National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill
Mel Stride ExcerptsTuesday 17th December 2024
(5 days, 5 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill 2024-26 View all National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 17 December 2024 - (17 Dec 2024)
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
This is not a Bill, but a Shakespearean tragedy. It is the “Hamlet” of our age. While the Labour party was tipping the poison into the ears of the electorate, it was assuring them in its manifesto that it would do nothing with national insurance. Look what it has done. This will hit inflation—all forecasts show it higher every year than it would have been under us back in the spring. Mortgages will be higher, living standards will be lower, wages will be driven further down and there will be a £770 reduction in the standard of living by October 2029, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. We will see 50,000 jobs destroyed, particularly among our younger people. We will see growth impacted—lower across the forecast period than it would have been under ourselves back in the spring.
This is a far cry from our record when we left office, with employment at near record highs, unemployment at near record lows, the fastest growing economy in the G7 and real wages growing in every month for 13 consecutive months. We brought inflation down from over 11% in October 2022 to exactly the target of 2% on election day. The Bill is a calamity for businesses up and down our country. We are the party that understands that we only get good public services with a strong economy and strong businesses. The Labour party is consigning people up and down this country, plunging them into the tepid bath of managed decline over which it has presided.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Employer National Insurance Contributions
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House regrets that increasing the rate of employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs) to 15%, and reducing the per-employee threshold at which employers become liable to pay NICs on employees’ earnings to £5,000, will lead to increased costs for businesses and lower wages for employees, including in particular young people; will force companies to cut employment, leading to some 130,000 job losses according to Bloomberg Economics; will increase costs for retailers by £2.3 billion according to the British Retail Consortium, leading to higher prices for consumers; will create an annual additional bill of £1.4 billion for charitable service providers according to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, so they will struggle to maintain support for vulnerable people; and will increase childcare costs for families; further regrets that the Government has not published its complete assessment of the effect this policy will have on the public and private sector, or indeed any impact assessment; and regrets also that, as a result of the Government’s economic policies, GDP forecasts are down, inflation is up and business confidence is down.
“Growth” was the leitmotiv of the Labour party. Its members chuntered on about it during the run-up to the last general election, and in their manifesto, under the heading “Kickstart economic growth”, they said that they would secure the highest sustained growth in the G7. They also said—and I know that you like a good joke, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I would ask you to contain yourself—that they would forge a
“new partnership with business to boost growth everywhere”.
Given what has happened, those are fantastical statements. Reading Labour’s manifesto was somewhat like stepping through the looking glass. It had something of Lewis Carroll about it. This lot were less the Prime Minister and the Chancellor than the Walrus and the Carpenter, cruelly leading businesses to their demise. For all the fantasy in the manifesto, they might just as well have spoken
“Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
Because what happened to growth? The Office for Budget Responsibility tells us that the Budget will lead to less growth across the forecast period than was the case back in the spring under the last Government. The Office for National Statistics tells us in the third-quarter GDP data that the economy grew by 0.1%—one seventh of the growth in the United States. In the third month of that quarter, which was September, growth was actually negative. That is the record of this Government.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about the OBR figures, but he fails to mention that his party misled the OBR to the extent that it had to put the failure in writing. Given that he is talking about Lewis Carroll, is it not true to say that the figures that the OBR was working with were more likely to have been received from the Mad Hatter?
Mel Stride
That is an amusing intervention, but it is thoroughly inaccurate, I am afraid. The OBR did indeed look into the suggestion that there was a black hole of £22 billion, and what did it conclude? It concluded that the fiscal pressure in that year was less than half that amount. The OBR readily accepted that had it had discussions with Treasury officials about that at the time, it may well have reduced the amount still further. Members from across the House know that it is not unusual for the Treasury to manage down in-year fiscal pressures as a matter of course, so the argument has been debunked. It is the dead parrot. It is pushing up the daisies. It is no more.
The hon. Gentleman’s point is indicative of what this Government have done: they have talked down the UK economy. In turn, business confidence has slumped in a way seldom seen in our history, with purchasing managers index surveys falling through the floor. We have seen the Institute of Directors’ optimism tracker scoring minus 60 in November—one would have to go back to April 2020 to find a lower score than that. We also know that at the centre of the Budget is the biggest broken promise of all: the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions. That is weighing on growth.
And what of jobs? Labour’s fantastical manifesto talks about job creation, which is mentioned several times, but the Government are destroying jobs by breaking a manifesto commitment. It was there in black and white in their manifesto that they would not raise national insurance. Do not take my word that they breached their manifesto; take that of Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who says precisely the same.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Member refers to broken manifesto pledges. The Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto said they would not raise national insurance, yet three years later he and all his colleagues voted to raise national insurance—not just on employees, but on employers. Can he help us with that process of logic?
Mel Stride
I think the hon. Gentleman might just be overlooking a little something called covid, which shrank the UK economy by over 10% overnight.
What this Government have done is take us right back to the 1970s when it comes to the jaw-dropping level of tax increases and spending splurges. The impact on jobs is stark, and it is clear. The OBR says there will be 50,000 fewer full-time equivalent jobs as a result of the measures in the Budget. Bloomberg says that 130,000 jobs will be destroyed. The Confederation of British Industry, in a survey of its membership, says that 50% of businesses report that they will cut employment as a consequence of the Budget, and two thirds say that they will row back on the recruitment plans that they previously had.
It is not just about the headline rate; the threshold is so pertinent and important here. It is bearing down on sectors where wages are lower, and on cohorts in the labour market who earn the least, because of the disproportionate impact of lowering the threshold. They include hospitality, leisure, retail and women. Some of the youngest people in our country will now see their jobs taken away from them as a consequence of what this Government are doing. We know that the Labour party has form when it comes to youth unemployment. Under the last Labour Government, youth unemployment increased by over 40%. Under the last Conservative Government, it reduced by over 40%.
