Employers

Jonathan Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I ask for my right hon. Friend’s forgiveness. I buy into his theory more than mine; I have overestimated the Government’s capabilities.

The Conservatives’ motion says that the House believes that employers are working people, and that increasing national insurance broke Labour’s manifesto. If this was just a debate about semantics, maybe we could all move on, but the 2024 Budget has cast a shadow over every employer in every postcode, driving up unemployment and pushing up costs for everyone. It is time to start unravelling that damage, and in particular the damage that this tax increase has done to young people.

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

For what it is worth, I accept that employers are working people and they are an important part of our labour market and our economy. However, though I lament the increase to national insurance, it was necessary to get money back into the NHS, which was on its knees following the end of the last Government, and that was breaking the economy too.

[Julia Lopez]

The hon. Gentleman has no doubt been to his constituency and been denied access to pubs, salons and all the rest of it, and that has suddenly changed his mind about what constitutes “a working person”. I should ask: are his constituents seeing those better public services? Certainly, mine are not, and they wonder where all that money has gone because it has not gone on more stable public finances or better public services.

Let us start by acknowledging what it takes to be an employer. It takes someone who saved money to start a business of their own and who took a risk to expand it gradually to take on that first member of staff, then over time building a team. It takes long hours, personal sacrifice, financial peril, time away from their family.