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Labour Party
Latest entry 3 Nov 2026
Conservative and Unionist Party
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Green Party
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Showing every spoken contribution, including 11,987 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
I fundamentally disagree with the right hon. Gentleman because entrepreneurs who I have spoken to welcome the founders’ relief that we introduced at the Budget last year to back some of the founders—some of those behind our fastest-growing businesses, creating wealth, jobs and opportunity in our country.
We want to support our brilliant local businesses to succeed, and I hope that the Rockwood, Craftyard, Darlington’s and Kuzzu will benefit from some of our Budget measures, since all retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England will see their business rates frozen in real terms for two years, reduced or cut to zero.
I or a colleague of mine would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that much-needed investment in her constituency. More widely, we would urge the Scottish Government to replicate in Scotland the business rates changes that we have announced for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in England.
I question whether the hon. Lady was listening to the Budget if she thinks we were not prioritising hospitality, given that retail, hospitality and leisure businesses received real help on their business rates in England. I would urge the Welsh Government to follow suit.
I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the Village Green Cafe, which I know will be valuable to the local community in Eyam. In addition to the business rates support that we have spoken about, the new Hope on the High Street strategy sets out the Government’s plan to revive our high streets. It includes taking a “high streets first” approach that will bring more public services and civic activity into town centres, driving footfall to support those local businesses.
The hon. Gentleman has just made it a hat trick by asking a question today, but I am happy to pick that matter up with him outside the Chamber.
It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) for securing this important debate. It is clear that we face an urgent national crisis that has devastating consequences. This is a challenge facing every part of our country. I am pleased to say that the number of NEETs in the east of England has fallen since 2024, from 14.2% to 11.7%. However, that figure is still far too high, and behind it our young people are unable to move forward into the next stage of their lives. People should be building skills, gaining confidence and learning how to stand on their own two feet; instead, they are struggling to take those important first steps into adult life. Alan Milburn is right to warn against the emergence of a lost generation. This is about more than youth unemployment. It is about being disconnected from the education system and the labour market, but also from the opportunity, confidence and independence that good work can provide. There is a cost to young people’s confidence, health and future earnings. The moral crisis is all too clear. We are at risk of abandoning a generation of talented, ambitious people to worklessness, poor health and poverty. I want to highlight a few things that we are doing in Ipswich and Suffolk to turn the tide. There is the new youth hub funded by the Government in Ipswich, which brings together employers, training providers, careers advice, mental health support and housing support under one roof. That is incredibly welcome. Sizewell C is a transformational project for our energy security, but there is also what it represents to our young people. I was delighted to secure 500 guaranteed jobs for Ipswich from that project. Construction technical excellence colleges also deliver employability support. We as a Government must ensure no gap in support between the restart scheme, which has been incredibly successful, and the future employment support programme. When there is an apprenticeship to apply for, skills training to access and a career to build for, ambition has somewhere to go. Young people need the ambition, the potential and the opportunity all at the same time. Behind every headline figure is a young person who wants to contribute. Our responsibility is to make sure that chance is there.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) for securing this debate to raise an excellent question. We can clearly see a troubling difference between the care delivered for women’s conditions and that delivered for conditions affecting the general population, which is an issue I have raised with my local NHS board. As hon. Members will know, health is a devolved matter in Scotland, but equality is not. I am open to any solution that would help the women and girls in my constituency to get the healthcare they need, when they need it. When I met NHS Lanarkshire in November 2025, we discussed waiting lists. I was told that the board aimed to eliminate two-year waits by the spring, which I thought was progress, relatively speaking. However, there was a catch: the exception was gynaecology. I wrote to ask what the plan was for that, but was told that it was difficult and challenging. They were not able to share a plan, nor did they confirm that ensuring that women received the same levels of healthcare as men was a priority. It is true that they are operating in very difficult circumstances, and the SNP-led Scottish Government must take their share of responsibility, but this exception is not the answer. For endometriosis, the average wait in England is nine years and four months, and in Scotland, it is 10 years and two months. That is more than a decade of pain and more, as my hon. Friend described so well. The dreams that young women so rightly have for themselves can be lost in this process, which is devastating. Many of us have heard somebody say, “Well, if men suffered from this, they would have found a cure,” but there is an even more modest question that we need to ask: what do we need to do to make sure that women get the treatment that already exists? Women are not born to endure. They are not born to accept pain or incapacitation as part of the feminine experience, and when they are ill, they should not be dismissed. They should not be told—it happens at every stage of life, quite frankly—that it is their age or, if it is really bad, that they could take a paracetamol. These examples are, and have been, far too familiar to too many women for far too long. We all know that these problems run deep, and my hon. Friend has cut to the heart of the issue. Much more needs to be done. It should not take a rewriting of the Equality Act to make it happen, but she is right to ask the question, and I thank her for it.
