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11,997 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
As the Housing and Planning Minister knows, a planning inspector has made some outrageous decisions regarding the national landscape in my constituency over the past few months. Will he therefore please confirm from the Dispatch Box, for the benefit of all the planning inspectors out there, that his intention is to strengthen protections for our national landscapes in the latest edition of the national planning policy framework?
Last month, it was reported that money from the Department’s community recovery fund had been funnelled to explicitly partisan groups, and had been used to train activists in how to influence the public to make them pro-migration and against the Conservative party, which was named in training materials. Can the Secretary of State please explain how on earth taxpayer money was spent on this kind of partisan political activity?
In a statement issued by the Department last month, we were told that this money, which has been spent on partisan political campaigning, can be recovered if it has been used improperly—but that is not the same as doing it. Will the Secretary of State confirm that she will investigate and recoup every penny of taxpayer money funnelled to those partisan groups, either directly or by instructing councils?
<Question HRSContentId="{C78F2A38-4BDC-4A83-A955-4C17CEA22D08}">2. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{A5BAA4C3-95D1-4B3C-9920-FE3D9C0CCC65}">What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the rate of house building.</QuestionText> </Question>
Statistics are like bathing costumes: what they reveal is interesting, and what they conceal is absolutely vital. The statistics we heard in that answer conceal the fact that this Government are on line to build fewer houses than the last Conservative Government did in a parliamentary term blighted by covid, when many building sites were completely shut down. When it comes to housing, this Government are drowning, not waving, aren’t they?
<Question HRSContentId="{4A560409-921B-41F8-9E98-C5F5C5E1DBDC}">T3. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{13873A39-4A4C-49DE-81A1-D912BB4957C8}"></QuestionText>This Government are facilitating a property grab by allowing councils to seize properties that have been left vacant for as little as six months. Rather than stealing properties, would not the Secretary of State be better using the powers of state to cut regulation, cut taxes and get more houses built?</Question>
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on the way he introduced it and spoke up for those who signed the petition. I have some sympathy for the position that Leo and the other signatories set out opposing restrictions on social media for under-16s. When the debate on this issue began, I was initially sceptical that increasing the age limit was the appropriate response; there are many good uses of tech for young people that they should be free to explore. However, the wider debate has been running for some considerable time. Nearly 20 years have passed since I was working for T-Mobile on the Byron review, which looked at online child safety. The focus then was on platforms taking responsibility for protecting young people. Sadly, they have failed to do that. On balance, therefore, I agree that the evidence and experience demonstrate that increasing the age limit is necessary to protect children from harm. We know that social media platforms and the algorithms driving them are designed to be addictive. They can expose children to pornography, violence, bullying, sexual abuse and other extreme content, with damaging and, very sadly, tragic consequences. The Conservatives believe that parents have ultimate responsibility for their children, but we also acknowledge the challenge they face in keeping their children safe online. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) set out this point clearly: an activity that would not be tolerated in the real world has been normalised, monetised and amplified online. That is why the shadow Education Secretary, as well as my noble Friend Lord Nash and many hon. Members from across the House campaigned to secure restrictions on platforms, working with parents and bereaved families. I welcome the announcement the Government made in June to bring forward restrictions on platforms that will protect children and help parents. However, a theme throughout the debate has been that the success of the policy will depend on its implementation. In that context, I was concerned by Ofcom’s recent report on the Online Safety Act, which found no statistically significant reduction in the proportion of children encountering harmful online content during the first nine months after the new child safety duties took effect. That is clearly disappointing and worrying. Laws need to be implemented effectively. The Government have said they intend to publish the first set of regulations for the age limit before the end of this year, to take effect in the spring. Can the Minister confirm that that timetable remains the same? If it is, when will the regulations be published, given we are now in November? We should, as others have said, learn from Australia’s restrictions and where they have been bypassed. Last week, Ofcom published its review of age-verification tools and recommended four methods: photo ID, digital ID, face-age estimation technology, and banking-based checks. Supporting child protection does not mean endorsing any age-checking system or the unnecessary collection of personal data, so that review raises a number of questions that I want to put to the Minister.<span id="290WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="290WH"></span> First, does the Minister agree that, as far as possible, information held by platforms should be used in the first instance for adults? How will they keep to a minimum the requirement to provide photo ID and use face-scanning technology as much as possible? Clearly, there are privacy issues at hand here, so what protections should be in place for users’ data? For the avoidance of doubt, will he rule out mandatory digital ID as a requirement for accessing social media? In that report, Ofcom estimates that around 150,000 16 and 17-year-olds across the UK hold neither a passport nor a provisional driving licence. How will the Government inform those young people of options such as a citizen card, which they can get for free? Is the Minister looking at age verification at app store level as a means not only of more reliable protection of children, but of reducing friction for adults accessing social media? Of course, we have to accept that no system is foolproof, but that does not mean that we should take no action. Having effective controls and penalties, which the chief executive of Ofcom spoke about in media interviews last week, will reduce the likelihood of under-16s being exposed to damaging content, which is our objective. Finally, in September, the Secretary of State made a statement regarding nude images and said that due to the lack of progress on voluntary measures, legislation would be introduced to “strengthen device-level protections” to prevent “children from taking, sharing or viewing nude images on phones and tablets.”<span id="vol790_col917" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="917" data-volume-number="790" data-external-id="7CF66256-FB1F-48EA-8B32-1CE4FD9ECCE5">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 8 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 917.]</span> What progress has there been in the last two months to prepare that legislation, or indeed secure commitments from major tech companies to develop and implement such protections to stop children being abused and groomed? Our role as legislators is to ensure that the laws we pass are necessary, effective and proportionate. Protecting children from harm is a duty that all Members take incredibly seriously wherever they fall on this specific issue. The public consultation and the conversations that I have had show that there is support for action to introduce effective age-based access to social media as part of wider measures to protect children. Now the focus must be on getting the implementation right.
