Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill

Gareth Snell Excerpts

2nd reading & Money resolution
Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sandher]

The rise happened before covid; it happened after the two-child limit was introduced. I agree with the hon. Lady on one point: she is not across the statistics.

Opposition Members have advanced an argument that I think is fair. They ask why we do not just create lots of jobs, which is the way to get out of poverty. The way to get out of poverty is through work, right? I want to take that argument head-on. We are living in a different technological era. In the post-war era, we had the advance and expansion of mass-production manufacturing, which meant there were good jobs for people as they left school. They left school, went to the local factory and earned a decent wage, meaning that they could buy a house and support a family.

Then, in the 1980s, in this country and indeed across high-income nations, we saw deindustrialisation and automation, bringing the replacement of those mechanical jobs with machines. Like other high-income nations across the world, we have been left with those who can use computers effectively—high-paid graduate workers—and lots of low-paid jobs everywhere else. It is not just us confronting that problem, although it is worse here because of decisions made in the 1980s; we are seeing it across high-income nations. As a result, state support is needed to ensure that those on low pay can afford a decent life.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Sandher]

In a moment.

This is not, by the way, the first time in history that we have confronted this problem. In the early part of the industrial revolution, between 1750 and 1850, we saw machines replace human beings. What did we see then? The economy grew by 60% per person, but people had less to eat. Men were shorter in 1850 than in 1750 because of the change of the technological era. I think my right hon. Friend would like to intervene.

[Gareth Snell]

I am an hon. Friend, not right honourable, though I welcome the promotion.

I have listened to this debate from outside the Chamber this afternoon and heard many Conservative Members talk about how the route out of poverty is through work. I absolutely and fundamentally agree with that, so I find it completely incongruous that whenever they have had the opportunity to vote for our make work pay Act, to increase stability in work and create well-paid jobs, they have voted against it. Indeed, only last week, the shadow Secretary of State made an argument for cutting the minimum wage for young people. How does my hon. Friend think that someone can argue, on the one hand, for work as a way out of poverty, but on the other, restrict the opportunities for work, push down pay and reduce the opportunities created for working people?

[Dr Sandher]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Conservative Members have often spoken about their employment record in office and how many jobs were created. Yet while that happened, child poverty and child hunger rose. Something is not right in their model of the world and there is something to review there.

There is no law of economics that says that just because someone works hard and is a decent person, they will earn a wage that can support a family. That is not the technological era we live in today. That is why we are ending the two-child limit today and I am so proud that we are doing so.

In an economic sense—in pounds and pence—as Labour Members realise and have stated, when we ensure that children have enough to eat, they learn more today and they earn more tomorrow. The cost of child poverty every single year is around £40 billion. The cost of ending the two-child limit is about £3.5 billion. It makes sense to invest today so that our children can eat and learn more, yet this is not just a matter of pounds and pence; as an economist, I often talk about that and I get it, but it is about so much more. This is about the moral argument. No child in this country should go hungry—no ifs, no buts and no exceptions. That is why I am so proud of this Bill, I am so proud to vote to end the two-child limit and I am so proud to be sat on the Labour Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Pakes]

Certainly. Many of my food banks would support the single policy that we are voting on today, so I hope the right hon. Gentleman will join me in the Lobby tonight to vote to eradicate food banks. This Bill will put money into the pockets of families. It will not just lift their children out of poverty but—as my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge), who is no longer in her place, said—put money into the local economy.

If we ever wanted a symbol of the legacy of Tory failure in government, it is this: in my city of Peterborough alone, nearly 43% of children are growing up in poverty. In the North ward of Peterborough, which is a two-minute walk from my house, six out of 10 children are growing up in poverty. That is a stain on our society, and I am dedicated to eradicating it.

I am proud of the work that my council does, but this policy will help. I am proud of the focus of Peterborough city council, pushed on by groups such as Peterborough Citizens, which has ended the practice of children sleeping in bed-and-breakfast and hotel room accommodation. I was equally proud in the autumn to welcome the Prime Minister to Welland Academy, where he made the national announcement of the roll-out of free school meals for all children on universal credit. An incredible 16,000 extra children will benefit from free school meals this September because of the action taken by this Government, which will be delivered in the coming months.

