Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Rachel Reeves

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

The rising cost of borrowing will bring more misery to mortgage holders, with reports suggesting that some mortgage holders could pay an extra £500 a year. Given that potential global trade tensions could further affect the UK’s financial stability, what assurances will the Government provide that UK lenders remain in a strong position to support households and small businesses?

[Rachel Reeves]

Labour and Liberal Democrat Members are mindful of the last Government’s impact on mortgage borrowing costs for many of our constituents, and we are determined to tackle the cost of living crisis. As the hon. Member knows, I have written to financial regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority, about regulating for growth, not just for risk, so that we can help more people get on the housing ladder and help grow our economy.

UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Rachel Reeves

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement.

Let us be blunt: the Budget has not worked. The Chancellor says that the Government’s No. 1 mission is growth, but to date there are no signs that the Government are going to deliver it. The national insurance contributions rise is self-defeating. It undermines growth—it does not unleash it—and it piles pressure on to struggling small businesses and high streets. Nor does it raise anything like the sums of money for the NHS that the Government initially suggested it would. Now we have this much-lauded visit to China, which the Government themselves say is only worth £600 million to the UK over the next five years. That is equivalent to just five and a half hours of NHS spending a year—27.5 hours over the five-year period. All growth is welcome, but this really is small beer.

What are we to make of the Chancellor’s pledge to improve existing channels with China? It is nothing short of warm words and mixed messages. The Chancellor should not have gone to China unless there was a commitment that Jimmy Lai was going to be released.

Does the Chancellor now accept that the national insurance increase will damage growth? Does she accept that there were and still are much fairer ways to raise the necessary revenue without holding back our economy and our high streets? The international market jitters we have seen in the last few days are largely caused by the threat of tariffs by the new Trump Administration, so will the Chancellor guard against the risks of a Trump presidency by rebuilding our trading relationship with our European neighbours?

After the economic vandalism of the previous Conservative Government and their mini-Budget, our NHS and care services are still on their knees. Does the Chancellor accept that wealth and health are two sides of the same coin and that scaling back any investment in the NHS will be not only devastating for local communities but damaging for economic growth?

[Rachel Reeves]

I am slightly confused by the hon. Lady’s response. The Liberal Democrats opposed every decision we made to get the public finances under control at the Budget, and now they say that we need to spend more on public services. Well, I am afraid they cannot have it both ways. The only way there is more money for our public services is by raising it, as we did in the Budget—decisions that the Liberal Democrats apparently oppose.

The hon. Lady says that £600 million is not worth it. That is £600 million of tangible benefits for British businesses trading overseas. I would have thought she would welcome enhanced trade and investment as a way to create more good jobs paying decent wages in St Albans and, indeed, in all our constituencies.

The hon. Lady says that we should not go to China because we need to raise difficult issues. I am not sure how she thinks we are going to raise difficult issues unless we engage with the second biggest economy in the world. Because I went to China, I was able to raise issues around human rights, forced labour, Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai and the sanctioning of parliamentarians. We cannot raise those issues unless we are in the room. I was in the room and therefore able to do just that.

Labour is the party that put £20 billion into the national health service at the Budget in October. We were able to do that because of the difficult decisions we took, including on taxation. The hon. Lady seems to want the additional money for public services but without finding any way to pay for them. That is the way the Conservative party got into its troubles. I am afraid the Liberal Democrats are going down exactly the same path.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Rachel Reeves

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

Small businesses are the engine of our economy, but many of them are penalised for investing in their businesses because of the broken business rates system. Will the Chancellor ensure that investment is exempted from business rates, and will she ensure that the Budget tomorrow is the final Budget in which business rates are a permanent feature?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I too welcome her to her place.

Small businesses and high street businesses are the lifeblood of all of our communities, including hers in St Albans, and it is important that we support them. In our manifesto, we committed to reform of our business rates system. I will be setting out more details in the Budget yesterday tomorrow, as well as a business tax road map, which will give businesses certainty about the tax environment they will be working with for the next five years.

Public Spending: Inheritance

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Rachel Reeves

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I have to be honest that the decisions I have made today are tough decisions. They are not the decisions that I wanted to make, or that I expected to make. Given the seriousness of the inheritance that I face, they are the right decisions, the responsible decisions, and the fairest decisions that I could make in the circumstances.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

The legacy of the Conservatives’ new hospitals programme is dire, but the Chancellor will know that there is also a cost to delay. We have life-expired buildings that will continue to need to be patched up until they are replaced, so I urge the Chancellor, as I urged the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care last week, to give the go-ahead to those projects that are ready to go and involve life-expired buildings. Will she review the outdated rules, and allow hospitals to spend more of their capital funds on helping with repairs and rebuilds?