Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I imagine that the right hon. Members are counting the value of their severance payments somewhere else. Meanwhile, the rest of us are dealing with our constituents who are suffering from the fallout of their appalling choices. Home ownership rates have fallen over the past 12 years and the number of new affordable homes that are available to buy has plummeted. That is before the mortgage guarantee scheme and Help to Buy come to an end later this year.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

As an 11-year-old child at a primary school in the Rhondda put it to me on Friday morning, the Tories broke the money. That is the problem. Many people in the Rhondda are losing their homes, either because buy-to-let mortgages have collapsed and people are selling or because they cannot afford the additional mortgage fees. They are furious and scandalised that the people who brought that about are being rewarded with multi-thousand-pound pay-offs.

The Government may try to pretend that today’s motion is irrelevant, but will my hon. Friend confirm that every single time such a motion of censure has been tabled, the Government have sought to vote it down and not just run away? Sometimes that has led to people losing their salary or resigning, or to the Government falling. The Government cannot just pretend that nothing is happening today. They have either to vote the motion down or lose—and if they lose, they go.

[Lisa Nandy]

The Government have a clear choice today: they can stand up for people whose hopes and dreams have been shattered, or they can stand with a former Prime Minister and former Chancellor who have profited from a situation that will leave families across this country paying the price for years to come. If the Government do not back the motion, they cannot possibly turn up in this place on Thursday and tell us that this is about fairness or that they are on people’s side.

Millions of people are affected—not just those who will be paying more on their mortgages for years to come, but the millions who are stuck in rented accommodation, including thousands who saw their dreams of home ownership shattered when their mortgage offers were withdrawn in the days after the mini-Budget. Many of those families are facing the dreaded prospect of homelessness because they cannot afford higher rents.

The Government have promised to end section 21 no-fault evictions. Why on earth has that not happened yet? The Opposition called for emergency legislation months ago to make it happen. That protection is more important than ever this winter, but it is not there because the Government continue to drag their feet. Renters need greater protections, which is why Labour has laid out plans for a renters’ charter to give families more security and stability in their own homes, including with an immediate end to no-fault evictions.

The truth is that there is no short-term plan to deal with the crisis, and no long-term plan either. The Government could reform compulsory purchase orders to build more houses. They could raise stamp duty on foreign buyers to stop them buying whole developments off plan. They could give first-time buyers first dibs on newly built homes. A serious Government would use the affordable housing budget that has already been allocated to get more homes built. That is the route out, not just from the housing crisis but from the growth crisis that the Tories have created over the past decade. I will say this to the Minister, because her boss is not here: we will be watching like hawks on Thursday. If a penny of the affordable housing budget is clawed back to the Treasury because it has not been used, that will be on him, on her and on all Conservative Members.

This country needs a plan. People need hope, and any Government worth their salt would be providing it. In that context, it is obscene that the former Prime Minister is in line to receive a severance payment of almost £19,000 and the former Chancellor is set to rake in nearly £17,000. That is more than many of my constituents earn in an entire year—and they would have some brass neck to pocket that much for a job so atrociously done. It is abhorrent that someone can become Prime Minister of this country with the backing of only 80,000 people who are all Conservative party members, and then appoint a Chancellor, jointly crash the economy, cost hard-working families hundreds of pounds every month for years on end, and walk away scot-free with a severance payment worth thousands in their back pocket. To quote the former Prime Minister, that is a disgrace.

Today, Conservative Members have an opportunity to put things right. They can vote with us to send a message that we will not stand for this. If they are serious about making a clean break with what has gone before and serious about fairer, more decent decisions that put hard-working people first, they can vote with us today. They can make it clear that what is happening is unacceptable and express the clear will of this House that it should not, cannot and must not stand.

The choice that Government Members face is simple. Whose side are they on? Are they on the side of the hard-working families who are suffering because the economy was set on fire and who are paying hundreds of pounds more, through no fault of their own, at a time when just getting by is already a struggle? Or are they on the side of the arsonists—the people who set fire to our economy and have left working people to pay the price? These severance payments are indefensible, and Government Members know it. Now is the time for the new Prime Minister and his MPs to decide which side they are on.