G7 and NATO Summits

Debate between Esther McVey and Keir Starmer

Thursday 26th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am happy to remind the House that we had 2.5% of GDP on defence spending under the last Labour Government, and we will have it under this Labour Government. In 14 long years, the Conservatives did not do that.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I welcome the increase in defence spending. Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to explain where the money is coming from, particularly as his Government continue to weaken our economy and when another expensive benefit U-turn—on top of the winter fuel U-turn—is on its way?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Lady must have missed the record investment in our country in the last 12 months of £120 billion, the four interest rate cuts, and the fastest growth in the G7 in the first quarter of this year. Every time we have increased defence spending, as we did with the 2.5%, we have at the same time set out where the money is coming from.

UK-EU Summit

Debate between Esther McVey and Keir Starmer

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Our approach has been on the question of bringing our bills down, which is why the SPS agreement is so important, and of protecting and driving up jobs, which is why the EU, India and US agreements are all so important. That is particularly the case for car manufacturing, but equally so for pharmaceuticals, which are protected under our agreement. However, there is a bigger picture: these are three individual trade deals, but taken together they show that other countries want to do deals with the UK now in a way that they did not before.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

With youth unemployment higher in Europe—in countries such as France, Spain, Portugal and Sweden—I can see why the EU pushed for a youth mobility scheme: to help get its youth unemployment figures down. Can the Prime Minister tell the House what impact assessment he has done of his youth scheme? What effect will it have on youth unemployment among young Brits, particularly white working-class boys, who suffer the most? Can he also tell the House today what cap he has put on the number of people coming to the UK? If he cannot, this is a bitter betrayal of British youth.

[The Prime Minister]

The agreement gives young people in the United Kingdom the opportunity to work, to study and to travel in Europe. It will be a capped scheme of limited duration and with visas. This, again, is something that everyone said we could not negotiate, and we have negotiated it. As for the right hon. Lady’s question about what we are doing for young people in this country, she should look to the Trailblazer scheme that we set up to help young people back into work.