<Question HRSContentId="{3018EBE2-21BA-4639-BF79-15A6A130D3EA}">T5. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{F6EACD88-0AC0-40B6-B0A0-8E32A9D19C1F}" /> Real progress was made in the Budget on the former mineworkers’ pensions, and I am very grateful to the Chancellor and the rest of the team for that, but there is more to do and time is pressing. Our mineworkers did incredibly difficult jobs in very challenging environments and kept the lights on for all of us—they deserve every penny of their pensions. Can the Chancellor tell me when we can expect an update on the release of the remaining funds?</Question>
<Question HRSContentId="{96A73614-4FE4-4B25-B537-E9105C8D49C1}">T8. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{7831C2EB-9CC2-4D41-B9AC-07F63BB4E566}" /> The Chancellor rightly said last Wednesday that homelessness is a political choice. Does my right hon. Friend agree that hunger is a political choice as well? Earlier this month the Right to Food UK Commission published its final report, fully costed by Lord Prem Sikka, setting out credible reform to end food insecurity by 2035. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss its recommendations?</Question>
For many of my constituents in Liverpool West Derby, the cost of living crisis means a daily struggle to keep the heating on, pay the rent and put food on the table. I welcome any measures that ease that struggle, and the direction of travel from the Budget last week was really welcome, but “breathing space” is nowhere near enough when 14 million people are struggling to put a meal on the table tonight. People need to see a credible plan to improve their living standards and tackle the shameful poverty and hunger that we see across the country. The Trussell Trust reports that between 2024-25 and 2026-27, the number of people experiencing severe hardship grew by 500,000. That included 115,000 children, and there would have been more, but thankfully we scrapped the two-child cap. We cannot ask families to keep making sacrifices while offering them so little prospect of things getting better. We see the unrest across Europe as a result of this feeling of hopelessness with politics and politicians. The Prime Minister has, thankfully and rightly, identified the damage caused by 40 years of neo-liberal politics. Reversing the damage requires true radical action on a scale that matches the hardships that our communities face, and nowhere is that damage highlighted more than around our kitchen tables. In September, the Right to Food UK Commission published its final report. We heard evidence from across the United Kingdom—from communities speaking directly to us. What we heard should really shame this House. We heard about parents missing meals so that children can eat, people in work relying on food banks, and families choosing between heating their homes and feeding themselves. At a community session in London, a stone’s throw from this Chamber, one woman put it in three words: “Rent eats first”. The rent is paid, then the energy bills and then the debts. Food is whatever is left. That is the plight of millions in all our communities. The commission’s central finding is clear: people are going hungry because they cannot afford the food that is available. Low wages, inadequate social security and the rising cost of essentials are leaving families without enough to live on. These are failures of policy that require political action. The question is no longer whether we can afford a right to food; it is whether we can afford to carry on without one. In Liverpool, a woman giving evidence said simply: “A right to food is a right to exist.” She was spot on, because we are already paying for failure. Updated analysis from the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission puts the wider economic and social costs of Britain’s unhealthy food system at £298 billion a year—up from £268 billion two years ago. That includes more than £100 billion in direct costs across healthcare, social care and welfare, alongside the enormous costs of lost productivity and diminished quality of life. Those figures cover the wider unhealthy food system, so tackling food insecurity and making healthy diets