Seasonal Work

Debate between Sarah Olney and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the hon. Lady, my colleague on the Public Accounts Committee, for her intervention. She is absolutely right. I 100% and wholeheartedly welcome any boost to apprenticeships and that announcement in the Budget. However, there has been and continues to be caution over whether there will be sufficient business growth for high-skilled jobs to be created, which is what will enable our young people to progress in their careers.

Businesses from all sectors across the UK continue to struggle with high energy bills, which is compounded by the burden of the NICs rise and concerns about the effect of certain aspects of the Employment Rights Bill on their monthly employment costs. The cost of employment has risen significantly over the last year and there have been nearly 70,000 hospitality job losses just since last October. Our small businesses face huge challenges and many are already struggling to absorb rising costs. Unless more is done to support them, vital entry-level jobs, which make an essential contribution to the culture and character of our local communities, may be lost.

As the motion looks to examine the challenges facing businesses, a perhaps unsurprising omission is the absence of any reference to the damage caused by the last Government’s failed Brexit deal. The appalling agreement negotiated by the Conservative party has been a complete disaster for our country and particularly for small businesses, which are held back by reams of red tape and new barriers to trade, costing our economy billions in lost exports.

The dismal impact of the Conservatives’ terrible Brexit deal is becoming increasingly clear. A recent survey of 10,000 UK businesses found that 33% of currently trading enterprises experienced extra costs directly related to changes in export regulations due to the end of the EU transition period. Small businesses have been particularly badly affected, with 20,000 small firms stopping all exports to the EU. A recent study has found that goods exports have fallen by 6.4% since the trade deal came into force in 2021.

While the Liberal Democrats welcome the steps, hesitant as they are, that this Government are taking to rebuild our relationship with the EU, I urge them to recognise that this should only be the start of the move towards a new bespoke UK-EU customs union, which this House voted for just yesterday. Independent analysis has shown that a closer trading relationship with the EU would boost GDP by 2.2% and would bring in roughly £25 billion of extra tax revenue every year, which would be crucial in fixing the public services that the Conservative party left broken.

[Simon Hoare]

I am not suggesting that the hon. Lady should have been hanging on my every word yesterday, but she was in the Chamber during that debate. I would not call 100 votes in favour and 100 votes against a win. A ten-minute rule Bill will go nowhere. Why her leader jumps up and down on social media as if he has just introduced Magna Carta, I fail to understand. Did she not hear me when I said that in conversations with the European Union, the EU itself will not entertain a new customs union with the United Kingdom? It wants to evolve the agreement that we have, as per the agreement, not have groundhog day. Which bit of that does her party not understand, or are the Liberal Democrats just ignoring it because it is convenient to do so?

[Sarah Olney]

I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s speech yesterday, which I thought he delivered very well. I am grateful to him for putting the points against our Bill. He is absolutely right: it was 100 on each side. However, it passed with the help of Madam Deputy Speaker and it has progressed to Second Reading. I take his point, but I say to him: how does he know? If there is a political movement for change in this country, a political will towards further integration with the European Union and a political will in favour of a customs union—

[Sarah Olney]

I will finish this point, if I may. I think the EU would welcome that and would be very keen to have a conversation on that basis.

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Sarah Olney]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

[Sarah Olney]

That approach is very piecemeal and it is taking time. If we had a more wholehearted approach to a customs union, we would be able to unlock all sorts of benefits that are not possible with a piecemeal approach.

[Simon Hoare]

I suggest that a new customs union might take a little bit of time—maybe just a day or two. The hon. Lady asked a perfectly legitimate question: how do I know? In direct response to her party’s motion, I raised the issue directly with representatives of the European Union, and the answer was, “No, thank you.” That is what I know. I was not speculating; it was knowledge.