We all know that we need to do more. The Bill is an investment in our country’s future. The single act of voting for it will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, including 10,000 in Peterborough. As many hon. Friends and comrades in this place have said, almost half of the families on universal credit are in work. Child poverty makes it harder for children to get on in life, and that hurts our economy. I am pleased to see that some Conservative Members have returned to the debate. I thought for a while that the lights were on but nobody was home—it turns out that that applies just to their policy on child poverty rather than to them as individuals. The Conservatives would do well to remember that these figures are not merely statistics; they tell a story of lost opportunity, of lost moments of childhood, and of lost potential not just for the affected children but for our local economies.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend’s point about lost moments of childhood is often missed. It is all well and good to talk about the impact on parents and on the economy, but having grown up in poverty, I remember walking to school with a hole in my shoe, and not being able to ask my grandparents for anything because they could not afford it. I remember feigning not wanting to go on school trips because I knew that they could not afford it. I remember making sure that the holes in my jumper were hidden when I got home because I knew that they could not afford to replace it. Those memories stick with people throughout their lives and continue to have an effect on them once they have grown up. This is not just about the economics of the here and now; it is about the real-life impact on young people today and in the future. I thank my hon. Friend for ensuring that those voices are heard.

[Andrew Pakes]

I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. It sounds as if we may have had similar childhoods, only in different parts of the country.

The statistics cited in this debate do not sit in isolation. It is no coincidence that, alongside high levels of child poverty, Peterborough also has some of the highest levels of low-paid and insecure work in the country. At the last count, and going by the Government’s definition, one in three working people in Peterborough are in chronically insecure work—largely zero-hours shift work, which the Conservative party voted to keep in our economy, while we voted to eradicate it. Peterborough has one of the highest numbers of adults with no qualifications. Despite our city’s wonderful industrial heritage, nothing says more about the wasted opportunities of the last 14 years than the 70% drop in level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships in Peterborough—that comes at a cost to the country.

Although I have painted a picture of the difficulties that many families face in my city, I pay tribute to the incredible ingenuity, determination and grit that parents demonstrate—often in difficult times and despite the adversity that they face—to do their best, look after their children, raise ambition and give people jobs and opportunities. We were sent here to serve them, and we will help them by voting for the Bill.

To be honest, the Conservatives have some brass neck to talk about poverty, as do our colleagues and friends in Reform UK. At one point, I thought that they were plastic Tories, but now that the transfer window has closed, I just think that they are Tories. I represent a wonderful, brilliant and diverse city, so the naked racism in the Reform amendment, which talks about denying support for hard-working families based on the birthplace of the parents, is an affront to democracy and to British values.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Smith]

No, I will not give way; I am going to make some progress.

These mums and dads are the backbone of our economy, and we cannot afford to let them down. Scrapping the cap reduces incentives for parents to look for a job or work longer hours. Why would they bother going to work, or working more, when they could get more in benefits? A strong economy must provide incentive structures that help people to do the right thing, and we tamper with these fundamental structures at our own peril.

[Gareth Snell]

On the point of doing the right thing, the data suggests that in the shadow Minister’s own constituency there are 1,160 children living in a household that does not currently receive universal credit support for the additional children. Some of them will be listening this evening, and some will be teenagers. What would she say to them? Would she tell them that she could do something this evening, but she is choosing not to? What is her justification to those children?

[Rebecca Smith]

I also speak for the 60% of the population who do not think we should be scrapping the cap. No doubt a large proportion of those people are also in my constituency.

As Conservatives, we believe in personal responsibility and living within our means. Our welfare system should be a safety net for the most vulnerable, not a lifestyle choice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) has argued so powerfully. As I have alluded to, it seems that we are not alone; that principle of fairness is echoed across the country, with a recent YouGov poll finding that 57% of respondents believe that the cap should be retained.