affordable must be absolutely central to the Government’s mission. We pay through our taxes, our public services, our health and the opportunities denied to our children. The question is whether we carry on accepting these costs, or invest in preventing them. Alongside the wider reforms that we need, the Right to Food UK Commission has set out an initial package of practical measures, including universal free school meals, holiday food provision, and proper funding for community kitchens and hubs. Our initial asks are fully costed, with funding identified through tax reforms put forward by Lord Prem Sikka. We have set out what needs to be done, what it would cost and how it could be paid for. Whether the Government choose to act is now a question of political will. The Right to Food UK Commission’s modelling estimates that we could create about £100 billion-worth of wider economic and social benefits over two decades. That includes improvements in health, education and people’s ability to participate in society. Behind those calculations are outcomes that every Member of this House should want: children arriving at school ready to learn, parents able to feed their families without skipping meals, and fewer people developing avoidable illnesses. These are investments that can improve and lengthen people’s lives. That is why the commission calls for a statutory right to food, backed by resources, clear duties and accountability. It means clear legal duties on the Government and independent scrutiny, so that Departments cannot pass responsibility between themselves while families continue to go hungry. Members from across the House have joined me in calling for a right to food in the next King’s Speech. I ask the Government to listen, work with the Right to Food UK Commission, and commit to the legislation needed to deliver lasting change. Hunger really is a political choice. The Government have the power and responsibility to end it and give millions, in every postcode, hope again in politics.
<Question HRSContentId="{0FCDC6A3-E684-42C5-A24D-DB1A94B03770}">7. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{5E10506D-1952-43A9-9B9C-C27F8B9ACBBD}">What fiscal steps he is taking to increase the competitiveness of the refining sector.</QuestionText></Question>
I welcome the Government’s announcement in last week’s Budget of the intention to expand the scope of the CBAM to include refinery products. That is critical to preventing carbon leakage by ensuring that British refineries are on a level playing field when compared with imported refined products. It will protect thousands of jobs in Pembrokeshire and strengthen our energy national security. Will the Minister set out a clear timetable for implementation? What assurances will he provide on protecting the competitiveness of the export sector for refineries in this country?
<Question HRSContentId="{069CF9F2-5143-4175-8F5D-D70DD46FB8F7}">T1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{61B5F138-4735-4F5C-96E1-0FA6562A74DC}">If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities. </QuestionText></Question>
The Chancellor is very well aware of the threat to our economy of Russian cyber and physical attacks, but the UK public are not. My recent report, “The Putin Tax”, found that it was already costing the economy in excess of £2.5 billion a year and each taxpayer more than £100 a year. With families facing rising bills, I am sure that people would much rather spend that money themselves than give it to a dictator like Vladimir Putin. Will the Chancellor help to fulfil the Prime Minister’s recent commitment to me by gathering and publishing the data on the cost of Russian attacks so the public know how much Putin is costing their family?
I thank my hon. Friend for all his work in this area. I visited my local employability service, Working Denbighshire, last week. It runs an amazing programme called Barod, which means “ready” in Welsh. It does pre-employability work—working on confidence, social and communication skills and the things that really start young people on that pathway. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be providing that sort of service to all our young people across the UK?
