Call for General Election

Debate between Robbie Moore and Luke Charters

Monday 12th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for opening this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. Well over a million people signed this petition, a good proportion of them from my constituency of Keighley and Ilkley. They want me to speak on their behalf, and to reiterate that this debate is fundamentally about trust—why? Because trust matters in the relationship between constituents and their MPs—and not only MPs, but the Government of the day.

Let me take us back to the last general election, when many Labour Members were knocking on doors in my constituency promising change. They promised that, if they were lucky enough to get into Government, they would not increase taxes on hard-working people, would not raise council tax by a penny, would return to a politics of service and would ultimately deliver a strategy aligned to their manifesto.

What have we seen? We have seen rising taxes on working people. Council tax has been raised by 14.99% in my constituency alone in the last two years under Labour-run Bradford council, so that tax is increasing on hard-working people. We have seen betrayals and U-turns, and I will go into a few of them because ultimately that is why so many people—more than a million—have signed this petition. It illustrates the level of frustration out there among the wider population. This is the second petition on this issue that the Petitions Committee has considered.

Let us start with the betrayals. Our farmers and family businesses have been impacted by choices this Labour Government have made. Those choices and changes were not indicated before the general election, such as inheritance tax challenges with agricultural property relief and business property relief. We have seen 14 months of huge amounts of anxiety and frustration among our farming community and family businesses, which will now be exposed to an IHT liability of 20%, over and above a rise in the threshold to £2.5 million. That rise only took place at the 11th hour, three days before Christmas, after 14 months of many of those farmers and family businesses raising their concerns.

We saw Labour MP after Labour MP go through the voting Lobbies, backing the ambitions of the Prime Minister and Chancellor to increase tax on many of our hard-working farmers. Only one Labour MP had the courage and the backbone to stand up on behalf of his constituents and tell the Chancellor that he did not agree with the proposals she and the Prime Minister had made.

All those family businesses, whether in hospitality, brewing, manufacturing or engineering, are being impacted by the IHT changes. I was with the owners of a business that makes furniture in my constituency, who had worked out that their business property relief liability was already about £800,000. They employ 250 people in Keighley, and will be directly impacted by this Labour Government, who—dare I say—said that they would not do this and did not include it in their manifesto. That is a betrayal that this Labour Government has rolled out.

[Mr Charters]

The hon. Member uses the term “betrayal”. I know he has been a steadfast voice for the defence of the Ukrainian people, so does he agree that the biggest betrayal this country has seen from a politician has been Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform in Wales, taking money from a foreign power?

[Robbie Moore]

I have to confess that I am not aligned with the detail of that case, but what I do know is that the hon. Gentleman, who represents York Outer—a very rural constituency—and I believe sits on one of the key all-party parliamentary groups for food security, was one of those Labour MPs who voted against the inheritance tax changes that the Conservatives advocated. I am sure the hard-working farmers and family businesses in his constituency will feel a huge amount of frustration that he did not stand with them.

Then there is our pub industry. The huge rises in business rates and employer national insurance contributions are hitting many of those hard-working businesses within the hospitality sector and the pub industry. No wonder it is very difficult for a Labour MP to get a pint in a pub, many of which they have been quite rightly asked not to return to. Of course, the rise in employer national insurance contributions is hitting all businesses. I have had many conversations with our hard-working teachers and headteachers, who regularly tell me about the tough choices they face about making teaching assistants redundant because of the rise in employer national insurance contributions. The grant that comes out of central Government to cover the rise covers only about 70% of the increase in costs, so the additional 30% must be covered by the existing school budget.

There are also the free school meals and breakfast clubs—but who is paying for them? The schools are, out of their existing budgets. Labour MPs want to roll out the narrative that our constituents are going to receive all these benefits, and of course we want to see those benefits happen, but they must get to grips with the facts of the case. Hard-working hospices now cannot provide end-of-life care and schools cannot roll out education because they are having to make tough choices around paying increased levels of employer national insurance contributions. That betrayal was not in the manifesto.

