Employers

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

It has been a tough decade for businesses. It all started with Brexit, which unleashed uncertainty, red tape and form-filling, pushing up prices for all of us. Following that was the covid pandemic. Notwithstanding the furlough scheme, it unleashed on business a boom and bust cycle of lockdowns and opening back up, all because the then Conservative Government did not buy an off-the-shelf app that might have prevented that boom and bust cycle by tracking the impact.

[Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)]

I recall that when I was sat on the Government Benches, the Liberal Democrats were calling for more stringent measures.

[Daisy Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman will perhaps remember more correctly that during that time we called for a lockdown initially, but the public had already decided to go into lockdown. He will also remember that the then Prime Minister announced that pubs, high streets and a whole load of businesses should be closing down, without covering their insurance. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that.

Following covid, we had the mini-Budget, which I am sure the Conservatives will deny, too. The mini-Budget was incredibly painful and unleashed huge panic in the financial markets. It drove up the cost of living and the cost of commercial loans. On top of all that, we then had two anti-growth Budgets from the Labour Government that have pushed up costs on businesses. For many, it is too much to bear. Small businesses, the backbone of our high streets and our communities, have borne the brunt. It is the cumulative impact that small businesses have expressed concern about. They tell me that if it had been just one tax, they might just have been able to manage it, but they have had the national insurance contributions rise, the business rates changes and the Employment Rights Act 2025, which got the balance wrong between protections for workers and the burden on business. Businesses that have put in blood, sweat and tears and financial investment are now struggling and do not know whether they can survive.

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[Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald). I heard a collective thud when the Minister was speaking earlier, which must have been the jaws of businesses in my constituency hitting the floor, because there was a real lack of understanding of the real pressures that businesses are facing.

One thing I love about being a Member of Parliament is spending time going around the constituency, and I always make a point of visiting businesses—be they small, medium or large—to hear directly from them their concerns, and there are many of them. I also hold a regular business club, and it is becoming increasingly difficult in those meetings to give businesses any meaningful answers of reassurance because of the real problems they are facing. I am always struck by just how hard these people are working to keep their businesses going. They are part of not just our local economy, but our community. They create the vibrancy of our villages and our towns and are places where people can meet and congregate. These things are really important. We heard a moment ago about tech and innovation; even in the smallest barn on a farm, some really amazing tech companies are being created, and that is something we should be celebrating.

Employers want their businesses to be successful, and having a great team of employees is a keen part of that. Employers invest not only financially but emotionally in their business. I hear time and again that the costs of running a business are making that increasingly difficult. The spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), was right to say that a multitude of tax rises are creating that difficulty—not least the Government’s increase in employer national insurance contributions.

The Government will point to the increase in employer allowance, and I appreciate that it helps some businesses, but it does not change the fundamental fact that many employers are facing higher costs just to employ the same people and local businesses are having to make really difficult decisions. Time and again I hear it. I was depressed to hear at one event about a business whose owner had started it three years ago on his own and that was about to employ three people, but the national insurance contribution rise meant that that simply was not affordable any more.

It is not just businesses that are affected. Time and again, when I was a shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Minister, I tried to raise the impact on the charities sector, where I spent 16 years working before entering Parliament. I know the pressures that they face. I particularly worked in hospices, which can only provide care if they can afford to employ the people to look after their residents—children, in the case of the hospice I worked in. The Government will cite their £100 million of capital funding for hospices, but they cannot fund nurses with bricks and mortar. The reality is that these workers should not be facing these tax rises, because they are picking up a massive part of public sector work in caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our constituencies.

We have many wonderful charities in my constituency that provide important services to people who need them. They are employers too, and they still have staff to pay. When I speak to the people who use these charity services, it is not the charity that they talk about but the staff. That is why we must think about those charities as well.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

In my constituency of Newbury, a volunteer centre survey found that charities needed to raise an additional £300,000 a year just to stand still. Does the right hon. Member agree that charities’ time should be focused on serving our constituents rather than worrying about fundraising off the back of Labour’s tax rises?

[Stuart Andrew]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I was the head of fundraising at the hospice, so I know that it takes some time to plan a fundraising strategy. If a charity suddenly finds overnight that it has to find all that extra money, it will be almost impossible, and often they will end up having to eat into reserves, which is not a good thing.