This past weekend, out on the doorstep speaking to constituents in Clwyd North, I was reminded once again that the issues that people care about most are often very different from the arguments that dominate social media. Away from the toxicity and division that can sometimes fill our feeds, people were not so interested in political point scoring. Instead, they wanted to talk about the practical challenges they face every day: paying their bills, accessing healthcare, supporting their families and making their money go a little further. The message I heard time and again was that people can see that this Budget is responding to those everyday pressures, despite global challenges. They welcome measures that will help with the cost of living, whether that is support with rising bills or action to bring down the cost of everyday items in their shopping baskets. These may be small changes in isolation, but when people are balancing a household budget every month, small savings can make a big difference. They welcome the £100 payment towards energy bills and the extension of the 0% VAT rate on electricity bills. They welcome the removal of the gas standing charge, too. This change, which has long been called for, will mean that households pay only for the gas they actually use; for too long, households have paid unavoidable fixed costs regardless of how much energy they use. This is a welcome step, but I want to see real progress on electricity standing charges, too. Many families in north Wales are rightly frustrated that they pay some of the highest standing charges in the country—paying before they have even switched on a light. We have heard the Chancellor make it clear that removing the standing charge for electricity is the next area of focus, and I will be pressing for that commitment to be delivered so that my north Wales constituents have a fair deal. Of course, I heard local people talk about public services. I heard concerns about waiting lists, access to healthcare, and support for additional learning needs in our schools. No one pretends that money alone will solve those challenges, but extra investment will give us a far better chance of tackling them. I therefore welcome the extra £450 million of additional funding coming to Wales, which builds on the largest funding settlement since devolution, delivered in the spending review by this Labour Government. My constituents want to see shorter waiting lists, better support for children and stronger public services. They want to see funding translated into results. It will be up to the minority Plaid Cymru Government in Wales to make that happen by getting on with the day job, with fewer consultations and more action. Finally, one thing that genuinely encouraged me on the doorstep was a sense that people were starting to see politics as more connected to their everyday lives. There was support for our new Prime Minister, with one constituent saying, “I could imagine the Prime Minister standing on my doorstep having this very conversation.” That comment stayed with me, because it was not just about the Prime Minister; it was about feeling heard. People want politicians who speak their language, who understand the pressures facing them and who are focused on the issues that matter to them most. This Budget responds to many of the concerns that people have raised with me in person, while providing welcome additional investment and opportunity for Wales. I will continue working to ensure that the people of Clwyd North see the full benefit of that investment.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) for securing this important debate. Seven years ago, I was sat in this very room for a debate on endometriosis workplace support, in which the much-missed David Amess announced that the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis would be launching an inquiry into the state of care—at this point I also want to thank the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) for all his work over the years. I wish I could say that I cannot believe we are having the same debate again, yet I know from the countless emails I have received from women across the country about their experiences that many of the issues identified by the APPG all those years ago still persist. One constituent recently reached out to me, having been repeatedly bedridden as a result of her pain. She spoke about a fruitless struggle to access healthcare, which had left her untreated and worried about keeping her job. Some changes have been made in the right direction, but we cannot ignore the evidence telling us that support is not reaching far enough. A recent endometriosis APPG call for evidence found that less than half of respondents with the condition had received any workplace adjustments, yet 80% of employers giving evidence supported changes to the guidance to explicitly recognise the condition as meeting the definition of a disability. Our workplaces are clearly willing to make adjustments, but the guidance is failing them, as well as the people it is supposed to safeguard. The Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission must review the guidance so that it clearly reflects chronic and fluctuating conditions such as endometriosis. Will the Minister look carefully at the APPG’s findings and consider whether the guidance for employers should now be reviewed? I have two further questions. First, will the Minister work with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and ACAS on practical guidance that covers support before a diagnosis and the fair handling of short recurring absences? Secondly, as the Government develop the workplace health system, will the Minister ensure that endometriosis and other fluctuating menstrual health conditions are part of that work? Women have waited long enough to be believed by their doctors. They should not have to wait any longer to be supported by their employers.
I, too, declare my proud membership of USDAW. Poundland workers in Merthyr Tydfil, like elsewhere, are deeply concerned about their futures. The workforce have given absolutely everything to the company to make it profitable. Can the Minister give further reassurance about what more the Government can do to ensure that Gordon Brothers does absolutely everything at its disposal to support the workforce, and to treat them with fairness and respect?
