Nusrat Ghani
Main Page: Nusrat Ghani (Conservative - Sussex Weald)Department Debates - View all Nusrat Ghani's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(1 day, 15 hours ago)
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Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman says this country has a defence problem. Could he elaborate on the context of that defence problem, and perhaps reflect on the fact that it may have something to do with the under-investment that has left the Army with unprecedented levels of poor morale and left British soldiers unequipped to do their basic job of defending our country?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Interventions should be short and sharp, and questions should be to the point.
Andrew Griffith
If time allows, I will be very happy to go into great detail about our record on defence. When Russia invaded Ukraine, we were proud to stand with the people of Ukraine, and to reboot the funding for defence. The test that the Chancellor failed was not my test; it was his own test. It was the Chancellor who resigned because the previous Chancellor and Prime Minister would not give our armed forces the proper funding for our defence.
Yesterday we needed decisive action, and all the Government delivered was a Budget of ducked decisions. The Chancellor has taken to heart the idea of, “Why do today what you can put off to next year or the year after?” Let us be clear that, as a result, Britain will be less secure, less fair and poorer for it.
Andrew Griffith
Labour Members try so hard, but the hole in their Budget is gaping wide open. The problem is that it is not just us on the Opposition Benches who can see that hole, but our adversaries around the world, leaving ourselves open. Not properly funding our armed forces is not going to scare anyone in Moscow and it will not deter Tehran.
The Defence Secretary has resigned once before, so we know he is not against resigning. Perhaps he could resign again on principle today. We on this side of the House are used to Labour breaking their promises, but to break the promises they made to our armed forces is a new low. If the Chancellor had any dignity, he would have resigned yesterday.
Despite their failure to fund defence, the Government have still raised the tax burden to the highest level on record—higher than in the aftermath of world war two and higher than even the right hon. Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves) raised it. Who remembers how this Government had no plans to put up taxes? How is that working? For the third Budget in a row, the tax burden is set to rise. All told, taxes are going up by a total of £75 billion a year: higher next year, higher the following year and higher in every single year of the forecast. Even the Prime Minister’s former economic adviser, Andy Haldane, now says that Britain is “taxed out”. He also called the Chancellor “penny wise, pound foolish”. I am not even sure about the penny wise bit, to be honest. And where will that money come from? Families, small businesses, the self-employed, farmers, the people who work hard and want to get ahead. Why? To pay for those who do not—those who could work, but choose not to.
The damage does not just stop with the tax bill itself. It is the disincentives in the economy that do the most harm. Two years ago, the then Chancellor stood at that Dispatch Box and raised taxes on jobs. Now, we are in a jobs crisis, with over 170,000 jobs lost since July 2024, all because Labour does not understand that if you tax something, you get less of it. Now it is raising taxes on the banks, which provide mortgages, loans to small businesses and pay interest to savers. The Chancellor might think it is just a bank tax, but we know that, like every tax, it will end up being paid by ordinary working people: higher mortgages, lower returns on savings and bank branch closures in every constituency and every high street, and fewer jobs in this country.
The Budget also contains a vindictive tax rise on people who have done the right thing, those who have done what Governments have always told them to do and what this Government want them to do: save money. Yet for many, up to 49p in every pound of interest on hard-earned savings will now be taken by the Chancellor. It is the same story with landlords, who have already come under attack from this Government, and the OBR says that rents will go up as a result.
Of all that the Budget was missing, the lack of welfare reform stands out the most. Or at least, so we thought—because this morning the Chancellor told the BBC that there will be welfare cuts before the election. Perhaps a Treasury Minister could come to the House and clean up the Chancellor’s mess. His Budget has not even survived 24 hours.
Last week, the Prime Minister called the benefits bill a moral outrage; he was right then, but he is not doing anything about it now, because Labour Members are too afraid to say, “Enough is enough.” They do not have the courage to get a grip on welfare, because they are worried that it would cost them their jobs. Thanks to the TaxPayers’ Alliance, we know that for more than half of all Labour MPs, the number of benefit claimants in their constituencies is larger than their majority. It is true for the Chancellor, it is certainly true for the Defence Secretary, and it is true for the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. They will not get welfare under control because it would cost them their seats—they are putting their own interests before the country’s. [Interruption.] I am making progress. Don’t you worry—I am doing very well, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Fascinated as we all are, there are many people hoping to contribute this afternoon, so I hope the shadow Chancellor will be concluding soon.