<Question HRSContentId="{ABAAC562-8C44-4F90-9F6B-4FC55094AFE5}">12. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{62D0C30E-0B2C-45E9-ACC7-14CB4453D65A}">What her planned timetable is for introducing the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill.</QuestionText> </Question>
I recently met constituents in Grayshott and Haslemere who face poor communication from managing agents, with little transparency on where the service charges and costs that they are forced to pay go. Meanwhile, Surrey and Hampshire are set to lose out under the Government’s funding review, leaving many of those same residents facing higher council tax bills. Will the Secretary of State finally tell us when the leasehold reform Bill will be published, and give a guarantee that any savings delivered through that reform will not simply be wiped out by the higher council tax bills caused by her Government’s funding decisions?
In an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), the Minister said that there were “encouraging signs of progress”, but the truth is that the housing industry faces a bleaker and bleaker future under this Government: housing completions are at their lowest for more than a decade; planning permissions are down 31%; output is down 6%; London is at a standstill; and the Government are just 29% of the way through their target in nearly half the time allotted for it. Does the Minister agree that this broken record of failure needs urgent repair?
The Minister wants to talk about the OBR, so let us do that. Last week, the OBR was damning in its assessment of the viability of house building in England. It highlighted how regulatory and fiscal burdens are crushing viability. The Chancellor promised no new building regulations, but that is not enough. The Minister knows that viability—or, rather, the lack of it—is killing the house building sector. The existing environmental and net zero regulations and taxes are causing the viability crisis, so will the Minister join me in supporting the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), with her plan to cut £50,000 of regulation and taxes from the cost of building new homes to make sites viable again?
<Question HRSContentId="{8EE50CD6-38D3-4878-9308-02D4F4486013}">T7. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{CEF19128-F145-4F2F-B3ED-C6FF87CA4138}"></QuestionText>In Bexhill and across the country, homeowners are being fleeced out of thousands of pounds by a company called Asset Invest Ltd, which bought titles with restrictive covenants affecting thousands of homes for just £1. This exploitative practice has to stop. Will the Minister agree to meet me and a cross-party group of MPs who want to see the new leasehold Bill bring forward better protections for homeowners in that terrible situation?</Question>
Will migrants who come to this country and set up legitimate small businesses that employ people who pay taxes be advantaged under the scheme that the Home Secretary has announced for earned settlement, or will they be excluded because they are not working people, according to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s definition announced this weekend?
The first of the Nolan principles is selflessness—acting solely in the public interest—but, according to feedback from councillors throughout the country, during <span id="561" class="column-number" data-column-number="561"></span>the botched local government reorganisation process they felt that they were under pressure to put political considerations first: pressure that came from the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed). The new Secretary of State told the House recently that she could not say whether his decision making was even lawful. Can she now tell the House whether the pressure that was put on those councillors to submit to his reorganisation agenda left them at risk of breaching the Nolan principles as well as the law?
The Home Secretary will know that the Committee conducted a piece of deliberative democracy work, in which we worked with the public to find out their attitudes to people who are coming in on work visas. It was very clear that the public want skills training so that those in the domestic population can take vacancies. Can she confirm what work she is doing across Government to make sure there is appropriate skills training for those who are here to take the jobs available, and can she confirm when she expects the new provisions to start?
