Employers

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I inform the House that Mr Speaker has not selected the amendment.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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[James Murray]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to have a conversation about the tax gap, I am very happy to pick that up. When we came into office in 2024, one of our first priorities was to close the tax gap before asking for any further tax contributions from any other sources. That was an essential part of our wider plan to restore public services and the public finances and to create the conditions for economic growth. That work continues, and I am very pleased to be playing a role in the Treasury, continuing that work to close the tax gap and modernise the service His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs provides, so that more people pay the right tax first time and can pay it automatically without mistakes or errors creeping into the system.

Because of the decisions we have taken as a Government—including closing the tax gap, as the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) mentioned— we are providing certainty and stability. Meanwhile, the Conservative party cannot resist playing games with the public finances, irrespective of the fact that whenever it has done so in the past, it is working people who have suffered the most. Britain is a country of entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, manufacturers, publicans, start-ups, family firms and growing businesses, and I am proud of the people across our country who take on risk and put in every hour they can to start and grow businesses. Above all, they need—and they have—a Government who are prepared to do the hard work of building a stable economy in which businesses can prosper. Employers need stability in order to plan for the future, create good jobs, invest and innovate, and providing that foundation is our responsibility as a Government. That is why, in the face of global storms, fiscal discipline will always underwrite every promise this Government make. The opposite is true of the Conservative party.

Government is about making choices, not pretending that choices do not exist. We in this Government are choosing to back working people. We are choosing to back the employers who create jobs. We are choosing to back young people into work, and we will always choose, with fiscal discipline as our lodestar, to maintain the economic stability on which our success as a country depends. For all those reasons, I urge Members to reject the motion.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. To ensure that everybody can contribute, there will be a speaking limit of seven minutes for Back Benchers.

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[Dr Sandher]

I think about 90% of jobs in the oil and gas industry have disappeared over the past 20 or 30 years, including 150,000 in Aberdeen. That is basically because the North sea is a declining basin; we cannot change geological facts. As the hon. Member will know, the Rosebank decision is a quasi-judicial one that will be made by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

I come back to the fact that in the 1980s, the Conservatives said, “If you just cut taxes, good times will follow,” but they did not follow for huge numbers of people and huge areas of this country. We also see the legacy of the Conservative Governments from 2010 to 2024: in the past few years, there have been 250,000 more young people not in education, employment or training; areas have not recovered; and there has been the longest wage stagnation since Napoleon’s time.

We have seen the outcomes of the Conservatives’ philosophy. They had 14 years in government, and it was not a success. We did not see good jobs across this nation, because there was not the means or materials for them, or a foundation of prosperity. There were not the skills; the number of apprenticeship starts for young people was down by a third. The population was not healthy; we had the longest waiting lists on record. There was not enough transport infrastructure—ours was the worst in western Europe—and energy costs were the highest in the G7. That was the legacy of your Government, because the only thing Conservative Members have ever believed—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I am not participating in this debate, but presiding over it, so “you” and “your” are not needed.

[Dr Sandher]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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[Patrick Spencer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her assessment of the performance of the Government Front Benchers—I tried to intervene on the Minister. I have serious concerns; the Minister said, at the Dispatch Box, “We kept our manifesto commitment not to tax working people.” He then said that they introduced a NICs increase for employers, but in the same breath, he said, “Employers are working people.” Do you not agree with me that the Minister clearly does not understand what a business is, and that, in increasing NICs, he has increased taxes on working people and broken a manifesto promise?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Once again, “you” and “your” are not to be used when referencing colleagues.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not want to insult anybody, but it is important for Members to speak on these issues if they have credible experience of them—if they have set up a business and come from a business background. I am afraid that government has become a blunt instrument now. Things are far too binary. The Government are not even thinking through the overall impact of their decisions on local businesses, and then they come to the Dispatch Box defending broken pledges. This House should spend much more time talking about our pride in the nation’s businesses. They are the wealth creators and employers who give people a hand up in life. They give people economic security.