Labour said in this fantastical document that it would keep inflation as low as possible. It said the same of mortgages, and yet what has happened? This fiscal splurge, this £70 billion each year that the Government are now going to be spending, will mean higher inflation in every single year of the forecast, compared with the forecast back in the spring. What is that doing to people’s living standards? It is destroying them, and I will come to that momentarily. Part of the inflationary pressure is the national insurance increase itself, because while we know that, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, about 80% of it will be transferred into lower employment rates and depressed wages, about 20% of it will go into higher prices.
And what of living standards? This fantastical Lewis Carroll document said that Labour would be making everybody, not just the few, better off. However, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation—hardly a right-wing thinktank—says that by October 2029, the average family will be £770 worse off in real terms than they are today.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
We on this side of the House will not take lectures on living standards from the party that left us with the worst squeeze on wages since Napoleon, the highest energy prices in the G7 and the highest inflation. The Conservatives left us with the worst-insulated homes and dependent on natural gas. That is why this party will invest in insulation to make us all better off in the long run.
Mel Stride
I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman raises the inheritance that his party has received from the Conservatives. We had the highest rate of growth in the G7. We had brought inflation right down from 11.1% in October 2022 to 2%—bang on target—at the time of the general election. We had a near-record level of employment. We had a near-record low level of unemployment. We had real wages that had been increasing month after month for 13 or 14 months prior to the general election. That was not a bad inheritance.
Torsten Bell (Swansea West) (Lab)
I am grateful to the shadow Chancellor for giving way, even if I cannot quite believe what I am hearing. Anyone boasting about the economic record of the previous Government, particularly in the immediate run-up to the last election, should read this week’s release from the Office for National Statistics on the reweighted labour force survey. It shows that productivity in the year running up to the election fell by 0.9%. That was in just one year. That is what economic failure looks like.
Mel Stride
No matter what points the hon. Gentleman may make, I am afraid he cannot get away from the fact that this Government are bearing down on growth, pressing up on unemployment, bearing down on employment and bearing down on living standards.
The OBR also says that real household disposable income by 2029 will be 1.25% lower than it was back in the spring, at the time of that forecast. We know the impact that national insurance is going to have on wages. It will press them down and it will further diminish living standards.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor remember any Labour MP in the last general election standing on a fully costed manifesto that would mean economic growth was forecast to be lower than under the previous Government? Perhaps the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell) should remember that Labour MPs stood on a manifesto that was apparently fully costed but then had different commitments. We had a faster rate of growth under the last Government than is projected under this Government.
Mel Stride
The simple fact is that, at the time of the general election, we had the fastest-growing economy in the G7. The simple fact is that the Labour manifesto said it would deliver precisely that, yet we have heard very little about that commitment in recent days and weeks—I wonder why.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to set the facts right? It is important to reflect on the fact that, during our 14 years in government—despite the 2008–09 financial crisis, despite the pandemic and despite the energy crisis—more than 1 million jobs were created, and 4 million people were in employment who were not in employment when we took office.
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our record on employment shows that we were a job-creating machine after 2010, and the statistics he cites are quite right.
When it came to business—this is a killer worthy of a stand-up comedy routine—the manifesto said:
“Labour will…support business through a stable policy environment”.
Of course, we know that all sorts of businesses have been hit by this tax increase, including many that directly support our public services: our hospices, our GPs and our pharmacists. Marie Curie has said that it is about to get a tax bill for an additional £3 million. Just think of the impact that will have.
The question that many are now feverishly and worriedly asking is whether there is more to come. Are the Government going to run out of road with their approach to our economy, and will they come back for more? Well, the Chancellor recently told the CBI that the Government will not be
“coming back with more borrowing or more taxes.”
Yet when the Leader of the Opposition put this assertion to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions today, we heard no answer. When I twice asked exactly that question of the Chancellor yesterday, we heard no response. Currently, these businesses do not know whether the Chancellor’s assertion that there will be no more borrowing and no more taxes is true or false.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
It sounds like the shadow Chancellor is unconvinced by the shrill chants of Labour Members that the Government will fix the foundations of the economy, and he has good reason for being suspicious. In October, when the Government had scarcely been in office for three months, they had more in-month borrowing than any UK Government since 1993, with the exception of one month during covid. Does that look like fixing the foundations to the shadow Chancellor?
Mel Stride
I have heard the hon. Gentleman intervene in various debates, and I am coming to the conclusion that he is probably a rather sensible SNP Member, because he is absolutely right. [Interruption.] I did not opine on how sensible his party is. I just said that he is one of its most sensible Members.
It is very clear that this Government will not create firm foundations for the economy. They will actually create a vulnerable economy, because there are risks around the central forecast and downside risks around growth, inflation, net migration, economic inactivity, energy prices, interest rates and so on. There will also be risks around the spending envelope after the first couple of years, particularly for a profligate Labour Government who may find that constraint unbearable.
There are also external risks. We know that there will be a new Government in the United States, and there is talk of tariffs. It may be that the deficit financing of tax cuts leads to interest rates rising around the world as bond yields increase, and that could be imported to our shores.
All these things mean that we need a good level of headroom against our fiscal targets, yet, on the stability target, it is quite possible that the headroom has already evaporated. Why? Because, to my earlier point, the Government talked down the UK economy and, partly as a result, are paying more to service the debt that this country carries.
Kanishka Narayan (Vale of Glamorgan) (Lab)
I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving way; my interest was piqued by his talk of deficit financed tax cuts. Does he agree with his boss, the Leader of the Opposition, that the Liz Truss mini-Budget, which is the prime example of the thing he criticises, was the right package, but just with the wrong communication?
Mel Stride
If the hon. Gentleman has a look at the history of that time, he will see that I was the Chair of the Treasury Committee, and I had a great deal to say about the economic policies that were pursued in the so-called mini-Budget, so I will leave it at that.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
On that point, will my right hon. Friend give way?