The situation is particularly stark for self-employed mothers, who can only access statutory maternity allowance —a flat rate that falls far below what their peers can receive via their employer. I recently met one self-employed mother who told me that she is seriously weighing up whether to have a second child because she and her husband simply cannot afford it right now. This is a deeply personal dilemma, fraught with conflicting emotions. Equally, those not on benefits who have more children do not get paid more wages—they just have to absorb the extra costs within their budgets—so this idea that we need to give people more money because they have more children does not always make sense. However, this Government are determined to give families on universal credit a free pass; as a result, those families will not have to make those kinds of hard choices.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, for 70% of the poorest households currently subject to the two-child limit, any money they stand to gain from the scrapping of the limit will get partially or fully wiped out by the household benefit cap. How do the Government square that circle when they have been quoting the headline figures for poverty? As has been raised numerous times today by Opposition Members, if Labour truly followed its own logic on child poverty, it would also need to scrap the household benefit cap, at even greater cost to the taxpayer.

Conversely, 40% of those affected by the two-child limit will be exempt from the overall household benefit cap, because they have at least one claimant or child receiving health and disability benefits. This means that households with six children will get an additional £14,000 every single year. For larger families in particular, the financial gap between going to work and being out of work will shrink significantly. We are trapping good people in a bad system. Shockingly, one in four full-time workers would be better off on benefits than in work—that is 6 million workers across the UK whose neighbours on combined benefits are receiving more income than they are. It is no wonder that every day 5,000 people sign on to long-term sickness benefits. According to the Centre for Social Justice, a claimant who is receiving universal credit for ill health plus the average housing element and personal independence payment could receive the equivalent of a pre-tax salary of £30,100, and a family with three children receiving full benefits could get the equivalent of £71,000 pre-tax. How is this fairness?

At best, scrapping the cap is a sticking plaster that does not tackle the root causes of poverty. We know that work is the best route out of poverty—in fact, if this Government hit their ambitious target of increasing employment rates by 80%, that could lift approximately the same number of children out of poverty as scrapping the two-child limit. Instead, this Bill will be yet another strain on our ballooning benefits budget. If it had been retained, the two-child limit would have saved the taxpayer £2.4 billion in 2026-27, rising to £3.2 billion in 2030-31. Instead, the bill is being passed on to all those families I have spoken about already.

Youth Unemployment

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My right hon. Friend makes the point so clearly. It is so obvious to the Conservatives, as the party of business, that if the Government keep taxing business, there will be fewer jobs—but they just do not seem to get it.

Labour Members do know that they are in trouble, though. That is why they are talking up their youth programmes, youth hubs and youth guarantees—[Laughter.] Labour Members are laughing, but they should listen. The hon. Member for Exeter (Steve Race) says from a sedentary position that it was our programme —exactly that! Most of these things are just rebrands of programmes that the Conservatives started. We started youth hubs. Changing the name of the youth offer to the “youth guarantee” does not solve the problem. Of course there is part to play for training programmes and work placements in helping people to bridge the gap between school and work, but Government programmes are not the answer to the fundamental problem. Young people want jobs, and this Government are killing jobs.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The shadow Secretary of State is obviously well known for speaking clearly and candidly, which is refreshing. Can she clearly and candidly answer these questions? Which rights does she think young people should be denied in order to get into work? By how much would she cut the minimum wage to facilitate those young people getting back into work? Unfortunately, she cannot have it both ways. She has just made the point that those rights are hindering business, so what would she do to cut them? Will she make a clear commitment at the Dispatch Box?

[Helen Whately]

I enjoyed the way in which the hon. Gentleman led into his question with a bit of flattery, but I will not be drawn on his attempt to make me talk about the minimum wage or down the routes that he asks me to take, as much as he may love me to do so.

However, I will talk about our record in government. We halved unemployment. We got record numbers of people into work. We backed businesses to create 800 jobs for every day that we were in government. We reformed welfare to make work pay. We brought down the benefits bill. None of those things are on the cards under this Labour Government. They are crushing businesses with taxes and red tape, destroying jobs and driving up unemployment. They U-turned on welfare savings and put up taxes on working people by £26 billion at the last Budget to pay for the ballooning benefits bill.