Andrew Griffith
I read that the Budget had the most measures in it of any Budget, but also that they were the most inconsequential. I will try to crack through a few other things. [Interruption.] Labour Members are all chuntering, but I will tell you who else’s interests they are putting first: the trade unions.
While the Government are raising taxes on everybody else, they are handing out more than £40 million over the next two years to a union learning fund. I cannot even begin to imagine what they will be learning: how to run rings around the Health Secretary; what to do with those extra days off from working a four-day week; how to keep public sector pay rises twice as high as the private sector—[Interruption.] The Defence Secretary says, “How to keep the Conservatives out.” That is probably about right—that is probably exactly what they are doing! It is a political bung to their political allies. It is ridiculous. While families face tough choices in a cost of living crisis, this Government use their Budget to tax people and hand money to the trade unions.
It was not just the Budget we heard yesterday; we also heard the figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, and they really do show us just how bad things are. For the first time ever, the Government are planning to spend over 45p in every £1 in the economy. Government spending goes up every year of the forecast, debt is up every year of the forecast, and it is official: living standards are down. Real household disposable incomes are set to be lower next year than when Labour took office—£1,500 lower at the end of this Parliament than they were forecast to be under the Conservatives. It is not hard to understand why: inflation is up, interest rates are soaring and unemployment is up again.
The one-off £100 that the Government are putting into bank accounts will not touch the sides for most people, given the cost increases. The only thing that will put us on a path out of decline and deficits is growth. The Conservatives understand the value of growth. The Prime Minister has got his history entirely wrong. The mistake this country made was not to choose markets over socialism in 1979—it was not electing Mrs Thatcher—but giving up all that we achieved in the ’80s and ’90s.
In conclusion—Madam Deputy Speaker is very firm, so I will conclude—this Budget will go down as one of history’s great missed opportunities. It was an opportunity to undo not 40 years of neoliberalism, but the damage of the first two years of this Government—the mistakes made by the right hon. Member for Leeds West and Pudsey, who is now busy job hunting and discovering for the first time what it is like to receive rejection after rejection. Yesterday was a chance to put Britain back on the right track, and the Chancellor blew it. Higher taxes, higher spending, higher borrowing; lower growth, lower living standards, fewer jobs—I hope the Chancellor kept the receipt for the Budget, because I think he is going to want to return it.
The British people know that this is not the Budget we need. This is a great country whose potential is being held back. We have a Chancellor who ducks his choices, and a Prime Minister who wants to take us back to the 1970s. We cannot tax and regulate our way to growth. National security really does matter more than social security, and only by tackling the deficit can we back away from the fiscal cliff edge and do the right thing by future generations.
The Secretary of State for Defence (Wes Streeting)
I am proud to open this Budget debate on behalf of the Government, proud of the leadership of the Prime Minister and of the Chancellor, who is offering this country breathing space today and fresh hope for the future.
Before I turn to that, I need to talk about the threat this country faces—one that sabotages our economy, pushes out misinformation and attempts to undermine people’s trust in government. For once, I am not talking about the Russians, but the Trussian, not least the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), who I fear is part of a Trussian sleeper cell operating in the shadows of the Conservative party. He did not say much about his plans today, but I do not think we do not need to look very far. In fact, there is a book out that tells us all about the secret plans he is no doubt saving up for the next manifesto: “Bank Job”, it is called, written by one Liz Truss. The shadow Chancellor knows her well; it is the Liz Truss for whom he helped write the mini-Budget, which crashed our economy and damaged Britain’s reputation, and which he still says contained, “lots of good things.” Maybe that is why, when I tried to obtain a copy of “Bank Job” this morning, I found that there were no copies available in bookshops for miles around. Presumably, the shadow Chancellor has gone around and bought them all up, just in case someone finds out exactly what the Trussians stand for.
Because that is the danger, Madam Deputy Speaker: they walk among us, the Trussians, hiding in plain sight— deep-cover sleeper agents masquerading as responsible fiscal Conservatives. But we will not be fooled. We remember when the shadow Chancellor cheered Truss on, and we all know the consequences of their misjudgements. If we are not careful, the Trussians will be coming—they are already winding up to play their own game of roulette with our public finances once again.