[Sarah Olney]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for sharing that knowledge with us all. Obviously, that is something to reflect upon. That is why we are pressing the Government. It is the Government who hold the purse strings and the pen here. It is up to them to make those advances on behalf of the country.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Sarah Olney and Simon Hoare

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I must say, I regret that the Conservatives did not win a mandate in July for the kind of wholesale reform that the right hon. Gentleman is proposing. As I say, the Liberal Democrat policy has always been for an elected second Chamber. That is not what the Bill delivers, but we are looking for the Government to go further—far further than the Conservatives did in the previous 14 years. [Interruption.] I find it so extraordinary that Conservative Members are suddenly all converts to the cause of Lords reform when they have done nothing about it for a decade and a half—it is insane. I say to both right hon. Gentlemen who have intervened on me that Liberal Democrat policy is for an elected upper Chamber, but getting rid of the hereditary peers is a welcome first step, and that is why we will support the legislation.

We must do all we can to restore public trust in politics after the chaos of the last Conservative Government. By removing this unelected and undemocratic aspect of our Parliament, we will move closer to that goal.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The hon. Lady’s argument would hold far more water if the Liberal Democrats adopted the position of not nominating anybody for the upper House until it was wholly elected. However, every single council leader up and down the land who has led a Liberal Democrat-Conservative group—sometimes of only three people—has suddenly found themselves draped in ermine and voting in the upper House. Her principle and her party’s actions are very wide apart.

[Sarah Olney]

I want to be very clear: the Liberal Democrats support the idea of a second Chamber. Under the current system, it is an appointed and elected Chamber; we are here today to support the principle of an elected second Chamber, and we are supporting the first step in that direction. We support the principle of an upper Chamber, and are very glad that there is Liberal Democrat representation within it, but that does not mean that we do not support the idea of changing the way in which people are introduced to the upper House. That is the principle that we are here to support.

Honestly, I am finding it difficult to work out what the Conservative argument is here. Do they want to abolish the House of Lords, do they want it to be elected, or do they want to keep everything exactly as it is? We support the Bill because it is a welcome first step towards a broader range of reforms that we have supported since 1911—which, as I have said, pre-dates many of the hereditary peerages that Conservative Members seem so keen to maintain.

Not only is the concept of inherited privilege one of fundamental, antiquated inequality, it exacerbates the distinct gender imbalance of the second Chamber, with not a single woman among the current hereditary peers. Removing the right of those peers to sit in the other place would make that gender imbalance slightly less severe, moving from 70% of peers being men to 67%. Parliament should be a body that represents and reflects the diversity and richness of the people and cultures that make up our country. This legislation, which would remove the last remaining hereditary peers’ membership of the other place, is a significant step towards a more representative Parliament.

If successful, the Bill would have a significant impact on the size of the House. In 2017, we supported the findings of the Burns report, which recommended measures to manage the exponentially increasing membership of our second Chamber. By removing the right of hereditary peers to sit in the other place, we would see a significant reduction in the size of the House, moving it back towards a more sensible size. Liberal Democrats are supporters of that change and the move towards a smaller upper Chamber.

While we are grateful to the Government for the introduction of this Bill and intend to support its progress through the House, we also recognise and acknowledge the commitment, wisdom and contributions brought by some hereditary Members of the upper Chamber. We thank them for their work, yet hope they can agree that we can no longer ignore the entrenched inequality that the continuation of hereditary membership of their House brings. The Liberal Democrats have a long-standing commitment to reforming our second Chamber with a proper democratic mandate. I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues, both in this Chamber and the other place, are working together to push for broader reform as soon as possible. We are glad that the Government’s manifesto committed to other reforms, including changes to the appointment process, addressing the national and regional composition of the second Chamber, the introduction of a mandatory retirement age and a participation requirement, and we ask the Minister to set out a timeline for those reforms.

The Liberal Democrats have consistently spoken out against the current system of prime ministerial appointments, which engrains patronage, reinforces the elitism of British politics and contributes to so many people losing faith in our system. We would like the Government to reassure us that they will not be following in the footsteps of the former Conservative Government, who ignored the findings of the 2017 Burns report and presided over a House of Lords that has ballooned in size. There have been suggestions that the Government’s plans for reform of the other place include a requirement for any nomination for a peerage to be accompanied by an explanation of the candidate’s suitability. Will the Minister commit to that requirement, bringing the appointment of peers more in line with the process for other honours—such as knighthoods—with political parties providing an overview of the relevant skills, knowledge and experience of the candidate?