I will not argue that we got everything right. Some of the graduates struggling to get jobs have degrees that are not actually of any help to them, and they took those degrees when we were in government. Under us, through the pandemic and afterwards, the number of young people dropping out of work and on to benefits because of their mental health went up. We wanted to end the stigma around mental illness, but the consequences have been far-reaching. Our welfare system was not designed to support people with milder mental health problems or milder neurodiversity, or for a time when a quarter of people report themselves as disabled.

The system is not working; instead, it is funnelling people off work and on to benefits. Now, with the Government’s failure to reform welfare, young people are stuck in a benefits trap—they are better off on benefits and fearful of losing them if they get a job. Let us add to that the stress and misery of trying and failing again and again to get a job, because jobs are fewer and farther between. Most young people I have spoken to do not want to be on benefits, but that is where they are ending up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

I am sad to see that the hon. Gentleman does not recognise that that young person will now be standing next to another young person who is unable to get a job. Surely he must agree that the level at which people are being paid has had an effect on the fact that there are fewer people in these jobs.

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

Government Members do not have to listen to me; they can listen to the Federation of Small Businesses, which said that those wage rises risk pricing young people out of the labour market. That is not me speaking; that is the Federation of Small Businesses, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree with it.

[Gareth Snell]

The Federation of Small Businesses will be looking for answers to those policy challenges that it is rightly putting to this place. What would the hon. Member’s answer be? By how much should young people’s pay be reduced in order to strike the balance that so many Opposition Members have talked about? By how much should the minimum wage be reduced for young people so that they can be guaranteed a job?

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

I have news that will perhaps come as a bit of a shock to the hon. Gentleman: it is his party that is in power, and it should be his Front Benchers and the Chancellor he should be having that conversation with. Labour market economists at the Resolution Foundation—not normally considered to be right-leaning, by the way—have noted that when minimum wages rise faster than productivity, employers tend to favour experienced workers, disadvantaging young applicants. The very people Labour claims to champion are the ones being priced out of the labour market.

Thirdly, Labour’s business rates reforms have piled pressure on our high streets. As we have heard time and again in this debate, it is hospitality, retail and small firms that traditionally give young people their first job. Indeed, my first job was behind the bar at a now defunct pub; it taught me an enormous amount, and I was very grateful for the opportunity. The Confederation of British Industry has said that rising business rates “suppress investment and hiring”. When fixed costs for employers increase, their capacity to hire is reduced.

Lastly, and perhaps most damaging of all, is Labour’s Employment Rights Act 2025, which introduces sweeping day one rights across the board. The Government’s own economic analysis of the Bill says:

“higher labour costs could reduce demand for work, damaging the employment prospects of the same workers the package is trying to support…the risks are highest for workers with the weakest attachment to the labour market…and the youngest workers, since they are still gaining experience and skills.”

This is not a partisan point—this is the Government’s impact assessment of their own legislation.

According to the Youth Futures Foundation,

“the risk profile of recruiting young people has increased”.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reports that employers are already reducing recruitment plans, particularly for inexperienced workers, due to regulatory uncertainty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Western]

The challenge in the NHS is markedly different—I would freely acknowledge that—but the right hon. Gentleman is talking about other roles in the NHS. It is not unusual for people to hold more than one job if they are operating as bank staff, so they do not have the uncertainty about receiving no funding at all.

The right hon. Gentleman also made the criticism that the jobs guarantee only kicked in after 18 months. That is the final stage of a range of new interventions that this Government are putting in place, including an additional supported conversation at 13 weeks, followed by four weeks of intensive work coach support with specialist teams. It is not just a question of a jobs guarantee after 18 months; a broad range of interventions are being put in place.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), who I do not think is in her place, said that apprenticeships were an opportunity for young people to find work, and I quite agree with her, but the reforms of the Conservative party had the effect of delivering a situation where, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson said, the average age of those entering into apprenticeships was significantly increased. We are seeking to reverse that trend, and it is important that we do so. This is a key mechanism for giving young people the skills that they will need in the future. I believe she also called this a youth unemployment crisis of this Government’s making. I fail to see how that can possibly be the case when there was such a stark increase in the youth unemployment figures in the final two years of the Conservative Government.