[Gareth Snell]

I want to go back to the point that I raised to the shadow Secretary of State. The right hon. Gentleman was here when the health and social care levy came around. At no point did the Conservatives attempt to exempt charities and hospices from that tax rise. Why was it appropriate to keep them in scope when he was proposing it but completely inappropriate now?

[Stuart Andrew]

I point the hon. Gentleman to his party’s own manifesto. Labour promised that it would not do it. That is the reality of it, and that is the challenge that we are putting to this Government.

I really am worried about the opportunities for so many young people. We all remember how important getting our first job was. Mine was being a waiter at a hotel in Anglesey. It taught me about independence, it built my confidence, and it gave me real experience of working, sometimes with very challenging customers. It was really important to build that confidence. But it is becoming increasingly difficult for young people.

I know that employers in my constituency want to give young people those opportunities, but there is a cost involved in taking on and training someone. I spoke to one of the pub owners in my constituency who said that he always used to employ 14-year-olds to wash dishes, and when they got a bit older they would work as a waiter or waitress in the restaurant, and when they were a bit older still they would work behind the bar. As a result, he had trained staff, when they came back from university at Christmas or summer. He simply cannot afford to do that any more because of all the additional costs. Instead, he is employing older people. That is a real problem that we have got to address.

Many people who have just finished university or further education will be trying to get their first job, often without much experience. We should be doing all we can to encourage employers to give them that chance. That is why I support the Opposition’s proposal to halve employer national insurance contributions for under-25s, which would help businesses to plan ahead when taking on younger employers, making it more affordable to employ those who are just starting out. If we do not address this problem, there is a real danger that young people will find themselves permanently stuck in unemployment.

I will make another point to conclude. Some Members talk about employers as though they are somehow separate from working people, but when I visit businesses across my Daventry constituency, I meet people who are working extremely long hours and have often had to put their savings into getting the business up and running in the first place and to keep it afloat. They are serving customers, they are dealing with suppliers and they are doing the accounts. Sometimes they are worrying about whether they will have enough money left to pay themselves, let alone their workforce. They say to me that they wake up in the middle of the night worrying about where the money will come from. I do not think anyone could seriously suggest that those people are not working hard. They are making great personal sacrifices. We should be proud of everything they do and give them encouragement whenever we can. We should welcome the fact that they are providing employment for other people.

I want to see businesses in my constituency and across the country doing well, our local charities continuing their important work, and young people having the opportunity to get into employment, but we must recognise that increasing the cost of employing people has consequences, particularly for smaller businesses. Halving employers’ national insurance for under-25s would be a practical way of helping businesses give more young people a chance in life and the start that I enjoyed. For those reasons, I will happily vote for the motion.

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[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

British businessmen and women are integral to the growth and sustainability of our nation’s finances. A nation’s economic strength is measured not simply by the size of its Government, the amount it spends or the number of regulations it imposes, but by the confidence, enterprise and ingenuity of its people. It is built by those who take risks, start businesses, employ others, run shops, run pubs, manufacture goods and provide services. It is built from the ground up.

Yet at precisely the moment when we should be strengthening the foundations of our economy, this Government are placing an ever greater pressure on the very businesses that sustain it. I fear that this Government simply do not understand the reality of running a business in Britain today. Indeed, we have seen that in the last couple of weeks. Take the comments by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that employers are not working people. I do not think a political soundbite has resonated with so many across the country for a long time. I cannot overstate the hurt and insult that that comment caused to the men and women of this country who have had an idea, who get up early, who have gone out and built something, and who have given their employees a start in life, such as a young apprentice they have taken on, even if it means that they have to reduce their own pay to keep open or keep operating. They are the first ones out to work in the morning and the last ones home in the evening. Those comments hurt people, and although the Minister has apologised, I believe that she perfectly summed up the dire situation that this Government have caused for businesses up and down the country.

At the autumn Budget in 2024, the then Chancellor announced an increase in employer national insurance contributions of 1.2 percentage points alongside a reduction in the threshold at which employers begin to pay national insurance from £9,100 to £5,000. That happened despite Labour having promised that it would not do it. Ultimately, businesses have three options: absorb the additional cost, pass it on to their customers through higher prices or reduce their costs elsewhere. Both the Centre for Policy Studies and the Office for Budget Responsibility warned that those measures would lead to higher consumer prices and lower nominal wages. They have affected 1.2 million employers, and 940,000 people have lost out financially. They leave the average employer facing a net increase that will see their liabilities rise by approximately £26,000. Those are not abstract figures; they represent real businesses, real jobs and real decisions about whether to invest, expand or even remain open.

