Seasonal Work

Debate between Sarah Bool and Graham Stuart

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Bool]

My hon. Friend makes a valid and correct point. We have started to see a rise in unemployment in South Northamptonshire among 16 to 25-year-olds exactly because of that.

The business owner I spoke to said that the problem is that the business starts paying at a certain level, but that increase pushes up across all wages across all levels of the business. Suddenly businesses are finding themselves drowning in the amount of money they are having to pay. That will stifle the market. We even talked to some of my hairdressers—they have been mentioned numerous times to the Minister—who said that the impact of NICs means that, according to the British Hair Consortium, there will be no new apprentice starts in 2027. That is staggering and appalling, when the Government are talking about all the opportunities for the young.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

My hon. Friend may be aware that just across the channel in France, high regulation and high tax has led to consistent, long-term high youth unemployment. Speaking of Andy Williams, another song says that there is a “lesson to be learned” from this, and we do not have to look too far to learn it.

[Sarah Bool]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes a valid point. Andy Williams is getting a lot more airtime today than any of us imagined.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Bool]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. The importance of the construction industry was mentioned earlier, along with the plan to give more construction apprenticeships and jobs to young people, but for those jobs to be offered, we need people to be investing in the first place. Companies are not doing that, because they cannot make those decisions. They do not know where the money is coming from. They do not know when the money will next be taken from them. We are not creating an environment in which they can grow. I do not see anyone on the Government Benches disagreeing with me on that, so I think my hon. Friend’s point is well made.

[Graham Stuart]

What seems to be missing on the Government Benches is any recognition of the growing anger among young people at the fact that they are being shut out of the jobs market. It is the most damaging time in someone’s life to be barred from work when they are young. The Minister does not seem to be an Andy Williams fan, but The Clash sang under a previous Labour Government:

“Career opportunities are the ones that never knock”.

Not under Labour.

[Sarah Bool]

Absolutely.

In Prime Minister’s questions earlier, I asked about the fair choices that this Government say they have made. I think those choices are fundamentally unfair. The Government are trying to introduce a digital ID scheme, unfunded by the Government, that could cost at least £1.8 billion, yet most of the public do not want it, given that 3 million people signed the petition against it. The Government then talk about inflicting tax hits on all our businesses. It is just madness. There is absolutely no sense of direction from this Government. This is not a pro-growth Chancellor but a no-growth Chancellor. That will be the legacy.

I never thought that a Christmas song could sum up a Government’s economic approach, but if we look at “We wish you a Merry Christmas”, it appears that we are in the “we won’t go until we’ve got some,” phase from this Government, whether they are demanding figgy pudding or, in this instance, tax. I am really hoping, though, that they will see the light and eventually help businesses to unlock, to reach their potential and to have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Sarah Bool and Graham Stuart

Report stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

There are 5,310 businesses registered in my constituency of South Northamptonshire. Of those, 99.6%—or specifically 5,245—are small businesses. This Bill, among many of the Government’s policies, is a calamity for those small businesses. Not only are many of them rural, meaning that they will be affected by the family farm tax and now by the removal of the sustainable farming incentive, but as the chair of the Federation of Small Businesses has said, these small and medium-sized enterprises will struggle to adapt to the 28 major changes that the Bill makes to employment law.

First, it was the Government’s jobs tax, then it was their cuts to rate relief for hospitality businesses, and now they are smothering SMEs with red tape. Analysis published by the Department for Business and Trade says that this will impose a cost on businesses in the low billions of pounds per year, but that is not money that many of my small businesses can afford right now. This is why the Opposition have called for small businesses to be exempt from the parts of the Bill that would heap unsustainable costs on them.

Why do the Government seem to hate small businesses so much? Perhaps it is because the majority of the Cabinet have spent their careers in the public sector and have zero understanding of what life is like for the many entrepreneurs with SMEs across the UK, including in my constituency. We learned this week that, for the first time since records began in 2012, the number of companies registered at Companies House has fallen. Growth forecasts have been downgraded and the number of vacancies has declined. All this is a result of the choices the Government have made and continue to make in this Bill.

With all of this, the UK risks becoming a globally uncompetitive economy, particularly when other countries such as the United States are slashing regulation and unleashing their businesses to grow their economies. The Opposition have tabled new clause 90 for exactly this reason. It would ensure that when the Secretary of State makes regulations under part 4 of the Bill, he has to have regard to growth in the medium to long term. I join the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), in calling on the Government to support new clauses 89 and 90 to ensure that growth happens. Our economy is already struggling under the weight of Labour’s tax rises. Why are the Government opposing our efforts to ensure that they consider how burdensome regulation might impact on businesses?

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

A lot of people outside this place might feel that the answer to that question is that the trade unions have funded Labour Members—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker), who is talking from a sedentary position, received more than £27,000 from two unions in the latest year of declarations and did not think it appropriate in this debate even to mention that number, which may well have influenced his thinking and led to the dire outcomes that my hon. Friend is explaining to the House.

[Sarah Bool]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I think all Labour Members must reflect on this because we need the public to understand truly why this legislation is going through.

That the Government have seen fit to table 87 of their own amendments at this stage alone is indicative of how uneasy they must feel about the Bill. We are even told by the media that the Treasury has warned the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State about the consequences for the economy of enacting these laws, yet they seem to have seen fit to plough them through anyway. As per usual, Labour is paying lip service to growth while sticking true to form with their socialist ideology. I was not born in the 1970s but it appears that I am going to live through the equivalent in the years ahead, as Labour plays Abba’s 1976 hit “Money, Money, Money” for its trade union paymasters.