The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) said that the best welfare support of all was a job, so he will be delighted to see the additional 513,000 people who have entered into employment over the past 12 months. The hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja), who is also not here, said that she was tired of hearing about this Government’s ambition, but the Conservatives had a paucity of just that. They left almost a million NEETs, a welfare system that disincentivised work—something we have begun to address—and an employment rate lower than before the pandemic. They can accuse us of being too ambitious if they like, but they had given up on delivering opportunity for our young people—something that this Government will never do.

The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) asked how we would encourage an employer to take a chance on a young person. We are doing that by not charging national insurance contributions for under-21s or for apprentices under 25, by fully funding apprentices at SMEs and by placing young people in six months of guaranteed work if they have been out of the workforce for 18 months so that they have the chance to prove themselves. That is a range of interventions that we are putting in place because we recognise that there is a challenge with youth unemployment. It is long standing and it is not new, but we take it very seriously.

[Gareth Snell]

On the point that the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness made, the natural extrapolation to what I believe the Conservatives are suggesting is that the way to incentivise that employer would be to allow them to pay less than the minimum wage or indeed cut the minimum wage rate for young people. I would oppose that. Would the Minister?

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western]

I appreciate the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes. Clearly we want to ensure that Skills England is set up to be successful and to have a real impact in delivering the skills that we need in the workforce now and into the future. I am very happy to commit today to setting up a meeting for the right hon. Gentleman, should he so wish, with the chair of the board of Skills England, Phil Smith, to discuss his concerns directly.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Skills England has the potential to really make an impact in places like north Staffordshire, where there are skills that we need for the jobs of tomorrow. However, those programmes are too often piloted through mayoral combined authorities, and we are a long way from that in Staffordshire. How will the Minister ensure that areas that do not have mayors on the horizon can access the same exciting opportunities as everywhere else?

[Andrew Western]

I recognise that my hon. Friend takes a keen interest in the delivery of these courses and in various skills training sectors in his constituency. Indeed, I am writing to him today in response to his last question. He is absolutely right that we need to ensure that areas that are further away from the establishment of MCAs are not left behind. That is a valid concern, and I will be certain to share it with my noble Friend the Skills Minister on his behalf.

Young People not in Education, Employment or Training

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) on securing this debate. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a governor of Stoke-on-Trent sixth-form college and chair of the APPG on sixth-form education.

I pay tribute to the leadership of the colleges in Stoke-on-Trent—Lesley Morrey at Stoke-on-Trent sixth-form college and Hassan Rizvi at Stoke-on-Trent college. They are doing amazing work to reduce what has traditionally been a stubbornly high rate of NEETs in Stoke-on-Trent. In fact, at one point I think we ranked No. 1 in the country for the number of NEETs, but that is coming down because the colleges are working to make sure that every young person in Stoke-on-Trent knows that there is a route for them somewhere, whether it be academic, vocational or technical, into a job in the city.

However, we also recognise that part of that work must start further downstream, with young people in our secondary schools who have an idea of what they want to do and an aspiration to achieve it, but are not necessarily sure how to go about doing it. Under the leadership of Heather McLachlan and Simon French, the CEO Futures Forum is bringing together multi-academy trusts to consider how the curriculum review announced a couple of weeks ago can be used locally to create those academic, vocational and technical gateways into the right subject areas, where we know the jobs will be in the city, so that young people have something to look towards, strive and aspire to. Those are the good things that I wanted to mention today.

We also know that for young people in north Staffordshire who want to go to university, widening participation is incredibly important. The Higher Horizons programme, run by Keele University in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), demonstrates how young people from across north Staffordshire can go to university if they are given the right opportunities and understandings.