Graham Stuart
My right hon. Friend is giving a powerful speech. Does he share my feeling of pity for the—in some cases, distinguished—new Members of Parliament on the Government Benches? They want to talk again and again about the past, and about what happened as we recovered from the pandemic and got through the energy crisis, but not a single one wants to defend the appalling employer NICs increase, which will take £26 billion out of the economy but ultimately provide only about £10 billion or £11 billion in revenue for public services. It is an extraordinary misstep, is it not?
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend is right. They avoid the present and run away from the future, and there is no surprise about why that is the case.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mel Stride
I will not give way now.
For this Government, supporting business is like living in a world of fantasy. In “The Walrus and the Carpenter”, it was trusting oysters who were led to their early demise; with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, it is businesses that were trusting. As Lewis Carroll might have written the final verse:
“‘O businesses’, said the Chancellor,
‘You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none—
And this was scarcely odd, because
She’d finished off every one.”
That leaves just the Conservative party standing up for businesses in this country. For the working men and women in this country, we are the party that understands the difference between fantasy and reality. We are the party that knows that businesses need lower taxes, not higher taxes; less regulation, not more regulation; and a Government who are on their side. That is not the Labour party.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
What a pleasure it is to appear opposite the right hon. Lady for the first time. I was tempted to ask her how things were going, but I did not want to start out by being unkind. I will instead ask this: when she recently pledged to the CBI that she would not raise taxes again, did she mean it?
Rachel Reeves
I welcome the right hon. Member to his place, and look forward to many exchanges with him across the Dispatch Box. At the Budget in October, as he knows, we had to fix a £22 billion black hole in the public finances. Some of that black hole comes from the fact that we are the only G7 economy in which employment is lower than it was before the pandemic, when he was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, so we had to raise taxes to fund our public services; but never again will we have to repeat a Budget like that one, because we have now wiped the slate clean and drawn a line under the mess created by the previous Government.
Mel Stride
I did not actually discern any answer to my question, so may I put it this way? No. 10 has stated that it is not prepared to stand by the Chancellor’s commitment on tax. Is that because No. 10 changed its mind, or because the right hon. Lady spoke without thinking?
Rachel Reeves
No Chancellor of the Exchequer would write five years’ worth of Budget in their first five months in post, but I can say that we will never have to deliver a Budget like that again. We took decisions in this Budget in order to wipe the slate clean after the mismanagement, decline and chaos of the previous Government. That required us to make difficult decisions, but we were right to make them, so that we can get going with our plans to achieve growth and reform public services, and deliver the NHS and schools that our country desperately needs.
Finance Bill
Mel Stride ExcerptsWednesday 27th November 2024
(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give the Finance Bill a Second Reading because it derives from the 2024 Autumn Budget which will lead to jobs being lost, curtailed investment and prices being raised; because the Finance Bill constitutes an assault on business by increasing taxes on investment; because it will reduce the competitiveness of the United Kingdom’s tax regime; because it levies the first ever tax on educational choice and will increase pressure on state schools; because it will drive up rents by increasing tax on homeownership; because it will substantially increase the size of the state without a sustainable plan to fund it; and because it will reduce living standards, increase borrowing and debt, drive up inflation and interest rates, with the result that the OBR growth forecast for the Autumn Budget is lower than that accompanying the Spring Budget of the last Government.”
This Finance Bill, this Budget, are a disgrace. They are a disgrace because they are built on a deceit—a deceit that was propagated by the Labour party during the last general election. It told the British people that they need not worry about taxes being raised left, right and centre, yet what have we discovered? The figures of the Office for Budget Responsibility clearly show that this country is now heading to its highest tax burden in the history of our nation.
During the general election, we were also told by the Labour party that it had no intention of increasing national insurance. In fact, it stated exactly that in the manifesto on which the now Government stood. It broke that commitment. Do not take my word for it; Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies says exactly that.
Dr Evans
Is it not the case that the manifesto said that there would be no rise in national insurance, but when Ministers went to defend this policy, they said, “not on working people”, but then could not define working people? Now the language has slipped to “payslips”. Is the shadow Minister aware of this translation? I am pretty sure that the “payslip” was not mentioned in the manifesto.
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend makes an important and valid point. As he says, Labour is now claiming that there will be no incidence of this tax increase on working people, although it seems to have a problem defining exactly what a working person is. None the less, try telling that to those people who will see their wages depressed as a consequence of this measure. Try telling that to the 50,000 full-time equivalents who the OBR says will lose their jobs as a consequence of this measure. Try telling that to the young people up and down our country who, because it is not just an increase in the rate but also an approximate halving of the threshold, will be disproportionately affected.
Labour also reassured farmers. The then shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—the now Secretary of State—reassured farmers. He went to the National Farmers Union and said that nothing would be done on inheritance tax and the annual percentage rate. And on that basis, the NFU told its members that, at least on that measure, there was nothing to fear from a future Labour Government. How wrong it was. Only last week, we saw, tens of thousands of farmers, in their dignified way, coming up to the very gates of our democracy to ask a simple question of the Labour Government: “Why did you lie to us?” That is the nub of it. The measure will see the break-up of our farms and it will do nothing for food security.
Dave Doogan
Does the shadow Minister agree that the Government could not conceivably have been so ignorant about British agriculture that they did not know that inheriting the family farm is no form of enrichment whatsoever? So introducing this change to APR is just pure bad government.
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It demonstrates that this Government do not understand farming and do not understand the countryside. There are 100 Labour Members who represent rural constituencies. I will not guess how many there will be after the next general election, but some number fewer than 100, I suspect.