All joking aside, I think it is genuinely appalling that the arsonists have the audacity to complain as the firefighters are clearing up their mess—never forgive, never forget, and never let the Tories do it again. In fact, in one of the low points of an otherwise dull and inaccurate contribution to this Chamber, the shadow Chancellor had the audacity to level low blows against my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves). Let me point out that, despite the economic global shocks that this country faces, along with security threats of a kind that we have not faced in generations, earlier this month the IMF upgraded its growth forecast for Britain for 2026. It said that the UK “stands out” among G7 nations, and it credited the Government’s responsible approach to handling the public finances. That is the legacy of my right hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to her leadership, her experience and her hard-headed stewardship of our economy. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I can tell that the Defence Secretary has had his Weetabix, because he is very loud at the Dispatch Box—but he has to be loud, because there is so much heckling. Can everybody just calm down a little bit?
Wes Streeting
They can shout all they like, Madam Deputy Speaker. The fact is that the former Chancellor restored the confidence of the markets after the Conservatives trashed Britain’s reputation with their catastrophic mini-Budget. She created the platform for our Labour Government to invest in public services, protect the most vulnerable, foster innovation and navigate the headwinds of the last two years. During her time as Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey established a record that the Conservative Front Bench could not begin to touch. Those are the facts.
None the less, against the backdrop of the enormous challenges this country faces, the Chancellor, as he set out yesterday, is taking action to tackle the cost of living and give households breathing space today: help for 20 million households to heat their homes this winter; freezing fuel duty to keep prices down at the pump; helping with the everyday cost of the weekly shop so that people have more money in their pockets; action on energy bills; and the minimum wage, the national living wage and the state pension all going up to help people out. No one is suggesting that these measures solve everything for everyone, everywhere, all at once, but people can see that we are doing everything we can, as fast as we can, to give them breathing space today and fresh hope for the future; to show that this Government and this Prime Minister have got their backs; and to show that we can still do big things as a nation, that Government can make a difference to people’s lives, and that Britain is a country we can still believe in.
That is important, as we look beyond the optimism of the first 100 days of this new Government and our new Prime Minister to the brighter future that lies ahead for our country if we make the right choices. Yes, we face great challenges, but the character of a nation is not defined by the challenges it faces, but how it chooses to respond to them. And be in no doubt: it is a choice. We choose not to be daunted by the scale of the challenge, but to be motivated by it—to face the future not with fear, but with confidence, and to choose hope. We choose it because we know what hope can do.
Look at what this Labour Government have delivered in the past two years: half a million children out of poverty; waiting lists down by a quarter of a million; the asylum backlog down 60% in a year; small boat crossings at their lowest in six years; the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year; free breakfast clubs feeding 680,000 children; six train operators brought back into public ownership; and defence spending up by £14 billion compared with the Conservatives’ final year in office. Lots done and lots more still to do, but so many reasons to believe that our best days lie ahead.
Wes Streeting
I have just set that out. It is there in the Budget. The Government have reallocated from capital programmes across Government to ensure that defence is fully funded.
It is disappointing, Madam Deputy Speaker. This has become a running theme of the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition. When we sat on the Opposition Benches, I remember that Keir Starmer always made a virtue of standing with the Government on issues of national security and defence. We provided constructive challenge where we needed to, but we stood with the Government. This lot cannot help but try and score petty party political points at the expense of defence and national security.
What is even more extraordinary is the enormous brass neck of the Opposition, considering their record. Just look at it: we had the smallest army since the Napoleonic wars; every single recruitment target was missed; morale fell to a record low of 40%; almost every equipment programme was over budget or behind schedule, and often both; and defence spending faced a real-terms cut between 2010 and 2024, falling from 2.5% of GDP to 2.3%. [Interruption.] In the words of their own Defence Secretary, the armed forces were left “hollowed out and underfunded”. [Interruption.] And now the Conservatives have the audacity to turn up and criticise a Labour Government who are investing more, investing more quickly, and cleaning up their mess.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Mr Obese-Jecty, this is not good behaviour. After yesterday, Mr Cartlidge, I thought you would have had a much quieter voice. I cannot hear the Secretary of State. Can we just let him continue?