I am pleased to be able to contribute to this Budget debate. I very much welcome the breathing space that this Budget provides for families across Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare. I welcome the additional £450 million spending power delivered to the Welsh Government as a direct result of this Budget, which they will hopefully use to support public services across Wales. That builds on at least £6.5 billion of total additional spending power that has already been delivered to the Welsh Government over this spending review period as a result of decisions taken by this UK Labour Government. I am also pleased that this Labour Government are backing economic growth in Wales, delivering on our commitment on rail with £30 million to drive forward new stations in Wales, subject to the Plaid Cymru Government confirming that they will match our ambition. The Government are giving families in Wales breathing space through help with the things that matter most: energy costs, fuel, food prices, pensions and wages. Thanks to decisions taken by this Government, around 1 million households in Wales in council tax bands A to D will receive a £100 payment towards utilities. I am also pleased that tariffs have been removed on over 100 food products, helping with the weekly shop. Many of these are small things, but added together, they make a big difference to families across my constituency and across the country. Wales’s patron saint, St David, is famous for asking people to “do the little things”. The context is slightly different, but the principle is the same: taken together, little things can make a big difference. I also want to highlight the mineworkers’ pension scheme. I declare an interest, in that my brother is a former miner and many of my extended family have also worked in the coal industry. I will focus on the last remaining call, which is to transfer the guarantor’s fund. Many ex-miners were the lifeblood of the community in my part of Wales, not only building our communities but building and powering our country. Many sacrificed their life, and many more sacrificed their health—that was the real price of coal. We owe them a debt. The Labour party has made huge progress on the injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme since coming into government. We are the only party to take meaningful steps to put this right. In the 2024 Budget, the mineworkers’ pension scheme’s £1.5 billion investment reserve was transferred to its 110,000 members, resulting in a 32% pension bonus—around £29 a week. In the 2025 Budget, the British Coal staff superannuation scheme went through the same process, with its £2.3 billion investment reserve transferred to its 40,000 members. That resulted in a 41% pension bonus, or around £100 a week. I am pleased that in this Budget, the Chancellor announced that every penny of the surplus from the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the British Coal staff superannuation scheme will remain with those schemes and their members, rather than being divided with the Government. Crucially, the Chancellor also said that this is unfinished business, and committed to ensuring that the full transfer of the guarantor’s fund will follow. That will finally right this injustice, which miners have faced for too long. However, we need that final piece to be delivered sooner rather than later, for the sake of the many ex-miners who are elderly and the many who are in poor health. Many die every month. I recognise the urgency of this matter, and I pledge that I will continue to work with my colleagues. I say to former miners across my constituency: I will continue fighting for you until you get the justice you have been waiting so long for. Finally, although I welcome the freeze in fuel duty, I must again raise the scandal of local fuel prices. Fuel prices have remained stubbornly higher than in other areas, particularly in the Merthyr Tydfil part of my constituency. I have noted lower fuel prices in central London than in Merthyr Tydfil; even the Asda store in Merthyr Tydfil was charging around 10p per litre more than in any of its other local stores. When I met representatives of Asda earlier this year, they recognised this, and reduced their prices by 5p per litre within a few days, but the remaining retailers did not follow suit. While the war in Iran has made matters a whole lot worse, the impact in Merthyr Tydfil is worse than in many other local communities. Although I recognise that the Government cannot force retailers to lower their prices, I have contacted the Competition and Markets Authority to ask for its help in highlighting the unfairness of fuel prices in my community and their impact on my constituents, who feel that they are being unfairly ripped off at the fuel pumps. Building on this Budget, I ask the CMA to come to the table and see what it can do to help my constituents.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) for securing this debate. A lot has been said by hon. Members from across the House that I will seek not to repeat, but I would like to push the Minister on a couple of points coming out of the Milburn review. Its diagnosis shines a light on what was known to most of us. Indeed, Stoke-on-Trent has quite often been seen as an exemplar both of where things were terrible and of where things are getting better. Our NEET rate has dropped from 16% to below 10% because of work done by partnerships, but we still have more to do. Part of that is because our local environment has flexed to do what it needs to, sometimes against Ofsted and Government guidelines. I commend to the Minister the work done by the CEO Futures Forum, which brings together multi-academy trusts from across the city to look at the pathways that young people need now for the jobs that will exist in the future, much as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) said. We are constrained by the fact that good apprenticeship providers are unable to take on the numbers of young people who want to do apprenticeships, because they are held back by the de minimis rules under the apprenticeship provider and assessment register regulations. I urge the Minister and her Department to look at how, if this is a moral crusade, we can use our entire arsenal to ensure that every young person has the right pathway. If need be, that should include liberalising some of the rules around the registration of apprenticeship providers so that groups such as Dan Canavan’s Spark Group can take on the young people they want. I urge the Minister not to fall back on some of the rudimentary politics that suggests that artificially capping the wages we pay young people, in contrast to the wages we pay a full-time adult, is a way to address the NEET problem. People should be paid fairly for the work they do, regardless of their age or the way they do it. That was a Government manifesto commitment, but the siren voices are calling for it to be slowed down. I urge the Government to resist that as much as they can.
