Summer Jobs

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Davies]

Completely. There is even now a tax on the great British holiday, which impacts my hon. Friend’s constituency, Mr Speaker’s and many others. The overnight visitor levy, known as the holiday tax, threatens my hon. Friend’s area, just as it threatens Whitby, Scarborough, Blackpool, Bournemouth, the Norfolk coast and even my county in the Lincolnshire Wolds. The Government call it “modest”, but the seaside landlady who is struggling to fill her rooms calls it the difference between a season that works and one that does not. UKHospitality has warned that this tax means that consumers visiting destinations in England are charged double the tax of visiting Paris and 70% more than in Barcelona or Rome. In effect, the Government’s half a billion-pound holiday tax represents little more than a self-inflicted trade tariff on domestic breaks, driving holidaymakers overseas.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Is it not the truth that we have a Government who simply do not understand business? They think that they can squeeze and squeeze, tax and tax, legislate against and tangle up in red tape the very businesses that we need to drive our economy, get the growth that the Government say they want and provide jobs and opportunities for working people and young people. They simply do not get it.

[Gareth Davies]

The facts are there for all to see. As I was saying, it is vital that we support the business community, and that includes small businesses. So often the narrative is about large multinationals, but it is SMEs and small business owners who drive our country forward and employ people across the country, especially young people.

Another thing that businesses in this country are facing is the now infamous Employment Rights Act 2025, which has created so much red tape that the corner café has to focus on hiring a lawyer before it hires a waiter. The Government have laid down so many requirements for employers who need to move underperforming employees on. Indeed, their own law says that after six months, employees are protected from unfair dismissal, but I have to ask, where were these protections for the poor old Prime Minister, with whom they dispatched over a single weekend on WhatsApp? He got less probation than a probationary barista. It is one rule for the shop floor and another rule for the Labour Front Bench.

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[Chris Bryant]

I did not know the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) is the shadow Deputy Chief Whip, but there we are. If the hon. Member for Droitwich and Evesham is upset I am terribly sorry, but I think he was taking my words in the way that I intended them.

I am sure that we can all remember our first summer job. Mine was in a newsagent/sweet shop. Others might have been behind a bar, which is very common, or working in a hotel. Wimbledon takes on 280 14 to 17-year-olds as ball boys and girls every year, plus many more young people in its bars and hospitality venues. The Commonwealth games in Glasgow, which should bring £150 million of extra investment into the city, will take on more than 3,000 volunteers and hundreds of temporary staff. The Edinburgh festivals will take on even more young people working across all the different events.

In tourism hotspots across the country, from Margate to Harrogate to Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate in York, in Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Lake district, the Peak district and on the Jurassic coast, youngsters will be earning a wage for the very first time. That is a really important part of their social and personal development. We all know how important such jobs are to the whole economy. As several hon. Members have said already, getting their first experience of work teaches young people about the need to turn up on time, to look somebody in the face and engage with them, and to understand the rigours of work and stay until the end of the day.

The tourism industry meets domestic and international demand. We are still ambitious: we want to get to 50 million international visitors to the UK by 2030. Hospitality offers young people the chance to go from having no qualifications or experience to skilled staff member faster than any other sector in the UK, which is why it is so important.

[Wendy Morton]

If the situation is so rosy, will the Minister explain why youth unemployment among 16 to 17-year-olds is currently running at a staggering 30%—up from 24.7%?

[Chris Bryant]

I never said that the situation was all rosy; I said earlier that I am completely not complacent about the situation. I know the problems facing young people going into work that have been endemic in our economy for the last 15 to 20 years. A Conservative Member—I am sorry that I cannot remember who—asked earlier, “Isn’t university a fraud on young people?” Of course, it is really important to strike a balance between getting the experience to get into work rather than necessarily taking on an academic career. We have been keen to change that mix since we came into government.

I do not suppose that there is a single Labour Member who does not worry about the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training—NEETs, as people have referred to them already. Alan Milburn’s report is a real wake-up call for us all. We are fully backing the review and will of course act on its recommendations when they finally appear. We want to make sure they are based on evidence, which is precisely what Alan Milburn is pursuing.

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[Chris Bryant]

I have heard about that issue in relation to some other antiques businesses that are basically lots of stalls or small shops inside a much larger, older building. The hon. Lady makes a decent point, and it is one of the things we will be considering as we look at the future of business rates.

We have also introduced permanently low tax rates for retail, hospitality and leisure properties with rateable values below £500,000. This gives long-term certainty and support to the high street, and stands in marked contrast to the previous forms of relief, which created a yearly cliff edge that had been due to end entirely in April 2025. At the same time, we are increasing the hospitality support fund to £10 million, helping more businesses in this sector to grow and create more summer jobs. As hon. Members know, we have extended world cup opening hours and cut alcohol duty on draft pints. Despite being a Welshman, I very much hope that we have to do that rather more frequently over the next two weeks.

[Wendy Morton]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I still have an intervention to take from the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens from the SNP if he wants to have another go, but if not, I will give way to the right hon. Lady.

[Wendy Morton]

Does the Minister not accept that the schemes and programmes to do with the world cup—let us hope England stay in for as long as possible to help those businesses—are merely small sticking plasters? We need longer-term solutions for these industries that are much more sustainable.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I do not think England’s football prospects over the next few weeks are going to be the sole answer to the problem. That is why I have laid out a series of different areas in which we are already taking action, which I think will provide precisely the kind of long-term answers the sector needs. The Government have also protected the smallest businesses from the impact of the increase in employer national insurance contributions by more than doubling the employment allowance from £5,000 to £10,500. That is really important, and is very rarely mentioned in Conservative speeches.

