Direction of Government

Lord True Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd September 2026 Lords Chamber

When I stood outside Downing Street six weeks ago, I said that Britain needs a circuit breaker after a decade of turbulence, negativity, point-scoring and divisive politics. This is what I have outlined today: a clear, coherent and credible approach to growth that can unlock a feeling of positivity and possibility in every postcode in Britain. Our job here is to make it real by taking a place-first rather than a party-first approach. It starts with reasserting basic standards for Britain—that this is a country where no one sleeps rough and no community is blighted by an illegal waste tip—and, from there, working together to build a new sense of optimism around the country. We can make this next decade better than the last. We can lift the prospects of all our people and places. We can put more power into every postcode. We can let Britain believe again. We can bring back hope. I commend this Statement to the House”.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for being here to repeat this Statement.

The new Prime Minister was in place for 42 days before meeting Parliament. That is an all-time record for a new Prime Minister and I trust it will never be equalled. So, we certainly need accountability and, having ordered his troops to vote down a debate in July, I thank the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms for repenting a little and granting additional time for Back-Bench questions on the Statement today.

The Statement began with a tribute to Sir Keir Starmer. On hearing it, I was a little reminded of Brutus’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The Prime Minister plotted to destroy Sir Keir, not because he did not love Sir Keir but because he loved No. 10 more. Sir Keir has responded to the loyalty that he was shown and, understandably, voted with his feet. We wish him well.

This Statement was grandly entitled “Direction of the Government”. So what is it? What will be different from what was done by the Starmer Government? If she answers nothing else today, can the Minister tell us three things Sir Keir was doing which will now be dropped and three things he was not doing which will now be done? After all, she is in the Cabinet; she must know.

The Prime Minister in the Statement made a lot of things going wrong over 40 years. He blamed Brexit, among other things, and then announced a reduction of VAT on energy prices—ironically, impossible without Brexit. He said that he wanted to help the hospitality industry. Your Lordships may ask who has been pummelling that and crushing summer jobs over the last two years. It is this Labour Government in their disastrous tax policies and the unemployment Act.

The Prime Minister used another Brexit freedom to cut VAT temporarily on pubs. They are now closing at the fastest rate ever known. We might call it “last orders with Reeves and Rayner”. But then the big new idea in the Statement to help hospitality is a tourism tax—that is a funny one.

Always, always, always with the party opposite, the answer is not a spending cut but a new tax. You cannot tax your way into growth. Jim Callaghan said that in the 1970s, as the Prime Minister recalls so fondly. The Prime Minister’s friend, the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Gatley, understands that equally well now. The noble Lord seems unwilling to serve under the Prime Minister’s leadership. Perhaps he is the canary in the wealth tax coal mine. Yesterday, he criticised the “tone” of the Prime Minister’s Statement, calling it the

“last thing investors wanted to hear”.

Business has heard the message of tax and spending loud and clear. We should beware, for this is the real danger to our country, to jobs, to mortgages and to business—tax, borrowing and spending running out of control just as they did under the Labour Government in the 1970s the Prime Minister recalls so fondly.

Let us come back to the “Direction of Government”, the title of the Statement. This Government have already added £74,000 million to the tax burden in two years. Some £130,000 million is already spent every year on servicing debt: that is over £1,800 a year for every man, woman and child in the country. We have more borrowing, more nationalisation, more spending, more intervention by civil servants, more tax and more state control.

Can the Minister confirm that that is the direction of the Government? It certainly sounds like the 1970s. Can she say whether the Government’s plan is to increase borrowing or reduce it? Do they plan to increase government spending to pay for all the new initiatives that the Prime Minister has announced, or to curtail spending? Will they address the burgeoning weight of welfare spending on the necks of the working man and woman, or reduce it? Come to think of it, can the Minister tell the House of one significant reduction in welfare that she is recommending to colleagues?

The Prime Minister makes a lot of this new No. 10 North. Well, it is nice to have your office just down the road. To give him credit, I am told that the replica front door cost a thousand quid. I wish somebody had told someone in this House about our new front door. We are told that everyone must now beat their path to No. 10 North to get subsidies, get spending, get more civil servants and get the right to put up tax. If Cornwall wants a so-called “devolution deal”, it must go up to Manchester. Can the Minister say whether these deals will let regional mayors reduce tax? If this is about the direction of the Government, what is the Government’s strategy on taxation? Is it for the taxation burden to go up or fall under this Government? Can the Minister tell the House? Hard-working people up and down the country, who are already paying the highest peacetime tax burden in history and the highest taxation on property in Europe or the G7, deserve to know the Government’s intentions.

National security is the first duty of any Government. The former Defence Secretary resigned over this Government’s failure to do enough. He is now the Chancellor. So, with that following wind in her sails, can the Minister commit to the defence funding that the Chancellor said was necessary to keep British troops safe? That is, 3% of GDP by 2030.

