it will be harder than ever to buy a property. The journey to work of my constituents in Romford who are lucky enough to own their own home is going to be even more expensive than it is already under the control of the Mayor of London, Mr Khan, with the rise in bus fares. Once they get to work, my constituents will have far less in their pay packet, because the increase in national insurance paid by employers will, of course, clearly be passed on to employees. It is nothing but a stealth tax by this supposedly transparent Labour Government, and it is job destroying. Businesses in my constituency have already been telling me that they will not be employing people because of this reckless increase in national insurance. My constituents, all our constituents, might even lose their jobs. [Interruption.] They will lose their jobs, as businesses struggle with the national insurance increase. The costs of that will be phenomenal, and the growth-crushing increase in capital gains tax will also have a big impact.

As if that was not enough, when someone sadly passes away, the Labour Government want to make it even harder for them to pass on what they have earned throughout their life to their loved ones, by expanding inheritance tax to pensions and so on. That is incredibly cruel. People pay tax throughout their life, and will pay more tax when they die. Is that really the kind of thing a Labour Government should be doing? It will harm a lot of families who would inherit but will not be able to because of the cash grab from this Budget.

I do not believe that the Government are pro-worker at all. They cannot even define what a worker is. Labour used to be the party of the state from cradle to grave. Now it seems to be the party of taxing my Essex constituents from cradle to grave and beyond. This has been a very Essex-weighted debate, with contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) and for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) and others. People in my county of Essex are very disillusioned by all this, because they are aspirational and hard-working. They are market traders and small business people. They will be devastated by all this. I warn Labour Members that they will find that out when they next knock on doors in their constituency.

As Margaret Thatcher warned us—[Laughter.] Well, she did rescue our country’s economy; let’s be honest about it. [Interruption.] She really did, and we are still benefiting today from the reforms that she introduced. As Margaret Thatcher said, any Government who impose high taxation are taking power away from the people and giving themselves power over the people. Of course taxation at some level is always necessary. It has to be in place to support our nation’s armed forces, to support families and protect pensioners, and for investment in necessary infrastructure and public services for the future. But what are the Labour Government doing with all the hard-earned money that the working people of this country have created? I think they will be spending billions of pounds on things that will go to waste.

[Chris Vince]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that there was quite a lot of waste under the previous Government? There were dodgy personal protective equipment contracts that did not result in money being spent on PPE. Is that the sort of waste our Government should claw back?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I have to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The last Government wasted a huge amount of money—[Interruption.] No, they did. No wonder we lost the election. But this is not a political point; this is about how we run the country effectively and efficiently. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex made a range of serious points about how we are going to survive as a country. We cannot keep spending money like this. It does not work, and future generations will suffer because of it. The last Government failed, but this Government are going way further. This is all simply unaffordable, and I worry about the future of our country if we cannot see where this will eventually lead.

The Labour Government are spending billions of pounds on a renewable energy company that will not produce any energy—another vanity project. They are spending billions of pounds on public sector wage hikes, and are pouring even more taxpayers’ money into public services, with virtually no concrete productivity targets.

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that those pay rises will go to hard-working people who are themselves taxpayers?

[Andrew Rosindell]

Look, we have to live within our means. Of course I do not object to money being spent wisely and sensibly—it is the role of any Government to ensure that the money we spend goes where it is really needed in our country. The problem I have is that all this is unaffordable. We are about 100% of our GDP in debt. That is the highest that debt has been in our entire history. We cannot go on doing this. Eventually it will all come crashing down, and every hon. Member who let it happen without speaking out, as I am doing today, will have to take responsibility when future generations have to pick up the pieces. We cannot afford the debt we are getting into.

If hard-working people are being taxed, they rightly expect the money to be put to good use, to boost infrastructure. We should focus on local services and economic growth, not ideological consumption. Again, the people of Romford and throughout the borough of Havering and the county of Essex will be rightly outraged that there is so much unfairness, especially in local government funding. The funding formula has not been addressed in the Budget, from what I can see. That is a serious issue in the London borough of Havering, where my constituency is based. Despite this being the greatest example of tax and spend that I can remember since I have been a Member of Parliament, nothing has been done to address that very serious problem.