The aspiration of work experience is laudable, but the guidance that came out in the recent keeping children safe in education update now requires, if a young person will be spending more than three days in a workplace, that workplace to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service check, as part of its being an unregulated activity. That is a significant barrier for many small businesses, particularly those that have previously hosted young people, but now have to go through the burden of getting a check. Could the Minister take that back to the Department and work with the Department for Education to find a way of ironing out that kink, so that we keep children safe but do not preclude the opportunities they previously had?
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade if he will make a statement on the situation at Poundland and potential actions to protect jobs.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I thank the Minister for the tone and content of her answer. At the heart of this matter are the 11,000 people whose jobs, through no fault of their own, hang in the balance, and who do not know whether they will have a job at all this side of Christmas. Those jobs are not concentrated in a big factory, but dispersed across this country in towns such as Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent and in your constituency of Chorley, Mr Speaker, as well as in the supply chains and distributors in Makerfield and Harlow, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) talked about. This company has survived because the workers turned it around. We are in the situation that we are in today because choices have been made by Gordon Brothers. It has rejected solvent bids and is seeking to push a company into administration for its own personal profit. Fundamentally, its interest does not appear to be the 11,000 constituents we all represent, who take home money to look after their kids, put food on the table and live the life that they deserve. I am very glad that the Minister continues with meetings, but the management of Poundland is not the problem; it is Gordon Brothers. If we get to a point where administration takes place and 11,000 jobs and supply chain jobs are put at risk, what levers can the Minister use to save as many jobs as she can? What pressure can this House, through her, put on the owners to accept one of the solvent bids in order to protect jobs? What can this House do to send a message to Gordon Brothers that its predatory capitalism when it comes to this company will not be tolerated? We in this country will always stand with people before profit.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should have put on record my membership of USDAW at the beginning of the urgent question, and I apologise to the House for inadvertently failing to do so.
<Question HRSContentId="{FA1F143E-C2E7-434C-948E-769752644321}">2. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{6736BA25-01B0-4C9F-81A5-5E8A09441851}">What discussions he has had with the Financial Conduct Authority on the impact of the withdrawal of the family protection plan by CMutual and Maiden Life Försäkrings on policyholders. </QuestionText></Question>
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for her response and her work on this matter. The most vulnerable families paid FPP funeral cover for 25 years because it was all they could afford, and data shows that since its withdrawal, only 3% of policyholders have been able to secure alternative cover and at least 61 people have died without funeral protection. Despite numerous industry forum meetings to explore redress, no solutions have been agreed, even for the oldest and most vulnerable. Will my right hon. and learned Friend meet me, MPs with affected constituents and the independent coalition of credit unions as a matter of urgency, so that we can try to identify any possible next steps?
Last year, we provided the Scottish Government with a record spending review settlement, and last week at the Budget, we gave the Scottish Government a further £600 million through Barnett consequentials. We also announced £18 million for a UK advanced chip design academy led by Edinburgh University, £6 million to support the expansion of Glasgow’s Scottish event campus and £10 million of co-funding, with the Scottish Government, for two defence technical excellence colleges.
I agree with my hon. Friend. As she says, at the Budget we gave the Scottish Government an additional £600 million through Barnett consequentials on top of a record spending review settlement. Now we need the SNP Government to act to improve public services in Scotland with that money.
