Backing Business to Create Economic Growth

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early on the third day of five that we are investing in scrutinising the Government’s programme, at a time when the party of government is abandoning its unique selling point of bringing political stability to our economy after a time of so much churn, with so many Prime Ministers in such a short space of years.

[Daisy Cooper]

And who was responsible for that?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Irrespective of who was responsible, the question is: what is happening now? The reality is that we are facing a danger, notwithstanding the investment of time we are putting into scrutinising the Government’s programme, that it will not remain the Government’s programme for very much longer, such are the very different priorities of those who are lining up to take the Prime Minister’s job.

When the Prime Minister warned his party last week that unleashing a leadership election would bring about chaos, he was quite right, but that chaos also comes with a cost. Such is their horror at the prospect of those lining up to take the Prime Minister’s job, the markets that fund our gargantuan and growing appetite for borrowing are charging a risk premium higher than was charged for the Truss regime, and higher than is charged for Greece when it seeks to borrow. I am not a particular fan of the current Prime Minister, but I urge Labour Members—and, indeed, the voters of Makerfield, who will apparently have a rather more significant input in the settling of this matter—to take account of Hilaire Belloc’s cautionary verses, and, in particular, the tale of poor Jim, who ran away from nurse and was eaten by a lion:

“And always keep a-hold of Nurse

For fear of finding something worse.”

His Majesty told us that the legislative programme would include a Bill to strengthen our relationship with the European Union, but it is far from clear what that actually means. Do the Prime Minister’s red lines—no return to a customs union, or to free movement, or to the single market—still hold firm, and do they hold firm in the view of those who have expressed a much more enthusiastic agenda for returning to closeness with the European Union, among those candidates who are lining up behind him, seeking his job? Labour said in its manifesto that it was going to make Brexit work, but it has made it the excuse for the lacklustre performance of the British economy.

There is a measure of cakeism going on whereby Ministers, including the Secretary of State, tell us how wonderfully they have been doing. They have delivered the fastest economic growth in the G7, much faster than the countries that the Secretary of State identified in the European Union. They have delivered a reduction in inflation. They have delivered—

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Rigby)]

Interest rate reductions.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Quite right: interest rate reductions. They have done all these wonderful things, but at the same time they languish because we are not a member of the European Union. We have heard that criticism several times already today: we would be doing so much better if we were a member of the European Union. The reality is, however, that the European Union is not doing as well as Ministers are trumpeting that we are doing.

[Daisy Cooper]

On that point, will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

No. The hon. Lady has had her turn.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

No, I will not.

The reality is that Ministers are trying to have their cake and eat it by saying that the British economy would be performing so much better if it were a member of the European Union while at the same time trumpeting its performance.

[Ben Coleman]

Now will he give way?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I am with the hon. Gentleman—I believe the reality is that the British economy is performing in a lacklustre way.

But I put it to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the cause of that lacklustre performance is the huge imposition of regulation in the previous King’s Speech, and the delivery of new employment taxes on every enterprise in the land as part of that deal. The best King’s Speech that we could have had would have been a very, very short one, containing only a statute of repeal of all the impositions of the previous King’s Speech.