Briefly, the key point that I want to make to the Minister today is about V-levels. With the introduction of V-levels, there is a real possibility that a small group of young people will lose out in the next two years by not having access to BTECs, which are being defunded before V-levels come online. That could lead to a large spike in the number of NEETs in the next couple of years. What will his Department do to ensure that those young people are not lost in the transition to what could be an exciting new qualification?

Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill

Gareth Snell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

I speak as a signatory to the reasoned amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), because I recognised, as many across the House did, that there were serious problems with the original version of the Bill. Welfare reform, which we all believe in, has to be fair, compassionate and grounded in evidence, and I am afraid that the Bill, as first published, failed on all three counts. I acknowledge that there have been significant and welcome changes, and I genuinely thank Ministers for meeting me and for listening. We all know that scrapping or reducing PIP for people who are already in work was always the wrong target. It risks making employment harder, not easier, for many disabled people, and it is right that current recipients of PIP—there are over 7,000 in my constituency —will now be protected.

If we are to avoid repeating the mistakes of this recent period, we need a proper process for consultation and co-production. Ministers have said that they will now do that through the Timms review, and that is the right vehicle. I welcome another concession around the £300 million of employment support that is being brought forward. In my view, that should always have been front and centre to this reform. Intentions alone are not enough, however, and while I welcome the removal of clause 5, which will mean introducing no changes before the Timms reviews reports, I am concerned that this process remains open-ended.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, welcome the commitment that was given from the Dispatch Box on the removal of clause 5, but I wonder whether my hon. Friend shares my hope that, when the Minister sums up this evening he will categorically state that those people grandfathered in today, to help get past that clause 5 moment in the Bill, will still be grandfathered in without clause 5 and despite whatever comes out of the Timms review, so that they are not put back into the pool of potentially being reassessed in the future.

[Darren Paffey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point that I hope the Minister will confirm.

There are other assurances that many of us would like to hear from the Dispatch Box today, including a defined timetable for the report. In wrapping up the debate, will the Minister confirm that November 2026 is now no longer a relevant date at all? I am glad that we will now avoid the absurd situation of having potentially three different assessment regimes running in parallel. What has been announced will, I hope, give clarity to claimants and will, I hope, in good faith demonstrate that the Government are serious about introducing reform properly.

Welfare Reform

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

That is exactly what we committed to in our Green Paper.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Presumably, the outcome of the Timms review will require some form of primary legislation to enact the changes to the system that will come from the Department for Work and Pensions. In which case, I suggest to the Minister that removing clause 5 from the Bill tomorrow and putting it into any future legislation means the Department can still have its thresholds in the future if it wants to, but only once everybody knows against what criteria those judgments will be made.

[Liz Kendall]

We are co-producing this review, and it may result in changes that require primary or secondary legislation or other action, and I do not want to pre-empt that. Let me just bring my hon. Friend and the House back to the purpose of these changes: to ensure that we have a system that is fair for those who need support and fair for taxpayers, and to try to put the welfare state on a more sustainable footing for the future. If we do not do so, my real fear is that it will not be there for the very people who really, really need support going forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the importance of the 4.1% increase in pension credit that will take place in just a few weeks’ time, and I can tell him that about 3,000 people are claiming pension credit in North Durham. He is also right to mention the more than £25 billion that the Government are investing in the NHS. The unacceptable state of the health service is the biggest betrayal of older generations by the Conservative party, and we are going to change that.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

14. What steps her Department is taking to help reduce levels of unemployment in Stoke-on-Trent.

[The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)]

In the year to September 2024, 4.7% of working-age people were unemployed in Stoke-on-Trent, but as I said earlier, that often masks bigger problems relating to economic inactivity, frequently caused by ill health. We propose to join up work, health and skills support, and to ensure that local areas throughout England have “Get Britain Working” plans so that every part of the country has a plan to grow.