Perhaps the cruellest deception of all was of our pensioners, who were reassured that there would not be any means-testing of the winter fuel payment, yet what happened? 10 million pensioners are to face a cut. Before somebody on the Government Benches stands up and tells us that some of those pensioners can afford it, I say that many of them simply cannot. Of those under the poverty line, two thirds will actually lose these benefits.
Dr Evans
While the Prime Minister was out of the country on the 19th, something else was snuck out: a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions, explaining that, at the point of reaching its decision on this, it knew from its own internal analysis that it would impoverish 100,000 pensioners into relative poverty and 50,000 pensioners into absolute poverty. This information was asked for time and again in readiness for a debate in this House. Is it not right that information relevant to these measures should have been available in time for a debate?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is disgraceful that Labour waited until the farmers were at the gates of Westminster to sneak out that impact assessment, which showed that, by 2027, 100,000 more pensioners would be in relative poverty, after housing costs, than is the case today. Indeed, the analysis by the Labour party back in 2017, when it was against this proposal, was that up to 4,000 pensioners would prematurely die in the cold as a consequence of this measure. Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, when you deal in deceit, you need a pretext for so doing. And a further deceit has been brought forward, and it was raised again at the Dispatch Box this afternoon, which is the £22 billion black hole. Where is it?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before the shadow Minister responds, may I caution him against using the word “deceit” in the Chamber? No doubt he will now want to respond to the intervention.
Mel Stride
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will of course be guided by you on that matter. On the hon. Gentleman’s point, there is no doubt that, as we went into the last general election, the analysis of the manifestos of the three major parties showed that Labour’s manifesto would have by far the greatest increase on the tax burden. What Labour has done is to break its manifesto and go still further to take us, as the OBR has said, to what will be the highest tax burden in the history of our country. It is as simple as that.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for giving way. I did want to indulge him, but as he has now mentioned the OBR three times during the course of his speech, I wonder whether he would share with the House what conversations he had with former Prime Minister Liz Truss about respecting the OBR before she crashed the economy and sent inflation to 11%?
Mel Stride
As Chair of the Treasury Committee at the time, I had quite a lot to say about it, and I would point the hon. Gentleman to the public record in that regard.
Let me return to Labour’s claims of a vast £22 billion black hole, which one senses can even be seen from the moon. When the OBR looked at this matter, it concluded that the fiscal pressure was less than half that figure. It also made the point that, had it been known at that time, there would have been discussions between Treasury officials and the OBR, and that number might well have been smaller still. And it is equally the case that Governments manage down in-year fiscal pressures as a matter of course. To use another astronomer’s analogy, this is not so much a black hole as a red dwarf. [Interruption.] Or a red herring—even better. This is about not just misleading the British people, but economic incompetence.
The Government have set great store by growth. They say that they will generate the fastest consistently, sustainably growing economy in the G7—I see Labour Members nodding their heads. How is that going? Our friends at the OBR clearly forecast a lower level of growth following the Budget than they had forecast based on our Budget the preceding spring. That is a direct consequence of the kind of growth-destroying policies in which the Government are engaged. What happened when the Office for National Statistics came out with its figures recently for the third quarter of this year? [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell) has twice used the word “you” when heckling. I will not let him off in the future.
Mel Stride
I take it as a familiar mark of respect from the hon. Gentleman.
The fact of the matter is that the ONS’s figures for the third quarter of this year show growth of 0.1%. That is one seventh of what has been achieved in the United States. In September, the third month of the quarter, there was negative growth. The reason for that is very clear. When this Government came to office, the first thing that they did was talk down the economy, and talk about black holes and what a terrible mess everything was in, as cover for what they intended to do all along. That had an impact on purchasing managers’ index surveys. We can see the slump in business confidence in the data, and the Government are now reaping the whirlwind. We have now had a Budget that will do even more damage to growth.
What will happen to inflation? Let us go back to our friends at the OBR. In every single year of its forecast, inflation is higher than in every single year of the forecast based on our last Budget back in the spring—a fiscal splurge up front that will translate into higher prices and higher interest rates for longer, meaning higher mortgage rates. Before Labour Members start jumping up and down at the M-word, the Government now own mortgage interest rates, and they are being affected in the wrong direction as a result of their policies. What about living standards? They are down and flatlining. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that by October 2029 the average family will be £770 worse off in real terms than they are today.
Mel Stride
On the Government’s watch. A number of measures in the Bill will further weigh on growth. Capital gains tax will go up, destroying wealth creation. The energy profits levy will destroy jobs, making us less secure when it comes to energy. Stamp duty will go up, and that is one of the worst taxes. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell) will accept that, as he shares that view—I think he makes the point in his recent book. The level of activity in the housing market will be dampened, people will be discouraged from downsizing, which will put pressure on the housing supply, and labour mobility—an important component of growth—will be impacted.
Graham Stuart
My right hon. Friend is painting an accurate but bleak picture, as reflected by the IFS, the OBR and all the independent analysts of what the impact of the Budget will be. However, I put it to him that he is understating the weakness that the Budget will create for this country. Look back at the last 14 years. We were recovering from the financial crash. We had the pandemic, Brexit and the energy crisis. We are unlikely to make it to the end of this decade without some form of further shock. Is it not central to the weakness of the Budget that it makes this country so much more vulnerable to what we do not yet know is coming?
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend makes a perceptive point, to which I will come momentarily, but first let me deal with VAT on private schools. We have already heard about the displacement effect—the behavioural effect—and the thousands of pupils who will have their education disrupted and the impact on their families, but does not this measure tell us all we need to know about socialism? Those who stretch to try to make ends meet to send their children to those schools are to be denied. Their aspiration is to be sacrificed on the altar of envy. Is it not as simple as that?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) is right: the Budget will not create strong foundations for the future; it will create a vulnerable and brittle economy. The Chancellor has very little headroom against her fiscal targets. Against the stability target, because the Government have talked down the economy and gilt rates have responded in turn, it is conceivable that almost all that headroom has already disappeared. I will prophesy that, without doubt, perhaps if the forecasts turn in the wrong direction, or the pressure on departmental spending over the next two years becomes difficult for a profligate Labour Government, or because of some external factor, as my right hon. Friend suggested—maybe tariffs from Donald Trump’s America, or if his deficit-funded tax cuts lead to higher bond yields and higher interest rates here—I almost guarantee the House that, however it occurs, this Government will come back for more in due course.
