Oral Answers to Questions

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I welcome the Chancellor to his place. After two anti-growth Budgets, I genuinely wish him well and urge him to deliver a growth Budget this autumn, so that we can avoid more punishing tax rises or painful spending cuts.

Last week, the Prime Minister acknowledged that Brexit had ushered in a “decade of low growth” but did not outline what he thinks is needed to tackle it. On Monday, the Chancellor made what was briefed as a major economic speech on growth, the product of deep thinking, and yet there was barely a mention of the impact of Brexit. Recent studies suggest that deeper alignment with Europe could boost GDP by at least 2.5% to 3.6%, so should the Chancellor’s plan for growth not include the growth and defence partnership with the EU that we have called for?

[John Healey]

The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength.

On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon. Lady to look at what we have done in the seven weeks of this Government. We know that we cannot relieve the cost of living and the cost of business pressures, but we will take steps where we can to do that. I will take that principle into the Budget, and we will back business and do what we can to see growth in more places across the country, because for too long this country has relied on too few of our major cities to drive national growth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

As the Member of Parliament for the constituency with more pubs per square mile than anywhere else in Britain, I have been campaigning to reform the broken business rates system for longer than I have been an MP. My understanding is that the Government’s review will look at the fair maintainable trade criterion, which sees pubs singled out to be valued on the basis of what they could earn rather than what they actually earn; but, as pointed out by my hon. Friends the Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), the review falls far short of the Labour party manifesto, which pledged to overhaul the entire business rates system. May I ask Ministers whether that pledge still stands? If so, will they overhaul the business rates system before the next general election?

[James Murray]

I wonder whether any other Members might say that they have the most pubs in their constituency, or whether the hon. Lady has done her research. [Interruption.] I hear her saying that hers are the best pubs, a claim that even more Members may challenge in the Chamber.

Although the hon. Lady and I have some differences, I think that we share a desire to see a fairer business rates system. I know that the 20% cut for pubs and community venues was widely welcomed, and the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have made it clear that we want to go on looking at what we can do to support our hospitality venues, pubs and other high street uses. This is not a question of taking one policy announcement from July and thinking that that is the end of the story, because we know how important high streets are to communities across the country, and we want to see them thrive.