[Gareth Snell]

It is clear that the Government are making a serious attempt to remove the barriers preventing people with mental health conditions from entering work. May I issue an invitation to the Minister, and commend to her the work of the combined healthcare trust in Stoke-on-Trent and its peer support mentors? These are people who have overcome mental health challenges and now work with other people struggling with their own mental health to build confidence and opportunity. Whatever plan the Government introduce, work of this kind should be central to it, and I think that if they came to see it, they would be very impressed.

[Alison McGovern]

I would love to come to Stoke—[Interruption.] There are so many football-related jokes that I could make at this point, but I will not trouble the House. I would love to come to Stoke, and not just on a wet Tuesday night.

My hon. Friend makes the case for exactly the strategy that underpins our reform, which is to join up health and work support. I have seen in my own constituency the power of peer mentors for mental health conditions, and I would love to come and see the brilliant work that my hon. Friend has described.

Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I am proud of the last Labour Government’s record on helping the lowest-paid women pensioners and of the improvements that we delivered. This is not about that issue; this is about the way that the state pension age was communicated. If the hon. Lady wants a different approach, the SNP Government in Scotland can provide that by using the £4.9 billion settlement—the biggest ever in the history of devolution—that we have provided.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

This will be a sad moment for the 4,000 women in Stoke-on-Trent Central who I have campaigned alongside for justice and a fair transition. I understand the Secretary of State’s need to balance the budget, given what was left by the previous Government, but is this a case of no compensation now because of the economic circumstances that we find ourselves in, or is it no compensation ever? If we find ourselves in the future in a much better economic state, will she consider re-addressing this issue and seeing what compensation might be available for the women who were affected?

[Liz Kendall]

We do not agree with the ombudsman’s approach to injustice or compensation. We do not believe that sending those letters earlier, even though we should have done, would have made the difference that the ombudsman claims. We do not believe that, given that 90% of 1950s-born women knew that the state pension age was increasing, a flat-rate compensation scheme costing up to £10.5 billion is a fair or appropriate use of taxpayers’ money. However, we will learn lessons from that maladministration to ensure that it never happens again.

Income Tax (Charge)

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is right that this is another broken promise. At the general election, the now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs gave an unequivocal guarantee to farmers across the country that there was no question of farms being brought into inheritance tax. There is a good reason for the exemptions and relief, because if inheritance tax is levied on family farms that are passed down to another generation, those farms will have to be broken up, with parts sold off to pay the tax.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned this, because the OBR has said that, by 2030, this measure will raise the princely sum of £520 million, which is enough to run the national health service for just one day. Has a more modest sum ever raised so much misery? I think not.

The Chancellor assured us that she will not fiddle the figures by changing the fiscal targets, yet we have seen the fiscal targets changed to allow this Government to borrow an additional £140 billion.

This is not a good time for the Secretary of State to talk about pensioners, but she mentioned them at the end of her speech. They were so badly let down by the means-testing of the winter fuel payment, and they were not told in advance to expect anything like it. Ten million pensioners across the country will lose up to £300 as a consequence of this measure. The Government claim that only the wealthiest, only the millionaires, will be affected, but two thirds of pensioners below the poverty line will have this benefit removed.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the new shadow Chancellor for giving way. I could be wrong, but was he not the Secretary of State who took through the legislation to suspend the triple lock—the one and only time it has been suspended—which has since cost pensioners £500 a year every year?

[Mel Stride]

We fought for the “triple lock plus” in our manifesto, which would have spared millions of pensioners from being dragged into income tax, many for the first time, under this Government’s arrangements. There were, as the hon. Gentleman knows, particular circumstances in October 2022, including inflation surging above 11%.

What are the broad effects of this Budget? The tax burden will rise to the highest level in the history of our country—higher than in 1948, when we first started to collect the data. We will be borrowing a staggering £140 billion over the next five years. What are the consequences of that, apart from passing on debt to future generations, who will have to pay it by way of higher taxation in the future? It is the crowding-out of private business investment, which this Government say they are eager to drive up.