The funding formula is unfair, outdated and discriminatory. It fails to address local demographic shifts. Local people, businesses and public services are the bedrock of our economy. They face acute financial pressures in my constituency. They deserve an ambitious programme of reform, so that the money we pay in can be spent on our local services, instead of us closing down libraries and facilities, which my council is sadly now doing—necessarily, because of a lack of funding. It is a question of priorities. My local council should not close libraries, but at the end of the day, we are not being funded fairly, and the Government need to address that. If local services are not provided, people will be angry and disillusioned, and local communities will be harmed.

I speak not only for Essex and the surrounding London boroughs, but for all hard-working people the length and breadth of this country when I say that the United Kingdom has no place being a high tax, low growth and low aspiration nation. If the Chancellor wants growth, I encourage her to look to nations whose economies are expanding much faster than ours is due to under the sluggish and rather depressing growth forecasts she outlined yesterday. The formula for some of those countries is the same, whether they are in north America, Asia or Europe: low taxes that give people back the money that is rightly theirs, policies that incentivise enterprise and growth in the economy, and a lean state with minimal regulation. Investment in infrastructure is critical, and truly local public services are vital to people. They also create a basis for private investment.

In Britain, cutting red tape and reaping the benefits of Brexit—we really should do that—will attract booming business and stimulate success. The mantra that the state should manage decline needs to be rejected. The British people deserve better than this. I encourage the Government to follow not the example of failed Labour Governments littered throughout history, but the nation-saving policies embarked on in 1979 by a Prime Minister who had a vision of a greater Britain and more prosperous United Kingdom.

We must pursue an agenda of low taxes, economic growth and an efficient state that improves the public services that look after the elderly and those truly in need. The people of this country do not want, and simply cannot afford, a return to red-blooded socialism that discriminates against hard-working people, decimates our economy, destroys jobs, curtails growth and restricts freedom. The British people need a small state that works, not a bloated state that holds our country back.

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[Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)]

I congratulate all those on this side of the House who have made their maiden speeches this afternoon. It has been absolutely fantastic to hear all those stories.

It has been a long 14 years since we had a Government and a Budget that will deliver for Scotland, the UK and working people. We have had 14 years of austerity, 14 years of chaos, seven Chancellors and 19 fiscal events, but not one of them delivered a thing. Opposition MP after Opposition MP—wherever they have gone—welcomed investment and said, “I want a new hospital; I want this and that,” but not one of them had an idea about how to pay for it. Yesterday, I was proud to sit and listen to a Chancellor who was being honest with the British people about the mess that was left, what we will spend, the improvements that we will make, and how we are going to pay for them.

That is what changed yesterday as we heard the first female Chancellor deliver the first Labour Budget in 14 years, and what a Budget it was. It boosted public investment by over £100 billion and maintained the fuel duty freeze and 5% cut, which are vital for families and small businesses in Dunfermline and Dollar, and across Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Alongside that, the Budget supported the take-up of electric vehicles and abolished non-dom tax loopholes, raising £12.7 billion. It increased, extended and reformed the energy profits levy, as we promised to do, and kick-started GB Energy, which is headquartered in Aberdeen, to deliver the clean energy and green jobs that we will need in the future. Despite GB Energy being described by Conservative Members as a vanity project, it will deliver the infrastructure that this country needs, which they failed to deliver in 14 years.

We have increased the employment allowance for small businesses to £10,500. As someone who used to run a small business, I know how well that will be received. We have preserved the state triple lock on pensions, which will see over 12 million pensioners gain up to £475 next year. We have provided an uplift of £2.9 million for the defence budget, while maintaining £3 billion in annual support for Ukraine for as long as it takes.

As has been mentioned by my hon. Friends, this UK Labour Government will deliver a total of £47.7 billion in Scotland—the largest settlement in the history of devolution. That includes an additional £1.5 billion for the Scottish Government this financial year, and an additional £3.4 billion next year.

[Andrew Rosindell]

It is a bonanza of expenditure; a lot of money is being spent. The hon. Gentleman said earlier that he would explain how it will be paid for. Just for clarification, will he please explain where all this money is coming from and how we are going to pay off the debt in the long term?

[Graeme Downie]

I believe the Chancellor outlined all of that absolutely perfectly yesterday. I would never seek to improve on the performance of our fantastic Chancellor, from whom we heard just yesterday.

Whereas the rest of the UK has only had to endure 14 years of the Conservatives’ incompetence, we in Scotland have suffered even more. We have had 17 years of the SNP blaming the Tories for its own economic incompetence and decisions. We have had years of two failed Governments who have been content to play political games, rather than come to the help of the people of Scotland.