I will speak for my great county of Essex, because I do not think it gets enough airtime in this Chamber. We are a county of entrepreneurs. Despite the damage that this job-destroying, business-bashing, tax-grabbing Labour Government are doing to our economy, we are fighting hard to survive. We have a range of amazing businesses, and I will list them, because I think the House might have experienced some of the fine produce from Essex. Wilkin and Sons in Tiptree makes the jam that is in the Tea Room. Linden Lady chocolates, made in Copford, are sold in the House of Commons shop. There is a range of Essex farmers and food manufacturers, whom we all depend on. A colleague spoke about food security; that matters. Maldon Salt, a very famous brand, comes from my constituency as well.

On the Opposition Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) touched on pubs, salons and all those other employers that provide the gateway to jobs for young people. Those are the types of business that we must support—we absolutely need to give them a hand up right now. We need reductions in national insurance, and we must recognise that in a significant way. Businesses think that Labour Ministers have no idea about the fact that they are working 70 or 80 hours a week just to keep their businesses afloat. That work is to generate tax revenues that this wasteful and bloated socialist Government are, quite frankly, destroying in an unjustifiable way.

There must be a recognition, because businesses in my constituency feel let down by Labour and seriously want to fight back against the increase in national insurance, the red tape from the infamous Employment Rights Act 2026 and the taxes on family farms. Businesses are constantly facing a rising tax burden. Even the reliefs in the recent Budget, which Ministers want to gloat about, will not compensate for the overall pain that businesses are facing.

The Minister spoke about fiscal discipline, but fiscal discipline alongside high levels of borrowing and debt will not give the financial and economic stability that local businesses need in our country. Debt is not going down, and borrowing is going up. We know who pays for all that: businesses pay for it all. Ministers come and go—we all know that—and they can make whatever defence they wish, but the reality is that it is hard-pressed taxpayers who are constantly filling Government coffers right now for higher debt and borrowing. Businesses need some latitude and leeway—they really do. I implore and urge this Government to reconsider many of the policies that they are putting in place.

There is a silver lining; it is called the Finance Bill. When that sees the light of day on the Floor of this House, it will give Members the opportunity to challenge the Government to give headroom and breathing space to businesses by lowering taxes, being more responsible on national insurance contributions and freeing up businesses to employ more people. Importantly, it will give Members the opportunity to challenge the Government to give the British people the freedom to succeed and live their lives, completely unshackled from the burdensome taxes that this Government are constantly putting on them.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Danny Kruger, after whose speech the time limit will drop to six minutes.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. There is now a five-minute speaking limit for Back Benchers.

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[Ben Maguire]

I have sat here for nearly an hour and a half, and I have not heard anything from Conservative Members about how they will address the elephant in the room: how to generate economic growth and rebuild trade relationships with our closest partners in the EU and elsewhere. Instead, we just hear criticism of the national insurance jobs tax. I completely agree with the right hon. Lady about that, but we are not hearing anything—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. This is a debate about employers, not about our relationship with the EU.

[Esther McVey]

When it comes to getting costs down for employers, I would start with energy. I welcome the Government’s—eventually—approving the drilling in Jackdaw, and they need to admit to doing the same in Rosebank and going further. They should look at what our neighbours in Norway have managed to do by drilling in their country.

Let me return to the subject of family businesses. The Government showed a complete lack of knowledge of family businesses and how they are run when they capped what would have been 100% tax relief for business properties and taxed the assets as they did so. They did not understand that the life of a business can be a couple of years—it may not last—or it can go on for generations. It does not end when the founder of the business dies; it goes on. The Government did not seem to have a clue about that; they showed complete disregard.

The other thing my constituents talk about is why the Government hate wealth creators. Why do they hate the wealthy? It must be—has to be—the politics of envy and jealousy. Frankie Dyer of Barbakan Delicatessen—one company in my constituency, but it could have be any of the 365 hospitality businesses there—sent an open letter to the Prime Minister before the Budget. She wanted help, particularly with national insurance contributions, which have had the worst impacts on her business, now costing her an extra £1,000 per employee. If someone has 50 or more employees, they will have no profit left at all, and they certainly cannot invest to grow their business.