I said that I would talk about tourism. I know that the Conservative party dislikes the idea of the tourism levy, and I have heard businesses complain about it as well—hotels in particular, but other parts of the sector too. I also worry that businesses are already facing a heavy tax burden, and I do not particularly want to increase it, but let us not exaggerate. First, all we are considering doing is allowing mayors to introduce a local levy. Some areas have already done so on a voluntary basis, and have done so very successfully. It seems extraordinary to forbid them from doing so, especially if they ensure that all the money raised goes into projects that support the tourism and hospitality sector. In certain instances where mayors want to introduce such a levy, it could be a real opportunity to drive forward economic opportunity in that sector.

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[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra). In so many debates, we learn a little about colleagues on both sides of the House, and this one gives us the opportunity to reflect on the summer jobs that many of us had. I think back to my first job—this will probably show how old I am now.

[Mr Mohindra]

Twenty-one!

[Wendy Morton]

I will take 21 any day. My first job paid the grand sum of 50p an hour. At the end of the week, when I got my pay packet—it was a pay packet in those days; there was no bank transfer—I felt quite wealthy. For the first time, I had a bit of money of my own; I could spend it on what I wanted, instead of having to ask the bank of mum and dad for money.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

That was liberating.

[Wendy Morton]

It really was, but it was more than that. It got me used to the whole mindset of going to work: getting up, being there for a certain time, and asking, “Is there anything else I can do?” My job was waitressing, and the usual pot-washing. Alongside that, when I was old enough, I learned how to pull a pint. My sister did the same, as did other youngsters from our village and the local towns. The employer was fantastic; he would pick up those who did not have transport and whose parents could not take them, and he made sure they got home as well. To me, that was a responsible employer.

That job gave me confidence. I was forced to speak to people in a restaurant environment, and had to handle cash and bookings—really important skills. The biggest skill of all was feeling confident that I could go out and work. We talk about working people; I very much think that the Conservative party is the party of working people. We have outnumbered Labour Members in this debate.

When I was growing up, there was always an expectation that we would go through education and then go out to work. If we wanted something, we worked for it. That was the way that we were brought up. Today’s debate has highlighted something quite sad: young people today do not have the same number of opportunities to get a summer job. This is about gaining not just money, but experience. I speak to so many employers, and have done for some time, about the importance of employability. Too often, I hear that employers small and large want to take on young people, but those young people do not have all the skills. That is not their fault; it is because they have not had the summer job, or a newspaper round or whatever, which helps that little bit when starting a job.

We need to take a long hard look at the employment market, and we need to look at what has happened in the last couple of years. We have heard today that youth unemployment is running at 14.5% for 18-to-24 year olds, up from 12% in 2024. Youth employment for those aged between 16 and 17 is at a staggering 30%, up from 24.7%. I read that 700,000 graduates are out of work and claiming benefits. There is something wrong there.

We encourage young people to go through education and to go to university, and then they struggle to find employment. That is partly because unemployment is high, but it is also because of the burdens being placed on our businesses. We talk a lot about large businesses, but often, the SMEs and the micro-businesses—the lifeblood of local communities and high streets that I have the pleasure of representing across Aldridge Brownhills—are being buried in red tape. They have seen employers’ national insurance hiked, they are being blocked from employing under-16s, and they are suffering as a result of high energy costs.

Any business that we go to will talk about the hike in energy costs, and for an energy-intensive industry, that hike is particularly difficult. In my constituency, we have a lot of brick makers; in the west midlands, brick making and the ceramics industry are really important. Although Denby is not in my constituency, who does not like picking up a piece of Denby pottery and seeing “Made in England” proudly stamped underneath? We are losing those businesses, which means that we are losing opportunities for young people, the opportunity to grow our economy and develop more skills, and our manufacturing capability, which is important.

We saw during covid how important it was to have sovereign, UK-based manufacturing capacity and capability when we needed to manufacture the critical covid vaccines. That surely should have taught us something. We have to build up more home-made skills. I also urge the Government to look at skills and opportunities for young people and, more broadly, at what skillset we need for today and for the future. We talk about the opportunities that artificial intelligence will bring, but it will also bring challenges to some sectors. The big question is: are we ready for that? I do not think that we have done nearly enough thinking to get us to that point. We have to do that now, to make sure that we are developing the right skills. For years, people who did an apprenticeship in engineering or plumbing were seen as not earning as much as the graduates who had been to university and got the high-tech jobs. There were also the toolmakers—[Laughter.] We can laugh about toolmakers, but in the west midlands there is a history of toolmaking. My point is that AI will not be able to replace all those skills. We need to look at what we need in future, and our education system—our schools, universities and colleges—need to make sure that we are all working together.

Critical to that conversation is business, and not just big business. I come back to my point about small business. We started our business many years ago with something called enterprise allowance. My husband had an idea, and the enterprise allowance paid us £40 a week. It did not seem like much at the time but, my goodness, we felt that the Government were backing us to create an income, a living and a business.

We need much more backing and confidence for our business community. It is time that we created a culture that supports businesses—one where “business” is not the bad word. Business is not bad. It is not bad to make a profit, because that profit is so often put back into the business, into employment and into the young people who, we all agree, we want to nurture and encourage, so that they can get into employment, get a job and a skill, and have a bright future.