Business of the House

Jesse Norman Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

I shall. The business for the week commencing 31 March includes:

Monday 31 March—Consideration of Lords message on the Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 1 April—If necessary, consideration of Lords messages, followed by Second Reading of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 2 April—If necessary, consideration of Lords messages, followed by a motion to approve the draft Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind and Solar Generation) Order 2025, followed by a motion to approve the draft Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025, followed by a motion to approve the draft Whiplash Injury (Amendment) Regulations 2025.

Thursday 3 April—General debate on the impact of digital platforms on UK democracy, followed by a general debate on access to sport and PE in schools. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 4 April—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 7 April includes:

Monday 7 April—General debates: subjects to be confirmed.

Tuesday 8 April—General debate on the potential merits of awarding a posthumous Victoria Cross to Blair Mayne, followed by a general debate on matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

The House will rise for the Easter recess at the conclusion of business on Tuesday 8 April and will return on Tuesday 22 April.

[Jesse Norman]

May I start by thanking the whole House for their wonderful messages of condolence during last week’s business questions? I could not be more grateful. I single out, in particular, the Leader of the House for her very gracious remarks.

I turn from fathers to mothers, as this Sunday, of course, is Mother’s Day. The infant shadow Leaders of the House have been instructed—not that they needed it—on how to manage the occasion. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in celebrating mothers at the weekend, and expressing ourselves in all kinds of ways to thank our mothers and the mothers we have among us for all the work they do.

This has been the week of the spring statement. The House will recall the October Budget in November of last year. It was described as a once-in-a-generation Budget, with no tax rises to follow. This week we have seen that the Chancellor’s own growth forecast just four months later has been halved, and she has increased cuts to welfare benefits. That follows the interesting strategy of abolishing NHS England, having just fired all the team running it. The tax burden is on track to hit a record high in 2027-28.

We should give credit where credit is due—the Chancellor has protected capital investment, which is a very important and correct decision—but there have also been wheezes. I am sorry to say that she has somewhat pulled the wool over the eyes of the Office for Budget Responsibility in relation to housing growth, which is the Government’s new “get out of jail free” card. It has never been included in an OBR estimate before, and it is very doubtful and unlikely that it will happen in any case, even at those levels—the target has already been downgraded from 1.5 million houses to 1.3 million houses—because of the planned upheaval in local government. Meanwhile, the immensely damaging Employment Rights Bill goes entirely unscored economically by the OBR. We will see what it says about that piece of legislation next time around.

The brutal fact is that although the Government claim to prioritise growth, growth has halved since they came into power. They have talked about little else, but even their own forecasts do not show growth getting back even to 2% by the end of the decade, and every major independent expert forecast of the economy’s future growth is lower than that of the OBR.

What do we see if we look more closely? The spring statement is not really about work at all; it is about moving people from welfare into lower-paying welfare. The cut to universal credit announced last week has been followed by a freezing of universal credit—why? It is because that appears to hit the Chancellor’s own fiscal headroom number to the decimal point. Last week we heard all the rhetoric about the moral case for nudging people back into work, but now it seems that this is actually an accounting exercise, and the economic and moral justification for the policy has been lost sight of.

The second point is the question whether artificial intelligence, which the Government have greatly emphasised, will actually have the effect of increasing growth. The Chancellor suggested that this idea was somehow obvious and conventional wisdom, but that is very far from true. The Nobel prize-winning economist Bob Solow famously said that the effects of the IT revolution could be seen everywhere except in the economic numbers. Other countries are scaling and deploying artificial intelligence with massive speed, and many experts believe that AI could increase unemployment and inequality, and raise the costs of retraining people and reintegrating them into the workforce. Far from creating economic growth, the advent of AI could end up forcing a Government—possibly this Government—into even more spending than they presently contemplate.