Frankie said that her business is second-generation, and it is 62 years old. It is now facing severe financial pressures. Despite the business having an annual turnover exceeding £2.3 million and winning more than 10 awards for its products, soaring operational costs—energy bills, tax obligations and national insurance—mean that the business is now struggling to stay afloat and to pay its bills each week. She is calling on the Government to reduce national insurance contributions. She wants to employ more young people, as does the whole of the hospitality sector. People in the industry want VAT, which those on the Labour Benches led them to believe would be reduced, to be reduced to 13%, and they want the charge on employment—the tax on jobs—to be reduced. The Government should reduce national insurance contributions.

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[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Fewer sentences have caused such shock and reaction than when the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that employers were not working people. I feel so saddened for all those small business owners across my constituency who have worked so unbelievably hard and sacrificed so much to give so many other people the opportunity of work. I think about Magda, who runs the Omorfi Nails and Beauty salon in Towcester. She does not only employ staff; while also bringing up her family, she is studying medical practice so that she can help people with diabetes—a matter close to my heart—through podiatry. It is an insult to say that she is not hard working and a working person. No matter how many examples we give, the Government simply will not listen. I wish they would engage. The voices from all the stories told here today are those of actual people from our constituencies who are living and breathing this. I implore the Government to take this issue seriously.

At the very beginning of the debate, the Minister talked of breathing space. I think the only “Breathing Space” people recognise is the song by the Pet Shop Boys, but I think their version might be slightly more popular than the Chancellor’s. We ask businesses every single day to take risks. The contract must be that if we ask them to take a risk, we give them the confidence to be able to operate their businesses, not the shifting sands constantly coming from this Government and their Budgets. Actions ultimately speak far louder than words, because hope does not pay the bills, hope does not put food on the table and hope does not heat our homes.

As we have identified, the people suffering most are our young people. We have heard many examples of people who are struggling to get opportunities and jobs. One of the pubs in my constituency—I have just run a pub of the year competition—said that it put up an advert for just a couple of hours of work at the weekend for those under 18. It received 200 applications for just one job. There are so many young people who are absolutely desperate to get into the working environment, but they cannot because those businesses cannot give them the opportunity. That is a travesty that has happened on this Government’s watch.

Nearly 1 million young people are NEETs, with 60% of those being economically inactive—not just not in work but not even looking for it. There is a much deeper issue of youth detachment from the market, which hurts young people’s confidence, health and ability to earn an income, and it hurts the taxpayer, because it is incredibly hard for us to give young people opportunities if those jobs do not exist. That is why I welcome the Conservative proposal to halve national insurance contributions for the under-25s to get them into work.

I will flag—as I did in justice questions this week—that the Employment Rights Act has introduced many powers that the Government laud, but with them we are going to start to see an increasing amount of red tape. With that red tape comes an issue with employment tribunals. When people are going through a dispute with an employer, one of the most difficult times of their lives, they are going to discover that there is a huge backlog for tribunals. There are already over 70,000 open single cases. In reducing the time from two years down to six months to bring a tribunal claim, the Act is going to increase the workload and the backlog in the courts by a third. That is madness.

We are slowing down the economy with everything we do. The Employment Rights Act is exactly as the Conservatives describe: it is an unemployment rights Act. It is burdening our businesses and slowing down opportunities, but the Government and the Labour Benches just sit and stare. That is the problem: they are sitting and staring while hard-working people out there are trying to make a living. The Government need to start listening.

My poor farmers were looking to the Budget for a little bit of help and assistance—88% of my constituency is agricultural land—but they are not getting any. Another big issue that we have to focus on are the massive issues in the pig industry. I will save that discussion for another day, but the industry is desperate for some support from the Government. I implore the Government one more time: please, do listen to the Opposition Benches. The Government may not want to on political grounds, but we are literally just voicing the concerns of our constituents. Please listen.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.