Wes Streeting
I am trying to make my voice heard from the Dispatch Box, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As I have said from my first day as Defence Secretary, I trust this Chancellor to give us what we need to keep our country safe, and yesterday demonstrated why. His Budget proves why Labour can be trusted on defence—[Interruption.] It does say that here, because I wrote it. We are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. That was Labour’s record before the Budget; this Budget takes us even further, and next year’s spending review will take us further still. What a contrast with the abysmal record of failure staring us in the face from the Opposition Benches.
I appealed in my first statement to this House for national unity on national security. It is important that our allies and our adversaries know that we agree far more than we disagree. We all believe that we should spend more on defence; we all believe that we should stand with Ukraine; we all believe that we should invest in homeland security. What a pity, then, that the Leader of the Opposition and her ragtag band of political vandals choose to play politics with national security. For the Opposition to do that in the current environment is bad enough; to do so with their abysmal record in government takes some brass neck.
Mr Francois
If it is true that the Defence Secretary has a plan for 2030, I ask him why the Labour Chair of the Defence Committee said yesterday in reaction to the Budget:
“some of the key decisions on defence spending have lamentably been delayed until next year’s spending review. There is a cost to inaction. Investment in our nation’s defence and security cannot be kicked into the long grass. Our adversaries are not bound by fiscal years and spending cycles.”
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before the Secretary of State responds, may I point out that there are many people wishing to contribute? Hopefully his speech will be coming to a conclusion shortly.
Wes Streeting
I have been too generous with allowing interventions, but let me take that point head on. I think that is completely unfounded criticism—
Wes Streeting
I don’t care if he is the Chair of the Defence Committee. I would say it directly to him, and I am sure I will get the chance to say it to the entire Committee. It would be fair criticism if this Government had not already made decisions that are leading to the fastest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war—not in future years but already, on the basis of our first two years in power. The Chair of the Defence Committee is a good friend, and I am sure that, just as I can take his criticism on the chin, he will take mine. I will gladly accept criticism where I think it is fair, but I robustly reject it where I think it is wrong.
I have referred to the Conservatives’ record of 14 years in power. Let me contrast that with what I have presided over in the last 14 weeks: armed forces recruitment showing its longest run of growth for half a decade; 400 contracts signed, worth £4 billion; £400 million for spy drones for the Army; £135 million for Royal Navy torpedoes; £700 million for next-generation fighter jets; over £8 billion for our nuclear submarine fleet; and the UK’s sixth attack submarine and first ever space squadron launched. We have returned gun barrel manufacturing to the UK for the first time in decades; we are backing British industry to build the docks for our nuclear subs; we have increased monitoring of Russian vessels in the English channel; provided 50,000 apprenticeship opportunities for young people; welcomed record-breaking investment in Scotland; deployed our armed forces to help Saudi Arabia defend itself from Houthi attacks; bolstered support for Ukraine; and signed a landmark AI deal to access cutting-edge battlefield data. We have strengthened our NATO alliances, as I have visited Washington, Paris, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Reykjavík and Kyiv. We have mobilised with our allies in the Ukraine defence contact group, the E5 and the joint expeditionary force, and hosted our friends from Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, Qatar and Oman as well as the NATO Secretary-General. And in case the Conservatives missed it, as their party leader seemed to yesterday, on top of the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, we have set out our target to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. That is our record, and it is a record that the Conservatives cannot begin to touch.
This is a Government who actually put our money where our mouth is—strengthening our armed forces, alliances and industrial base, and backing Britain by buying British. That is how to defend this country—not with the gimmicks and grandstanding of the Conservatives but by making this country ready with our allies to fight and win so that our adversaries think twice about launching an attack in the first place.
The truth is that this is a more dangerous world, and that makes greater investment essential. Delivering what the Chancellor announced yesterday requires choices and trade-offs. We will ensure that every pound that we invest is well spent and creates jobs and opportunities—not just a Ministry of Defence but one of growth and opportunity. We will help to deliver the Prime Minister’s domestic agenda—stronger regional economies, a rebuilt industrial base, good jobs and better opportunities for the next generation. We will have a more resilient United Kingdom built by the British people to keep Britain safe.
Spending on our defence is a measure of our commitment, but capability is a measure of our credibility. That is what this Labour Budget does, rooted in our values. It gives breathing space to working people. It gives us fresh hope for the future, and it strengthens the security on which we all depend. Building a Britain ready to fight and building a country worth fighting for—that is our record and plan. That is why I am proud to stand at this Dispatch Box and commend the Budget to the House.