Sir Desmond Swayne
To be fair to the Prime Minister, he made it absolutely clear that things would have to get worse. The difficulty is—this is my prophecy, if you like—that there is no prospect of them getting better thereafter.
Mel Stride
That is an extremely astute observation. The prophecy is that things will get tougher further down the line. It will then be the case that this Government took decisions that left us in a weak and vulnerable position to withstand them. Why has this happened? The Labour party has very little business experience. Very few Members on the Government Front Bench have started up a business or grown a company in any significant manner.
Mel Stride
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he is an example of somebody who has done just that.
Jim Dickson
If the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are against all the revenue-raising measures in the Budget, perhaps he could explain which of the many investments in the health service, roads, the justice system and schools he and his colleagues would cut?
Mel Stride
It is not a binary decision like that. The hon. Gentleman is clever enough—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but I will not disrespect him by claiming that he truly believes that. Had the Government brought forward a Budget that would have grown the economy, as the Conservatives would have done, the Government would have more money. Had Labour grasped the nettle of welfare reform, as we did when we were in office, and we had very clear plans in our manifesto for a saving of £12 billion a year, the Government would not have to go around caning companies, beating up on pensioners and so on as an alternative. There are better ways of doing things, and we had a much better way.
Dr Murrison
Earlier this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in her conversation with the Confederation of British Industry, which did not go terribly well, that her tax-raising days are over. Yet significantly, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury failed to reiterate that assertion. Does he believe her?
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point because the Chancellor did say at the CBI conference, when asked, that she would not raise taxes in the future, but this very afternoon, at the Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister appeared to resile from that. We now do not even have clarity on that vital point.
Surely the point is that the Chancellor is no economist, no matter how much puff one applies to try to disguise the fact. I thought I would take a leaf out of her book, even though that page was apparently written by somebody else. I can inform the House that I am an economist. Speaking as a former Governor of the Bank of England and president of the International Monetary Fund, and having run the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation at the same time—yes, for 10 years—I have as much experience as our Chancellor. That flight of fancy is, of course, all mine, but the inspiration came from the Government Benches.
This is a Finance Bill of broken promises and breathtaking incompetence—a Finance Bill that represents a present danger to the future of our economy. Was there ever a Bill more injurious to what we Conservatives love—to our pensioners, our farmers, our businesses, the poor, the vulnerable and, yes, working men and women right up and down our country? They say that astrologers are there to make economists look good. Well, they cannot make this lot look good. It is written in the stars—it is a story foretold—that unchecked, this Budget and this Finance Bill would take Britain down. That is why we will never tire of the trials of opposition, and why we will be the party that stands up for working men and women across our country, and fights this Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
To make her maiden speech, I call Samantha Niblett.
James Wild
Thank you. We all appreciated the kind words from the hon. Member for South Derbyshire about Heather Wheeler’s work. I am sure that the hon. Lady will continue that manufacturing event with Rolls-Royce and the other world-class businesses in her constituency. I know from personal experience that she will enjoy taking part in the armed forces parliamentary scheme with the RAF.
There was a familiar theme in the speeches of other Government Members, which the Whips will have been pleased to hear, with lots about fixing the foundations and black holes, although the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca)—I cannot see him at the moment—did concede that it was not a perfect Budget. Perhaps he has been taken away by the Whips to reflect.
I turn to Opposition Members’ speeches. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths), who spoke powerfully about the impact of the Bill and the damaging impact of the Budget on high streets, hospitality and family firms in her constituency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), in a masterly contribution, took us back in his time machine to the time when cast-iron promises were made. He focused on what is happening in reality and the importance of enterprise. He also highlighted that economic shocks may come, as they have done in the last few years, for example through covid and energy prices, and that the Chancellor may have already boxed herself in.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) displayed his considerable knowledge as a former Education Secretary. He talked about caring for 100% of pupils, and about the damaging impact that the education tax will have. There will be serious consequences for smaller schools, religious schools and parents and pupils involved with them. That theme was also drawn on by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), who talked about his constituents and put us in the footsteps of the pupils who will be affected, as well as their parents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) returned to her consistent theme of the real-world consequences for energy firms of the energy profits tax, the lost revenue, and the self-defeating nature of that measure. Finally, my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) focused on young people’s employment prospects, which will take a hit as a result of the Bill.
There were two very different takes in the debate. Unlike some, I would not claim to be an economist, but the OBR is full of them, and its verdict on the Budget and the Finance Bill is clear: they mean lower growth, higher inflation and higher borrowing. As the Shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), put it, the British people put their trust in Labour to stay true to its promises. What did they get in response? A Finance Bill that is stuffed full of tax increases and breaks trust with the British people. It has £40 billion of annual tax rises. It is the biggest tax-raising Budget in modern history, and it is working families and businesses who will pay the price.
As we heard, the Government have said that their priority is growth. We will not let them forget that they inherited an economy growing at the fastest rate in the G7. Following the Budget, the OBR has downgraded its growth forecasts for the period by 0.7%. Inflation, which went up to 2.3% last week, is now expected to be higher in every year of the forecast period. The tax burden will increase to the highest level since records began. Borrowing will increase by an additional £140 billion over the Parliament. It is little wonder that business confidence is plummeting. The Labour party has consistently talked our economy down. The consequences are clear. The latest purchasing manager’s index output data shows that private sector activity has shrunk for the first time in more than a year. Businesses are rightly blaming the Chancellor and this anti-aspiration, anti-enterprise Government.