Water Companies: Regulation and Financial Stability

Debate between Robbie Moore and Luke Charters

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for joining the debate; I see that he came in right at the last minute just to make that contribution.

My answer is no. When we were in Government, we absolutely wanted to embolden the regulators with as much power as they required, which is why we specifically linked dividends to environmental performance so that Ofwat had more power to hold water companies to account. Not only that: we increased the amount of funding allocated to the Environment Agency and empowered the whistleblowing portal so that employees within water companies, or indeed within the EA or any of the other regulators, could make their concerns known. In that way, we as the Government—and now the incoming Government—could make proper progress and ensure that proper, positive change was implemented to improve water quality.

The financial stability of the water companies is, of course, a serious issue, and that affects our constituents through not only potential price increases, but performance-related issues. Sensibly, Ofwat expects water companies to maintain a level of financial headroom to manage short-term volatility and shocks to their financial structures, and to meet their obligations and commitments, which are set both by Government and internally by the regulator. Above all else, however, consumers must be protected so I welcome the fact that Ofwat strengthened its powers to improve financial resilience. That includes stopping water companies from paying dividends when financial resilience is also at risk.

The new Government have said that cleaning up England’s rivers, lakes and seas is a priority and to achieve that the Water (Special Measures) Bill has been introduced through the House of Lords into Parliament. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised that that is effectively a reworked version of the policies introduced under the last Government. In the Bill, the Government pledge to introduce new powers to block bonuses for executives of water companies that pollute our waterways —something announced by the last Conservative Government. However, the powers are not quite the promises constantly regurgitated by the Labour party when they were out on the doorstep— they were telling many of their voters that water company bosses would end up “in the dock” if their water company had been falling foul of environmental permitting obligations. The Water (Special Measures) Bill simply does not achieve that. By introducing the Bill, the new Government have frustrated not only campaigners but investors who want to invest in the sector.

Opposition Members spent many a day out on the doorstep also promising that they would take swift and bold action, but as we have seen from today’s announcement of a new commission, a new review and a new taskforce, the Government are just throwing the hard decisions into the long grass and simply kicking the can down the road.

[Mr Charters]

Does the hon. Member not welcome the Government’s appointment of former deputy governor of the Bank of England Jon Cunliffe? He had that expertise as deputy governor in financial stability. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that we need to look again at the whole system when it comes to the financial instability of water companies that he and his colleagues left behind?

[Robbie Moore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I absolutely welcome anything that will improve the water sector. When I was a Minister in the Department, many issues needed to be addressed. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman commented in his speech that the Minister was working at pace, but the review will take at least a year to implement. I want to ask the Minister, as I did the Secretary of State in the House earlier: when will the positive recommendations from the review be implemented? We know that we are entering price review 2024, which exists from 2025 to 2030, but when is the industry likely to see any positive implications of the results of the commission that has been instigated today?

The Government have also confirmed that they will work with farmers to reduce agricultural pollution. I understand that Ministers have said that that will be through a series of

“proportionate and effective regulations, advice and incentives to deliver improvements”.

Can the Minister clarify how that will roll out? What new regulations does the Department anticipate bringing in? The farming budget is rumoured to be slashed by at least £100 million, so how will the Government incentivise farmers through public money to do the right thing in reducing run-off from fields and from their agricultural activities?

Will the Minister also outline whether any regulatory easement will be applied to water companies going forward? Many Members have raised concerns to do with Thames Water and the like, but I would like to specifically understand whether the Minister, her colleagues or the Secretary of State are looking at implementing a regulatory easement, as the Opposition would not want to see lower standards, the relaxation of environmental permits or a reduction in agreed levels of investment by any water company, irrespective of their financial circumstances.

Sound management of water companies is vital if customers are to receive the high level of service that they expect, and better environmental performance must be driven forward.