Taxes

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

The hon. Member says that he does not really understand the contradictions. Would he like to state how much growth there has been in the UK economy since the last Budget?

[Sam Rushworth]

Obviously, we are in a global economy. We have the fastest growth in the G7; I think that is well known—[Interruption.] I am going to make some progress, because it is important to set out why we need to be making investment in our public services and infrastructure.

We have only to look at what austerity did to the NHS. The Conservatives inherited an NHS with the highest satisfaction levels and the lowest waiting times ever, and they reversed both of those two things. Look at the state of our town centres. In fact, look at the state of my own constituency of Bishop Auckland compared with 15 years ago. Look at the state of dentistry. In the year before the general election we lost two NHS dental surgeries but, worse than that, children in the existing practices were sent letters telling them they could no longer be provided with an NHS dentistry service. Look at the rising crime in many of our communities, which exactly mirrors the cuts to frontline police. Look at what the Conservatives did to our defence capabilities, which left us the smallest Army since the Napoleonic era.

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[Sam Rushworth]

The point I am making is that spending for spending’s sake is not what any responsible Government should do. We should spend every tax pound well. These examples of waste are not things that we should continue.

There was the £100,000 spent on a fake bell that only bonged 10 times during Big Ben’s maintenance. Truss spent £1.8 million on executive travel as Foreign Secretary, not to mention the £500,000 for her private jet for a single trip to Australia in 2022. Then again, she spent £3,000 on a lectern.

[Lincoln Jopp]

The hon. Member is nickel-and-diming the debate. One big question faces the Chancellor: what to do about the two-child benefit cap, which costs £3.5 billion, so let us not worry about the odd £50,000 here or there. I would like to hear a clear statement from him: is he for lifting the two-child benefit cap, or for keeping it?

[Sam Rushworth]

That is a fair question, and I will answer it. It is important that we do not return to the days when the Conservatives were in office and vanity projects wasted so much public money, because child poverty is the scourge of our time. We need a national mission to eradicate child poverty. Some of what we need to do will come through, for example, our looking at the two-child cap, but not all of it. I have argued in this place for us to extend free school meals, and I am pleased that the Government have listened to that and are extending them to more children. I have argued in this place for free breakfast clubs, and I am pleased that the Chancellor is listening and funding them. Unlike the Conservatives, she is funding free childcare, because these things matter, too. This is not just about benefits; it is about ensuring that we give children what they need to have a meaningful childhood.

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[Stuart Anderson]

He raises a huge point. In my constituency of 700 square miles, the local pub and village hall are community hubs. After Remembrance Sunday, I took my family to the Queens in Ludlow. I have met many publicans across South Shropshire. Experienced publicans are still just able to keep trading on reserves, but they are not really making a profit. The ones who are just setting out to build up that reserve are going broke. It is just not a viable situation for them at the moment.

Council tax bills doubled in the time that Labour was last in power, representing an extra £751 on an average band D home. The Conservatives put in veto powers to ensure that council tax did not increase over a certain amount. We allowed local areas to receive the funding that they wanted by raising council tax within 5%, but without excessive rises. At the moment, less funding is going into rural areas but council tax is going up by a dramatic amount, so people are paying more and getting less.

The County Councils Network has named Shropshire council as one of 16 local authority areas that will see significant cuts in direct Government funding. It suggests that there will be about £9 million of cuts to Government funding over the next three years. That will affect many different services, including Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service, which has said so on record.

I have written to many constituents as part of my “shop local” survey, and I have heard from almost 10% of them—thousands of people have responded. People say that they love going to the local high street and want to do so. However, the footfall numbers are dropping. Businesses say that they do not have confidence, and that it is getting harder and harder to trade. That is causing major issues on the high street. We must release the stranglehold on the high street and encourage growth. The biggest factor, businesses tell me, is the tax hikes, which are crippling. I make a plea to the Government to change their approach to taxing small businesses, or they will destroy the country.

[Lincoln Jopp]

Will my hon. and gallant Friend take an intervention from any Labour Member who is prepared to say that they have spoken to a business in their constituency that welcomes the NI tax increase?

[Stuart Anderson]

I will gladly take an intervention from any Labour Member whose local businesses say that the tax on local business is good. Anyone?

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[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) on his constituency, which I drove through. I enjoyed a drink or two in one of the pubs in his town of Ludlow, and it was really good to be there. Fortunately, I sat next to some Labour supporters in the pub, so I am grateful for that too.

There has been quite a lot of bluster from the Conservatives today. However, sadly for them, a party that repeatedly broke its manifesto promises, crashed the economy and brought public services to their knees has no credibility. It is all brass neck and no contrition. This Labour Government are still cleaning up the mess that the Conservatives left—a mess that has deep consequences for our economy, with the impact of austerity, their bodged Boris Brexit deal, and Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, which homeowners and many others have been paying the price for.