Finally, we get to the vexed and much-discussed issue of so-called fiscal headroom—or, to use a more technical phrase, the goolies-in-a-vice problem. It has been suggested that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing expecting a different result. So far, we have seen minimal fiscal adjustment at the statement, and meanwhile the Chancellor has managed to recreate the same constraining conditions that existed beforehand. This is a situation entirely of the Government’s own making. It was the Chancellor’s decision to choose these fiscal rules, and it was her decision then to take measures that undermined economic growth. She has staked her own credibility and that of the Government on those decisions. The result is that we will now have endless uncertainty and avoidable speculation about the fiscal position every week, through the comprehensive spending review and into the autumn Budget.

The Chancellor has refused to rule out making more cuts to spending. Even so, she may have to impose tax rises, and those tax rises could come even sooner than anticipated if the US decides to go ahead with the tariff it has suggested. As such, my question is this: what will the Leader of the House feel in her own heart, and what will she say to her Cabinet colleagues over the next few weeks, as the full effects of these terribly damaging decisions become clear?

[Lucy Powell]

I join the right hon. Gentleman in saying that it was really heartwarming to hear so many tributes paid to his father at last week’s business questions. Such moments show the House at its best, and I thank him for bringing his eulogy to the Floor of the House. I also join him in looking forward to Mothering Sunday—maybe I will get some rest on that day, but we will see. First, I will have to pay a visit to my own mum, who I pay tribute to as well. Her very favourite phrase, which has stuck with me throughout my life, is “Them who does nowt does nowt wrong.” I will leave that to linger with a few colleagues.

As the right hon. Gentleman says, yesterday we heard the spring statement. We heard that this Labour Government are taking on the unprecedented long-term challenges that this country faces—I know that he and Conservative Members do not want to acknowledge it, but I am afraid that is the reality. The problems that we face run deep. There is huge global uncertainty, as he knows; there have been years of under-investment in infrastructure and in people, leading to low productivity and low growth; there are the effects of covid, to which we were particularly exposed, and which his Government did not address, leaving a generation of working-age adults consigned to benefits and 1 million young people not in education, training or work; and our economy remains in the long shadow of Liz Truss, who destroyed fiscal confidence, leaving high and costly debt, high interest rates and ordinary people paying the price. That, I am afraid, is the legacy we are trying to address.

We are facing up to those realities and putting this country on a path to improved living standards, secure work, an NHS that is back on its feet, affordable homes to live in, and security through defence and our global leadership. That is going to take time—there is no denying it—but the forecasts published yesterday, which the right hon. Gentleman took a selective view of, show the green shoots of recovery. He might not want to hear it, but as the OBR said yesterday, growth forecasts after this year have been upgraded as a result of our policies.

Britain is now set to be the second-fastest growing economy in the G7 this year and next year. I am glad that the shadow Leader of the House is welcoming the boost in capital investment, after years and years of under-investment and a downward trajectory in capital spending by his Government. That has led to another £2 billion extra earmarked for defence, another £2 billion more for affordable and social housing, and a transformation fund that will help reform our public services and deliver those better outcomes.

After the right hon. Gentleman’s Government left millions languishing in the aftermath of covid—that is what they did—we have got a plan to get people back to work, and we are making sure that the welfare safety net is sustainable for the long term. That is a far cry, I am afraid, from his Government. Our plan includes a pay rise for the lowest earners, coming in next week. The Employment Rights Bill, which we on the Government Benches are proud of, will give dignity and security in work. We have protections for the most in need and the biggest back to work programme in a generation. Even in the long shadow of Liz Truss—a very long shadow—which looms large over our fiscal credibility, interest rates are coming down, inflation is now under control and stability is restored.

The shadow Leader of the House asked about the headroom, but I gently remind him that the headroom that the Chancellor set out yesterday is 50% more than the headroom she inherited from her predecessor. One of the most shocking aspects of what we inherited was the eye-watering cost of servicing our enormous debt. We now spend £100 billion a year servicing debt, which is more than we spend on defence, justice and the Home Office combined. That is what we inherited from the Conservatives. Even in the face of those challenges, the Labour Chancellor announced yesterday that the Government’s day-to-day spending will be going up above inflation each year for this forecast, and that will help restore our public services and give support to those who need it most. Those are Labour values in practice, making different choices for this country in the interests of working people. That is what Labour values are all about.