As my hon. Friend says, the Chancellor last week froze business rates in real terms for high street businesses, and has taken 70,000 small businesses on the high street in England out of paying business rates altogether. We have given the devolved Government in Scotland the Barnett consequentials for that, and I urge them to follow our lead.
I reassure the hon. Lady that we continue to support the Acorn project. The initial grant funding that this Government are providing until the end of 2026 remains in place, and we are exploring delivery through private investment and Government loans or equity investments in the future.
I thank the right hon. Member for his question, and suggest I write to him to set that out in more detail.
Can I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on her election as Chair of the Justice Committee? As she rightly says, we inherited a prison system at breaking point after 14 years of Tory mismanagement. At the spending review, we significantly increased the funding for the Ministry of Justice, with an additional £550 million for probation, £450 million for courts and £7 billion for prison places. We have already delivered 3,000 new places through the largest prison building programme since the Victorian era. I will continue to work with the Justice Secretary on the issues mentioned by my hon. Friend.
We were left a terrible legacy by the Conservative party, and we have cut £1 billion from asylum costs during the time we have been in power.
The hon. Gentleman will know that an EU summit is coming up on 20 November, and we are still negotiating with the EU. We are putting right the botched Brexit that we inherited from the Conservative party, which put frictions at our border and increased costs for farmers, family businesses and others.
I remind the hon. Lady of her party’s role in trebling tuition fees when it was in coalition with the Conservatives. We have helped this year by capping interest rates at 6% for plan 2 and 3 loans, and from the academic year 2028-29, we will reintroduce targeted maintenance grants to support students from low-income households.
I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets a meeting with the relevant health Minister. More broadly, the Chancellor announced last week that in the spending review next year, we will set out a new preventative departmental expenditure limit spending category to get ahead of problems before they get more expensive, because we recognise that preventing problems before they arise is a good use of taxpayers’ money.
This Budget provides breathing space now and fresh hope for the future, which is the focus of today’s debate. I thank all hon. and right hon. Members across this House who have made contributions—not only today, but over the four days of the debate on this Budget—on the action we are taking in government to steer Britain through the global economic storms, kick-start good growth in every postcode, strengthen our national security and chart a new course for our country in the years ahead. Many Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) and for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae), rightly stressed the challenges we are facing because of the storms in the global economy. We have heard a lot from Opposition Front Benchers—most of it hot air—but there was not a word of apology for calling on this Government to join the war in the middle east that is driving up energy costs, inflation and the cost of Government borrowing. We cannot wish away these global economic storms. Instead, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has set out a course to steer this country through them. We have chosen to use some of the fiscal headroom established last year to absorb the impact of the Iran war and to protect the economy, British businesses and family budgets. As my hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) and for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) rightly said, fiscal discipline underwrites every policy of this Government. We will meet the fiscal rules in full, and for the first time, in the third year of the forecast. Last year, borrowing fell to its lowest level in six years as a percentage of GDP, and it continues to fall across the forecast. We will not take any lectures from the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) or the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller). They like to claim that they were innocent bystanders who just happened to be Treasury Ministers at the time of the Liz Truss mini-Budget. We all know that they were the architects of the mini-Budget. The shadow Chancellor still maintains, and said as recently as September, that there were a “lot of good things” in the mini-Budget, and to this day the British people are paying the price for his failure. Liz Truss’s stint in office might have been short-lived, but the impact was long-lasting. The contrast with this Labour Government could not be clearer. I am proud that the IMF has said that the UK stands out as a country where “action to reduce debt and deficit has been taken decisively”. It has said that we will have the lowest deficit in the G7 by 2029. As my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) rightly said, the British economy has proven more resilient than many predicted, including Opposition Members. Indeed, it has defied expectations. The Tories and Reform like to talk down our economy, but the fundamentals of the British economy are strong. Public investment is up. Business investment is up to its highest level in 10 years. Productivity has finally turned a corner, and we had the joint-fastest growth in the G7 in the first half of this year.
The last Parliament was the worst Parliament on record for living standards. Since the last election, living standards have increased by 1.8%. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to read the executive summary from the OBR, which stated: “As a net importer of energy, the rise in energy prices constitutes a negative terms-of-trade shock for the UK, which pushes up on inflation and lowers real household disposable incomes.” Those are the global headwinds we are facing.