I want briefly to bring the debate closer to home by highlighting the experience of some local businesses in my constituency. Cherrywood Kitchen in Netley, run by Jason Hardcastle, is a small hospitality café that provides local employment and contributes to the community. He has seen a clear impact on the operating costs of his café since 2024, with national insurance contributions rising by over £2,000, VAT liabilities increasing by £4,000 and a weekly wage cost now exceeding £12,500. His cafe is busy. He has seen turnover increase every year that he has operated, but the actions of this Government have meant that he now takes on fewer people and does not take any profit home at the end of the week.

Another local business owner, Matthew Boyle, operates a number of excellent hospitality venues in my constituency, employing local young people—people who the Government claim they want to support. He spent 23 years building his hospitality business, which now employs 175 people, but this Budget and this Government’s actions will add £230,000 of additional annual costs to his business.

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Is he struck, as I am when I meet these business people, by how physically broken they sometimes look because they simply do not know how they are going to survive? Their life’s work and their dreams have been torn to shreds by this Government.

[Paul Holmes]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I go through the same thing as him. One of the most frustrating things on a Friday, when I go to see businesses in my area, is that I have no hope to give them because this Government have given them no hope. The Government need to listen to business people like Matthew who create the jobs and the wealth in the country that they love spending so much.

Ministers must recognise that businesses are not simply a source of revenue for the Treasury; they are the wealth creators of our economy. That is why I am delighted that the Leader of the Opposition has set out our party’s policies on how we would help to meet the challenge that the Government have caused including, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew) said, by halving national insurance contributions for people aged 21 to 24, saving £1,500 for employers, and abolishing business rates for hospitality. I also believe that we need to consider a VAT cut for hospitality businesses.

If we want thriving high streets, more jobs, better wages and a stronger economy, we must start by making Britain a better place to do business. Employers are working people because they create prosperity—not the Government, and certainly not this Government who are actively making the situation worse. It is not the Government who create prosperity; it is the people and businesses of this country, and they deserve better than what they are getting under this dire Labour Government.

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[Blair McDougall]

It has been a dreadful decade for businesses, and for small businesses in particular. As I said at the beginning, our job is to make it easier to invest and to ensure that we are cutting red tape and increasing access to finance. I will talk about that in a moment.

In the Budget, we took action to give the businesses that the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) is concerned about and employers some breathing space. We continue to work on the long-term changes that are necessary to create good jobs and growth in every part of our country. As a result of that work, employment is up this year—it is higher than previously forecast in March—and, in fact, the UK has the third highest employment rate in the G7. Meanwhile, business investment—so often embarrassing under the previous Government—relative to the size of the economy remains at its highest level for a decade.

Of course, as Members have said, there are global headwinds from the conflict in the middle east. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Conservative Members say “Ah”, and they do not like to be reminded of that, because they were calling for us to take part in that conflict. People and employers are seeing the impact of that conflict in their bills. We know that there is more to do, but this is a country that is turning a corner.

With that, I turn to the points raised throughout the debate, starting with national insurance, which was raised by several hon. Members. The facts are these. Employer national insurance contributions are forecast to raise about £150 billion in 2026-27. That is a significant contribution to the funding of our public services. Why is that needed? Because we cannot have a strong NHS or strong public services without investing in them, investing in our country and rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure we inherited after 14 years of austerity.

[Stuart Andrew]

The national insurance rises are really affecting hospices: in some cases, 40% of their beds are closing. Where will those people go? They will go to the national health service. How does that help our public services?

[Blair McDougall]

We recognise that and, as was mentioned, we are providing additional resources throughout the NHS and hospices to help with that.

On relief for employers, hon. Members will know that the employment allowance was estimated to be worth £7.4 billion in 2025-26. That provides eligible employers with up to £10,500 a year towards their national insurance contribution bills.

That is obviously not the only help that we gave to businesses in the Budget. As my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) noted, we have lifted tens of thousands of businesses out of business rates. Several hon. Members raised concerns about youth unemployment.