If we look at OBR’s forecast from the spring Budget last year and for inflation in every year under this Budget, it is higher in every single year. Why? Because there has been a huge fiscal splurge, particularly in the first two years of the forecast, that will require a monetary response, so interest rates will stay higher for longer. That will mean, the OBR estimates, an extra 0.25% on mortgages—or over £400 extra for the average family, up and down the country. According to the OBR’s forecast, wages will stagnate across the period, with lower real household disposable income than under the spring forecast, when the Conservative party was in government.

I am surprised that the Secretary of State raised the subject of living standards. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates:

“The average family will be £770 worse off in real terms by October 2029 compared with today.”

I am also surprised that she raised the issue of poverty. When we were in government, we faced so many lectures from Labour Members, while we were bringing poverty down—the number of pensioners in absolute poverty fell by 200,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I would like to place on the record my congratulations to my hon. Friends the Members for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan), for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) and for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal) on their amazing maiden speeches today.

I listened on Wednesday to the contribution from the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin)—I notified her that I was going to quote her speech—who said that this was

“a Budget of the public sector, by the public sector, for the public sector.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2024; Vol. 755, c. 854.]

She said that as though it were a bad thing. I urge the Government to reject the false dichotomy being set up by the Conservative party, in which investment in the public sector is somehow a drain on the national expenditure, and putting money into our public services is somehow inherently bad for our society and our state.

When I speak to businesses, yes, they raise with me their concerns about national insurance increases— I think businesses have done so with every Member across this House, and it would be foolish to suggest otherwise—but they also ask me questions like, “Can you fix the A50 so we can expand and get more things moving down from JCB?” and “Can you get some proper mental health support so we can get workers back to work quicker when they are struggling with their mental health?” They tell me that they struggle with the supply of skilled young people and are asking desperately for investment in skills to make sure that there is a ready pipeline of young people who can do those jobs. It is therefore completely fatuous to suggest that the investment that this Government are putting into the public sector will be in some way detrimental to the growth of our economy and the success of our private industry.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gareth Snell]

No, there is no time—I am terribly sorry.

I say this as one of those pesky trade unionists the Conservative party seems in such opposition to: when the Conservatives talk about the significant pay for trade unions, first of all, it is not for the trade unions, but for the members of those trade unions, all of whom are working people. Most of them live in Conservative Members’ constituencies, and some of them may have even voted for them—sadly, not all trade unionists vote Labour. However, their pay goes into their pockets, and from there it goes on to their high streets and the shops in their communities. It is not hoarded away as offshore wealth. It is not put into some clever accountancy scheme. It is used to buy kids’ school shoes. It is used to buy Saturday morning breakfast in the local café. It goes back into the economy in a way the Conservatives simply seem to misunderstand.

In the short time I have remaining, I say to the Government: please do not listen to the siren voices that suggest that the investment we are putting in is bad for our economy. It is not. It is good for our state, it is good for our country and it is good for our economy.

Social Security

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. That slightly lengthy question might be better addressed by way of a rather lengthy letter to the leaders of Birmingham city council.

Of course, all politics is about choices, and what this Government have done is cave in to their trade union paymasters. They have settled way above inflation. Junior doctors—22%. Train drivers—14%. They have stood up for their trade union paymasters on the backs of vulnerable pensioners, and that is not right. If it is not the case that the trade unions are running the Labour party, hands up everybody on the Government Benches who has not received money from the trade unions for their campaigning or their private office. [Hon. Members: “One!”] One person. Therein lies the truth about who is running the Labour party.

Of course, we have seen all of this before. Under the last Labour Government, we had the 75p pension increase, we had Gordon Brown’s stealth tax on private pensions—£118 billion in total—and was it any surprise that we ended up with the fourth highest level of pensioner poverty across the whole of Europe?

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about choices and pensioners. When his party chose to suspend the triple lock in 2021 and give a below-inflation increase to pensioners, costing them £500, what was his concern then? Why did he say nothing?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. We went into the election promising the triple lock plus. Unlike his party, under which millions of pensioners are going to be dragged into income tax spend, many of them for the first time, we were prepared to stand up and say that we would not do that.