Let me turn to some of the parts of this broken promises Budget that were covered in the debate. First, the Bill deliberately undermines incentives for investors, entrepreneurs and people willing to take a risk and back enterprise. It hikes the main and lower rates of capital gains tax. The Treasury states that this measure alone will hit over a quarter of a million people, who will pay more tax as a result. It puts up tax rates on investor relief. It is little wonder that experts have warned that this Government risk stymieing the very investment that they seek to stimulate.
Secondly, the Bill continues the fundamentalism of the Government’s energy policy, which fails to put our energy security first. It will increase the energy profits levy to 38%, bringing the headline rate on oil and gas activities to 78%. The Exchequer Secretary could not name a country that had a higher rate. I am sure that Denis Healey would approve. It extends the rate by a year and removes investment allowances. On the real-world consequences, Offshore Energies UK has said that the hike will choke off investment and put 35,000 jobs at risk. We should be maximising our home-grown energy, not undermining domestic production and relying on imports that have a higher carbon footprint.
Having highlighted the Government’s broken promises, I turn to a single promise that they are actually keeping, unfortunately—the education tax. For some who do not seem to understand, the Labour party is not ending a relief, but bringing in a new tax. It is a vindictive tax, being imposed partway through the academic year, deliberately designed to disrupt the education of thousands of children. Putting VAT on independent schools will particularly hurt parents on modest incomes who choose to save and send their children to a school that they think is best for them. More than 100,000 children with special needs who are without an education, health and care plan, and are in independent schools, will be hit by this charge—something that Government Members who are not in their place at the moment did not seem to understand, but really should. This is an attack on aspiration, pure and simple, and we oppose it.
Other hon. Members have referred to the family farm tax. Next week, every Member will have the opportunity to vote and show whether they stand with their farmers or with Labour’s family farm tax, which will do so much damage to our countryside and food security.
As I mentioned, the consistent theme in this debate from Government Members has been blaming a fantasy black hole for this tax-increasing Bill. Those claims were thoroughly debunked by the OBR, and by the shadow Chancellor in his opening remarks. Before the election, the Chancellor said that she would not pretend to have not known the state of public finances in order to justify tax rises. Then she did just that. Let us hope that she meant what she said to the Treasury Committee on 6 November:
“We have now set the envelope for spending for this Parliament, and we are not going to be coming back with more tax increases or, indeed, with more borrowing.”
There we have it. Read her lips: no more tax increases. That was the commitment, not to the Confederation of British Industry, but to this House; but at Prime Minister’s questions today, the Prime Minister failed to repeat that pledge. He hung the Chancellor out to dry. If the Chancellor breaks that promise, how can she credibly continue in post?
Labour inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7, inflation at target, unemployment halved and the deficit halved. Labour Members may not like it, but it is true. [Interruption.] It is absolutely true. The measures in the Bill do not boost growth but target working people, pupils and parents, small businesses, and the wealth creators we need to grow the economy. Many Government Members have loyally clung to the idea that the Government are fixing the foundations of the economy. Not many would agree—not Tesco, Lidl or the other retailers who have warned that the £25-billion-a-year jobs tax will mean job losses and people’s weekly food shop going up; not the two thirds of firms who say that they will scale back on taking on new people; not the pubs, bars, restaurants and hospitality sector, which is hit by an extra £1 billion of costs.
The Prime Minister has found someone who agrees with him, although he did have to go to Rio to do so. However, while President Xi is so well practised in parroting meaningless slogans that he could be a Labour MP, the British public and British businesses are not buying it. They know that this Government do not back enterprise and do not keep their promises. The difference could not be clearer: we stand with working people, people taking a risk to start businesses and take people on, and people investing in companies. Unlike the Labour party, we are on their side. I urge Members to support our amendment tonight.
Winter Fuel Payment
Mel Stride Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House regrets that the Government approved the use of the urgency exemption in section 173 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to make and lay the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 before the Secretary of State had referred the Regulations to the Social Security Advisory Committee; further regrets that the Government decided it was not necessary to publish an impact assessment for the Regulations, despite, for example, the evidence which shows that living in a cold home increases the risk of serious illness for vulnerable people and those with disabilities and so restricting eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment is likely to lead to increased burdens on the National Health Service; regrets that the Government made time to debate the prayer motion from the Official Opposition without the Social Security Advisory Committee’s Report, and Government response; and calls on the Government to lay those papers before Parliament without delay, and to publish a full regulatory and equality impact assessment for these Regulations.
The decision to remove winter fuel payments has come as a complete shock to millions of pensioners—pensioners on as little as £11,500 a year. We have had no adequate explanation as to why this measure is so urgent. We have had no explanation as to why the Government had to invoke the special emergency provisions that allow them to bypass the scrutiny of the Social Security Advisory Committee. We have had no explanation as to why no impact assessments were provided. This is a major policy change that will remove the entitlement for up to 10 million pensioners, including many who are already in poverty. It is a cut worth £7.5 billion over the course of this Parliament. Rushing such a policy through—without taking time to consider the impacts, ensure effective and fair implementation, and allow possible scrutiny—is impossible to justify. This is not the way to make good policy, and this is not good government.
It is worth considering the conclusions of one of the few bodies that have been afforded the opportunity to scrutinise these regulations. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the Lords has been damning in its criticism of the Government’s approach, and I refer the House to my remarks in the previous debate, when I quoted the Committee at some length. As the Committee points out, such measures would normally be subject to the SSAC’s consideration. That is an important part of the process for any legislation of this nature, as I know well from my time as Work and Pensions Secretary. Conveniently, Ministers have claimed that the measure is too urgent to wait for the SSAC’s scrutiny.
