Employers

Lee Dillon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald). I heard a collective thud when the Minister was speaking earlier, which must have been the jaws of businesses in my constituency hitting the floor, because there was a real lack of understanding of the real pressures that businesses are facing.

One thing I love about being a Member of Parliament is spending time going around the constituency, and I always make a point of visiting businesses—be they small, medium or large—to hear directly from them their concerns, and there are many of them. I also hold a regular business club, and it is becoming increasingly difficult in those meetings to give businesses any meaningful answers of reassurance because of the real problems they are facing. I am always struck by just how hard these people are working to keep their businesses going. They are part of not just our local economy, but our community. They create the vibrancy of our villages and our towns and are places where people can meet and congregate. These things are really important. We heard a moment ago about tech and innovation; even in the smallest barn on a farm, some really amazing tech companies are being created, and that is something we should be celebrating.

Employers want their businesses to be successful, and having a great team of employees is a keen part of that. Employers invest not only financially but emotionally in their business. I hear time and again that the costs of running a business are making that increasingly difficult. The spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), was right to say that a multitude of tax rises are creating that difficulty—not least the Government’s increase in employer national insurance contributions.

The Government will point to the increase in employer allowance, and I appreciate that it helps some businesses, but it does not change the fundamental fact that many employers are facing higher costs just to employ the same people and local businesses are having to make really difficult decisions. Time and again I hear it. I was depressed to hear at one event about a business whose owner had started it three years ago on his own and that was about to employ three people, but the national insurance contribution rise meant that that simply was not affordable any more.

It is not just businesses that are affected. Time and again, when I was a shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Minister, I tried to raise the impact on the charities sector, where I spent 16 years working before entering Parliament. I know the pressures that they face. I particularly worked in hospices, which can only provide care if they can afford to employ the people to look after their residents—children, in the case of the hospice I worked in. The Government will cite their £100 million of capital funding for hospices, but they cannot fund nurses with bricks and mortar. The reality is that these workers should not be facing these tax rises, because they are picking up a massive part of public sector work in caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies.

We have many wonderful charities in my constituency that provide important services to people who need them. They are employers too, and they still have staff to pay. When I speak to the people who use these charity services, it is not the charity that they talk about but the staff. That is why we must think about those charities as well.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

In my constituency of Newbury, a volunteer centre survey found that charities needed to raise an additional £300,000 a year just to stand still. Does the right hon. Member agree that charities’ time should be focused on serving our constituents rather than worrying about fundraising off the back of Labour’s tax rises?

[Stuart Andrew]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I was the head of fundraising at the hospice, so I know that it takes some time to plan a fundraising strategy. If a charity suddenly finds overnight that it has to find all that extra money, it will be almost impossible, and often they will end up having to eat into reserves, which is not a good thing.