What I say to the right hon. Gentleman is that wages have risen faster in the first two years of this Government than they did in the first 10 years of his Government, so we will take no lectures from him or his party. Against this backdrop, the Chancellor is providing immediate breathing space for families and businesses. Our £100 household energy payment will support 20 million households in England. That is 80% of households, and it will be paid for by a time-limited 3% increase to the bank surcharge, which the Conservatives will oppose in the Lobby. We are going further on bills, by extending the removal of VAT on electricity until July and extending the 5p cut on fuel duty, and next year we will abolish gas standing charges. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), and many others, for welcoming this energy support package. Overall, in 2026-27, households in England are estimated to benefit by about £160 on average from the support that we are providing on energy, according to new analysis published this morning. Households on the lowest incomes are expected to benefit the most, with the bottom 20% benefiting by about £230 on average, almost four times as much as the top 20%. Because we know that higher energy costs are a challenge for business too, we are reducing bills by up to 25% for more than 10,000 eligible businesses from next April through the British industrial competitiveness scheme, as was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary earlier. That will help to support the British firms at the heart of the future of Britain’s reindustrialisation. Beyond energy, we are supporting families by giving self-employed dads paid paternity leave, and I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) and for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) for welcoming that measure. We are backing British businesses and high streets, and here I would like to correct the record. Of course the brilliant men and women across the country who run small businesses are working people, and I thank them for their contribution to our local economies and our local high streets—the bakeries, the cafés, the restaurants, the beauticians, the hairdressers, the local pubs, and so much more. In the first week of this new Government in July 2024, we cut an extra 20% from business rates for pubs, social clubs and live music venues from April next year. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) for her invitation to the pub in her constituency, and I look forward to going there to eat the goulash. In this Budget, the Chancellor has gone further by taking 70,000 more small retail, hospitality and leisure properties out of paying business rates altogether. For all other businesses in those sectors, we are freezing their business rates in real terms. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith)—my constituency neighbour—for what she said about that change in business rates, and the 2,000 small high street businesses across Buckinghamshire, including Aylesbury and indeed High Wycombe, that will be taken out of business rates altogether. To pay for this—as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton North (Mrs Blundell)—we are increasing machine games duty for higher-stakes machines, and we are carving out adult gaming centres and vape shops from business rate reliefs. We are also ensuring that online marketplaces collect and pay VAT, which they should be doing already. Many Members have mentioned young people during the debate. We want young people to have the chance to earn, learn and get on. As the Chancellor has rightly said, we have a moral duty to the next generation. We are raising pay for low-paid workers, while being careful not to price young people out of that crucial first job. We have also expanded access to work experience, and provided record funding for apprenticeships. We have introduced a scheme for first-time buyers, and have capped student loan interest rates at 6%. My hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) and for Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare (Gerald Jones) mentioned the mineworkers pension scheme. It is this Labour Government who returned the investment fund to the members of the scheme in a previous Budget, and in this Budget the Chancellor has rightly introduced a measure to ensure that not a penny of the surpluses will come back to the Government. Instead, 100% of surpluses will go to the scheme members. As for the outstanding issue of the guarantor’s fund, the Chancellor has made it clear that we will go on to ensure that the full transfer takes place. As well as making decisions to provide breathing space now, the Chancellor took action for the long term to kick-start growth throughout the country, which is the only way to keep Britain’s families and Britain’s finances secure for the long term. That begins with, first, delivering the most ambitious devolution package in a generation. We are putting power in the hands of local leaders because they know the right levers to pull to drive growth and job creation in their local areas. Secondly, this Budget delivers radical reform of our energy system, because our priority is to bring energy costs down to help British business to compete and British households to cope. We will only buy and build new projects where they lower bills and can connect to the grid. We will further break the grip of international gas prices on our bills by moving more of our old renewables on to fixed-price contracts, and we will build cheaper, faster grid connections through GB Grid.