We understand that the SSAC is due to consider the measure tomorrow. Can the Minister commit to the House today that the SSAC’s report, and the Government statement responding to any recommendations, will be laid before Parliament before the regulations come into force next week? As the Lords Committee has pointed out, it would seem wholly inappropriate for the SSAC’s views to be taken into account only once the regulations are already in force. In the words of the Committee,
“It remains unclear what the practical impact of any statement might be on regulations which will have already come into effect.”
If the Government do not intend to provide us with the SSAC’s observations before the House rises on Thursday, why were Members asked to consider and vote on the prayer motion against the regulations today, before the SSAC has met?
The lack of any impact assessment means that we are severely hampered in our ability to scrutinise this measure. We were told in the explanatory memorandum that:
“A full Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because there is no significant new impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies.”
This seems a bold claim to make about a measure that removes hundreds of pounds of support from some of the most vulnerable elderly households in our country.
The guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is clear:
“For a vulnerable person, living in a cold home increases their chance of serious illness or death.”
It also notes that
“being housebound increases both the exposure to an underheated home and the cost of heating it.”
So can I ask the Minister on what basis it was concluded that there would be no significant impact from this policy on those charities and organisations that support elderly people or on the wider health and social care system? Will he now commit to the publication of a proper impact assessment?
The only basis for the urgency seems to be a claim that this measure is vital for public finances. We have even been subjected to the Leader of the House claiming that it was needed to avoid a run on the pound. I might ask the Minister to comment on that when he appears at the Dispatch Box. The only real relevance of a measure of this kind to the public finances is its impact on the Government’s fiscal rules. Those fiscal rules are based on levels of debt and borrowing at the end of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal forecast period in five years’ time. The rules that the Chancellor has claimed she will sign up to were already being met when the Government came into office, according to the OBR’s own forecasts.
The Government could have opted to bring this measure in next year, with greater time for scrutiny, better notice for pensioners, more time to drive up pension credit uptakes and perhaps time to consider whether there were much better ways of going about it. It would still have been a broken promise, and we on this side of the House would still have opposed it, but it would have been a much better way to make policy and it would still have delivered exactly the same savings at the end of the forecast period.
Ministers will claim that they needed to make immediate in-year savings, but that is based entirely on a black hole that they have confected themselves. The real reason this is being rushed is pure politics. The Government want to rush this measure through while they can try to blame it on their predecessors in order to avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend, like me, find it inexplicable that the Government should fail to go through the proper process when their own research suggested that thousands of people could die as a result of precisely this measure? That is something that the whole House should find deeply uncomfortable.
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. This is a very serious step that the Government are taking. Of all the steps that should be properly scrutinised, surely this is one of them. I remember when I was sitting on the other side of the Chamber, I could barely breathe without the cry going out that an impact assessment should be held. It is extraordinary that on such an important measure as this, affecting millions of the most vulnerable, the Labour party should be utterly silent on this issue.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Old people die in cold homes, and they die particularly if they are very old. Does my right hon. Friend think that if the Government are not minded to change their mind entirely, they might look at those aged over 80? Those people are in receipt of the higher rate of winter fuel payment, and paragraph 3 of the regulations points out that there is a difference between those over 80 and those under 80. That might be one way that the Government could make this slightly less worse than it otherwise is.
Mel Stride
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It has been suggested that the Government are examining ways of ameliorating some of the harshest effects of this policy, and that might be one of the things they consider. On that particular point, we cannot escape the fact that, whatever age people are, over two thirds of those who are currently pensioners below the poverty line will lose their winter fuel payments under the current arrangements.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I have the honour to represent the most remote, the most sparsely populated and the coldest constituency. The Secretary of State, in responding to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), said earlier that the Government would try to maximise the take-up of pension credit, and I accept that, but would they accept that sheer remoteness and sheer distance can militate against people taking up this offer? I ask the Government, via the right hon. Gentleman, to please look at this issue, because it means an awful lot to my constituents.
Mel Stride
I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
The reality is that the Government want to rush this through so that they can blame it on their predecessor and avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done, other than to meet the political ends of the Labour party. They are ripping the plaster off and hoping that the country will have forgotten by the time of the next general election. That is at the heart of it, but we will not forget. We would not have been given the opportunity to debate and vote on this measure without significant pressure from the Opposition and the wider public. This is nothing to do with fiscal responsibility and everything to do with political expediency—no scrutiny, no impact assessment, no notice. This is an appalling way to govern.
Economy, Welfare and Public Services
Mel Stride Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I congratulate everybody who has made their maiden speech in this debate. It is a big moment in one’s parliamentary career, but you are out the other side and nothing will be quite as traumatic as what you have experienced today. To go through them very briefly, I thank the hon. Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould), who told us that her great-grandfather—I think—came from Lithuania to set up a store in the middle of her constituency, which is her connection with it. The hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman) paid a very generous tribute to Mike Freer and the dangers and intimidation that he faced. She was also generous to Mrs Thatcher—she is clearly a very generous lady.
The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) paid tribute to Grant Shapps and his numerous and frequent Cabinet positions, as well as his commitment to Ukraine. The hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh) paid tribute to the 190 Labour women MPs who are now in the House, as well as to Harriet Harman. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) managed to weave King John and A. E. Housman into his speech, and informed us that Hollywood is not a city on the west coast of the United States, but is actually within his constituency. If you want to see film stars, ladies and gentlemen, go to Bromsgrove.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) has the peculiarity of having three forebears who are still Members of this House. He was generous to each of them, which shows that he is a wise man and will go far. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) stressed the industrial and shipping heritage of his constituency, and how it was indeed bombarded by the Germans in world war one, but it gave as good as it got. My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) praised his predecessor, Matt Hancock, of course focusing on racing and horses—although not, I noticed, on horseplay as such.
The hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) focused, with great pride, on the Hitachi Rail company in his constituency—shortly, I am afraid to tell him, to be seized by the Labour party and nationalised as part of its Government programme. My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Greg Stafford) stressed defence spending, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) leasehold reform and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) the importance of agriculture.