Changes to fiscal policy are made at the Budget, which will be set out on 26 November, not today. That is just one of the many reasons why we will vote against this motion. What I can say is that my colleagues in the Treasury will ensure that the Budget is underpinned by Labour’s values of fairness and opportunity and focused on the priorities of the British people: protecting our NHS, reducing the national debt and improving the cost of living.

[Lincoln Jopp]

It would make things so much simpler for the House if the hon. Gentleman would put a date on when those on the Government Benches will take responsibility for running the country. I do not mind if it is in six months’ time or a year’s time, but we can then all go home—I have lots of things to do in Spelthorne until then. When the Government finally come to terms with the fact that they are in charge and are responsible, we will all be grateful.

[John Slinger]

Frankly, it took 14 years for the Conservatives not to apologise for any of the decisions they took, so I do not think we need any lectures from the hon. Member or from other Conservatives.

Contrast our values with the values of the Conservatives: austerity, financial recklessness under Liz Truss, and a dodgy Brexit deal. We cannot return to austerity and economic chaos.

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[John Slinger]

I am saying to this House that my right hon. Friends in the Government have to take very difficult decisions to deal with the problems this country faces, many of which were caused by decisions taken by the Conservatives. They left mines in our national finances, our public services, our system of taxation, and more besides. This Government are not just manoeuvring around those mines, leaving them for future generations; we are defusing them. We are getting on with the job of renewal and, unlike Opposition parties, we will not take risks with the next generation through undue debt. We will invest in the national interest, and we will reform things, as we are showing with NHS England. We will take the tough long-term decisions that are necessary to rebuild Britain. We are doing this with our Labour values at the forefront: fairness; opportunity for all; protecting the vulnerable; empowering people, businesses and organisations; challenging vested interests; long-term investment; an industrial strategy; skills for the future.

[Lincoln Jopp]

On the topic of tough decisions, I have a really simple question for the hon. Gentleman, which will probably do him some good in the coup that is currently going on. Is he for lifting the two-child benefit cap, or for keeping it in place?

[John Slinger]

I am for doing absolutely everything we can to reduce child poverty. One way in which we can achieve that is by ending the two-child cap—there are other measures. However, that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor; it is not for me to decide right now in the Chamber.

Our approach is paying off. We were the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in the first half of the year, and the average person’s disposable income is £800 higher now in real terms than just before the election, but there is not time for me to go through the long list of our achievements. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will set out more in the Budget. In my view, ours is a can-do approach, not a kicking-the-can-down-the-road approach.

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[Laurence Turner]

I have said it a number of times on the record and in this House before, so it is no evasion to say that I am no fan of the cap at all. As an incrementalist, I would like to see at least some solid progress on lifting that cap, and I hope that we will be in a position to remove it completely.

[Lincoln Jopp]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Laurence Turner]

No. I have already taken two interventions and I want to make a bit of progress with my speech, but I might come back to the hon. Member.

I hope that the Opposition do publish more detail, because, if they do not, it will be widely suspected in the country and the House that they know that their claims do not withstand the lightest of scrutiny. It will also be concluded that the real function of that document is to act as an exercise in wishful thinking, and that it is designed to avoid the taking of difficult and unpopular decisions.

Some parts of the Opposition’s claims can be dispensed with briefly. They tell us that they would save £3.5 billion by closing asylum hotels; I think my constituents would choke on their cornflakes on that one, because they know that the Conservative party was the originator of hotel use, just as small boat crossings were not an issue before 2019. I am glad that, under Labour, hotel placements in Birmingham are down by 50% compared with their peak, and I look forward to their use being eliminated completely.

The greater part of the Opposition’s claimed savings is £23 billion of supposed cuts to the welfare bill, but, again, we have had only the scarcest of details. Let us be clear about the scale of what is being discussed: £23 billion is the equivalent of a quarter of the universal credit bill, more than half the disability social security bill, and two thirds of housing costs.

To give her credit, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), said last week that she would be happy to share a further breakdown of those savings. Again, that has not been brought forward. If the Opposition are to ask the House to have any confidence in their proposals, they must provide that information—not examples of proposed cuts, but the cuts in their totality.

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[Dr Spencer]

We were hoping that this debate would clarify the inability of the Prime Minister to answer the question asked by the Leader of the Opposition only two weeks ago: about whether he would repeat the manifesto commitment not to raise the big three taxes. We are in a period of uncertainty that we are trying to resolve, and it has been created by this ongoing kite flying.

[Lincoln Jopp]

Would my hon. Friend agree that the corollary of taxes is expenditure? We have tried to elicit some clarity from Government Members about whether they would like to raise the two-child benefit cap, which would cost £3.5 billion, or leave it where it is. Given the Chancellor’s kite-flying exercise in the media recently, would my hon. Friend be prepared to take an intervention from the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), who suggested that we were the ones spreading uncertainty?

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my constituency neighbour, and of course I am always happy to take interventions.