The ultimate test for any Government is whether people feel richer, freer and more prosperous. There is agreement across the House that this can be achieved only through growth. It can be achieved only through innovation and hard work by individuals and businesses. The Prime Minister admits that the cost of doing business is already too high. Yet, in the same breath, he apparently recommits himself in the Statement to the same net-zero policies that are driving up energy costs for households and businesses. Again, which is it? It cannot be both.

The direction of the Government in so many respects remains confused and unclear, but nothing would do this country more harm than the agenda of back to the high-tax, high-spending 1970s, which this Statement presages and which, in the last two days, the financial markets have ominously discerned.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, Andy Burnham is the seventh Prime Minister in the 13 years I have been a Member of this House. Under our unstable one-party government system, Prime Ministers have had an average tenure of 21 months in my time. I worked out that this is precisely the average lifespan of a domestic hamster. Of course, we wish the current Prime Minister a longer time in Downing Street than the lifespan of a hamster. We wish him well if he seeks to make changes to our country for the long-term good on social care, political reform, cutting the cost on businesses and restoring the ease of trade and travel within Europe. These Benches will work with his Ministers to meet this ambition. I wish the new Ministers who have been appointed in this House well and I thank those who left office for their service. We are also interested to see the structure, as referred to by the noble Lord, of No. 10 North. It is not north from where I live, north of the border—it is a bit more No. 10 in the middle—but I will be interested to see how the structure of government operates in reality.

It is fair to analyse the words of the Labour Prime Minister. First, I agree that there is

“a weariness in the heart of a nation”.

I agree that there is a yearning:

“For change. For national renewal”.


These Benches also agree with the Prime Minister’s call for “actions not words”. Finally, we share the need for

“the hope, the spirit, the belief in a better future”.

These sound like Andy Burnham, but they are all actually Sir Keir Starmer’s words in his first speech as Prime Minister.

The new Prime Minister’s speech on taking office, when cross-referenced with that of his predecessor, is a little like an Elgar’s variation on a theme but with a little more espressivo and emotion. Keir Starmer said that too many people no longer believe Britain would be better for their children and promised to work until they “believe again”, and Andy Burnham ended with almost exactly the same emotional destination. He said that Britain should start to “believe again” and that he wanted to “bring back hope”.

Expectations are high, but as my former Scottish Liberal colleague Russell Johnston said:

“You don’t change the taste of the whisky by changing the shape of the bottle”.


Nor are the fundamentals and the challenges facing the Government any different because of the new Prime Minister. The tasks ahead of him are enormous, and I agree with the noble Lord that it is right that we have extra time. Indeed, tomorrow we have a debate in the House where we will be exploring further what the Government’s plans are under the new Prime Minister.

Some of the Prime Minister’s statements are welcomed by these Benches, especially in the areas we have campaigned for, where hitherto action was not as rapid as we had hoped—for example, on waste dumping, championed by my noble friend Lady Sheehan in this House; on reducing the tax burden on hospitality businesses; or on securing what we hope to be real changes to the political system on donations, on clarity, on transparency and on regulation, as my noble friend Lord Pack indicated at Questions today. On the last point, we believe there need to be full cross-party talks on protecting our democratic processes—this is of vital importance—but we also need democratic reform. I would be grateful if the Leader gave an indication of what she understands the Prime Minister’s priority to be on the electoral system and democratic reform, not just on devolution.

On water reform, for example, we had been told that we would have legislation around now, but in the Makerfield by-election Andy Burnham told the Guardian that he was in favour of public ownership. He recently told the FT that he is in favour of control, not nationalisation. Can the Leader offer clarification as to what we will receive when it comes to water reform, Thames Water in particular, and when we will receive it? It is urgent. Dumping is being carried out as we speak today. Andy Burnham also told the Financial Times that he wanted to address not just the cost of living but the cost of businesses, particularly energy costs. We welcome this, but there needs to be more clarity as to what he means by it.

He said that there is a slight difference between his approach on growth and that of his predecessor. He agreed that the number one priority of government should be growth, but he said it should be “good growth”. I wondered what that means. Is good growth not investing in fossil fuels or being pragmatic on fossil fuels? Is it trade agreements where we ditch human rights clauses? Is good growth that we increase imports from poor standards in China? More clarity as to what good growth means would be helpful. For example, many people welcomed the cap on bus fares, and I understand why. That was the first announcement by Mr Burnham. It is paid for by a further cut of development assistance for clean travel in the poorest country in the world, so more clarity is needed.

On travel, we welcome the Government’s announcement on the extension of disabled travel, championed by Tom Gordon MP in the House of Commons. We welcome the concession on digital ID. In particular, we welcome the talks on social care. Sir Ed Davey took part willingly in the talks with the Prime Minister on the need to seek cross-party consensus, and I know that the Official Opposition took part in those talks as well. Can the Leader explain a little more what we may see as a result of these talks? As Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham have both said, we need action, not words, and we need reform, not talk. On care, on electoral reform and on fiscal decentralisation, these Benches will be constructive in working with the Government, but we need a lot more information about what and when on the Government’s programme.