I was out of the Chamber for the speech of the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), and the Whip’s note simply says, “He said that there was a cat rubbing his legs”, or something to that effect. [Laughter.] Representing a highly rural constituency as I do, I know that strange things do occur, particularly late on those dull winter evenings.
The hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) stressed the importance of children in care. The hon. Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden) referred to her constituency as the new “Haliwood”, so another Hollywood reference there. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) gave a very witty speech, and stressed the association with the RAF in his commitment to veterans. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) paid tribute to David Morris and his support for the Eden project, and I was particularly pleased to see her do that.
The hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) made I think one of the most moving maiden speeches that we have heard in this House for a very long time. He spoke very movingly about his parents, and we all know what pride his dad would have had in the fact that he has been successful in his fourth attempt to join us here in the House of Commons. The hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) referenced the fact that a Roman road—Watling Street—runs through her constituency and spoke passionately about the importance of community and tolerance.
Finally, the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) spoke warmly of Kevan Jones, whom all of us who have been in this House for a while remember with great fondness, and the importance of skilled and well-paid jobs in his constituency. I hope that I have pretty much covered everybody and said the main things that needed saying.
Let us now turn to the debate itself, and it seems to me that the right hon. Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), while I congratulate her warmly on being the first female Chancellor—I think that is a huge achievement and is to be very warmly welcomed—is, I am afraid, suffering from some level of amnesia. She appears to have forgotten the legacy that we have bequeathed to her. Inflation, which was up at over 10% last autumn, is now back to target. Mortgage rates are softening, real wages have been growing in each of the last 11 months and taxes have been coming down more recently under the previous Government. When it comes to debt, we were on target, as we handed over to the right hon. Lady, to see debt falling in line with her own fiscal target at the end of the fifth year, and we of course have the fastest growing economy in the G7.
One wonders where this amnesia is coming from, and it is of course nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It is to cover up the fact that the Chancellor is rolling the pitch to raise taxes. Against all the commitments she made during the general election, she will be raising those taxes in the autumn. It will not be because we have bequeathed her something of which she was not aware in advance. The IFS has made it very clear that the books were “open”, as Paul Johnson said, for all to see.
When it comes to public services, we have a proud record. On education, we have the best readers in the western world. We have been going up the PISA scales for mathematics and sciences, something that did not happen under the last Labour Government. Crime has been halved, broadly speaking, across the period from 2010 to the present day. When it comes to work and welfare, we have a near-record level of employment, and we have a low level of unemployment. And economic inactivity is lower than in every single year under the last Labour Government. What was Labour’s record? When they left office, unemployment was double the level that it is today. Under every single Labour Government in history, unemployment has been higher when they left office than when they came in. Most disgraceful of all is that youth unemployment was up 43% under the last Labour Government; under the last Conservative Government it was down by over 40%.
As for welfare, under Labour there were 1.4 million people languishing on long-term benefits for almost a decade. On pensions, we saw the 75p pension increase and the Gordon Brown raid on private pensions of £180 billion—from which the pension system never fully recovered. It is, therefore, no surprise that, under Labour, we ended up with the fourth highest level of pensioner poverty across Europe. Under Labour there were 1 million more people in absolute poverty after housing costs. There were 200,000 more pensioners in poverty and 100,000 more children in poverty under the last Labour Government than there are today.
We will be a responsible Opposition: we welcome the commitment to growth in the King’s Speech; we welcome the commitment to building houses, as long as that is with sufficient local consent; we welcome the Budget responsibility Bill in principle; and we welcome the announcements that the Chancellor has made regarding pensions: consolidating pensions and ensuring that we get better returns for pensioners and that we invest in long-term pension capital.
But there are too many echoes in this King’s Speech of the Labour of old. The nationalisation of the railways. The consolidation of GB Energy. The long hand of Government reaching—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Labour Members cheer now but they won’t be cheering in a few years’ time. They have short memories; I remember when the railways were nationalised and it was not a pretty situation. They are bringing forward French-style employment laws that will lead to less efficient businesses and to tribunals. They will be increasing the freedoms of trade unions, who are their paymasters. And they will be dispensing with minimum service levels; that will lead to more strikes and the inconvenience of the public, but certainly not greater growth.
What have we heard in the King’s Speech on welfare, one of the biggest challenges of the modern age? Zip, absolutely nothing, nada, diddly squat—absolutely nothing from the Labour party. They talk about moving the National Careers Service from the Department for Education to the Department for Work and Pensions; well, I hardly think that will move the dial. Their back to work plan is named exactly as our back to work plan was that my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) the shadow Chancellor and I launched last autumn, but it has nothing standing behind it—not the billions of pounds of support we put in place to encourage people to go into work and to transform lives.
All we have heard from those on the Government Benches is a denigration of our job centres; these are described as places of fear by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and by the Minister for employment the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern) as places that do not offer real help. What an insult to the tens of thousands of hard-working people up and down our country who go into those offices to help people improve their prospects and improve their lives. They are against what they call punitive sanctions; it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds to remove those and it will result in less engagement with the help that is available and diminish people’s life chances. There have been no comments whatsoever from the Government Benches on our work capability assessment reforms, that according to the Office for Budget Responsibility will see 400,000 fewer people on long-term sickness benefits. They opposed in poetry; they have to govern in prose. They have not even picked up the pen, but let me be clear: we made mistakes in government and we have paid the price at the ballot box, and it is right that my party now faces a period of reflection and does so with humility. The electorate has spoken, and we must listen. But that is not the same as saying that the vision that is Conservatism has died, even if of late it has been too often obscured. That vision still burns bright. It burns bright as a beacon of freedom, enterprise, opportunity and, yes, stability and hope in the face of—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)
Order. Will the shadow Secretary of State please curtail his remarks now?