I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. It took a year for the Home Secretary to build her reputation as tough on immigration, but what took a year to build she has just dismantled in 12 short minutes. I do not judge her by the actions we think she should take; I judge her by what she herself has previously said. She made announcements from the Government Dispatch Box on 20 November last year, and doubled down in a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research on 5 March this year. She repeatedly singled out social care workers as a particular problem. She said on 5 March that fraud in the social care sector was “rife”, with bogus sponsors. She said from the Government Dispatch Box that it was right that “more stringent” restrictions should be applied to social care workers. Now, she stands there and says the exact opposite. A Home Office document that the Home Secretary published on 5 March said that social care workers alone, because they work on low wages and have brought in many dependants, will cost the taxpayer £10 billion. Those are her figures about social care workers that she specifically chose to publish. She went on to say on 5 March that failing to implement her plans would be “an affront to the idea of fairness” in our society. That is exactly what she has done in the changes she has announced today. The Home Secretary now proposes to allow every single care worker and their dependants who arrived prior to May 2025—a number running into hundreds of thousands—to stay in this country beyond the expiry of their visa and, in the case of 75% of them, to stay permanently, even though she acknowledges that many of them arrived fraudulently. How can she justify allowing people who she acknowledges arrived in this country fraudulently to stay forever, at a cost that she herself has admitted is £10 billion? That is the cost of today’s U-turn: £10 billion. Outside of care workers, many of the so-called highly skilled workers who have arrived recently are not highly skilled at all. The Home Secretary did not mention this in her statement, but in her document she proposes to extend the soft terms on which those workers can stay until 2035, extending the previous sunset by five years. <span id="587" class="column-number" data-column-number="587"></span>Her own document published today, which she did not refer to, forecasts that a staggering 1.9 million permanent settlement rights will be granted between now and 2030, and a freedom of information request has revealed where some of those people work. German Doner Kebab, a chain of kebab shops, sponsored 106 skilled worker visas. Khans middle eastern restaurant sponsored 28 high-skilled visas. A Domino’s Pizza franchise in South Yorkshire sponsored 78 high-skilled visas—Members get the picture. Just a year after getting ILR, someone can easily get full citizenship, and we know what that means: benefits, social housing, and free NHS treatment. <em>[Interruption.] </em>When the Home Secretary said in March that failing to implement her changes would be an affront, she was right, but now she has done exactly that. She also plans to give illegal immigrants who have arrived on small boats ILR and citizenship. We disagree with that. Why has the Home Secretary made those changes? It is because the Housing Secretary—who I notice has run out of the Chamber—the Energy Secretary and the Labour open-borders left oppose what she previously announced. The Home Secretary is no longer running the Government’s immigration policy—the Housing Secretary is—and her position is looking increasingly untenable. The Home Secretary has done no better with her announcements last year than Keir Starmer did with his welfare announcements, and we know what happened to him. We would go a lot further than the Home Secretary’s previous announcements, although they were a good start. If she wants to implement them in full, we will vote for them, because mass low-skilled migration must end. Those people who came here on a temporary visa and are working in low-skilled, low-wage jobs must leave when their temporary visa expires. We cannot allow them to stay forever, claiming benefits and social housing, yet that is what the proposals today will allow to happen. Ten billion pounds—that is the cost of today’s U-turn. To those who ask where we will find the workers, I say there are 9 million economically inactive adults in this country. Thanks to this Labour Government’s high-tax, high-regulation policies, there are now a million young people not in education, employment or training. If the Government had the courage to toughen up the welfare system, we would get some of those people into work, instead of relying on mass low-skill migration. If the Home Secretary wants to face down her nemesis, the Communities Secretary, and implement her own plans, we will vote for them. However, if she capitulates to the open borders left, her credibility as Home Secretary will not recover.
One of the criteria to gain long-term settlement rights that the Home Secretary set out was no debt being owed to the state. What does that look like in reality? I have advocated for a student loan-style system for debts to be repaid. Will the Home Secretary address what steps she is taking to abolish the impact of rogue sponsors, namely chicken shops, Turkish barbers and vape shops, which all exist in plain sight and are an acute problem in the illegal immigration web?
The Home Secretary did not address the issue of the dependants of armed forces personnel. In June, the majority of Government Members voted down my amendment to the Armed Forces Bill, which included the waiving of visa fees. That has now been overturned in the House of Lords, and the Bill will be coming back here, but will she clarify exactly what will happen to the spouses and children of armed forces personnel? Will their visa fees be waived? If they earn less than £50,000 and do not work in healthcare or a professional job, will they have to find themselves—sorry, I have lost my train of thought.
Growth in every postcode and breathing space—that is apparently the theme of this debate. That is what we are told the Budget will deliver. The sad fact is that it really could have been an opportunity to focus on growth and to support British businesses and people. It really was an opportunity to fix the mistakes of the past two years, to back business and unleash Britain—but the Government did not take it. All we appear to have had from the Secretary of State is the belief that more government will solve all of our problems. The Budget was an opportunity to end the smash-and-grab tax policies on working people—that includes employers, by the way—but Labour doubled down. The Chancellor could have demonstrated that when he resigned as Defence Secretary he did so out of principle and set out a road to 3% of GDP on defence, but we did not get that either. The Government could have taken steps to cut welfare and get Britain working, but, too scared of their Back Benchers, the Government are allowing the welfare budget to continue to spiral out of control. The Budget was a total missed opportunity. Far from growth in every postcode and breathing space, we saw a steady-as-she-goes Budget: a change of captain, a rearranging of the deckchairs, but no change of course—which would be fine if the vessel we were on were not the Titanic. One area we did see some action in the Budget—one issue that was mentioned considerably—was on the cost of energy and our energy security, or lack thereof. There was a slight but definite acknowledgment that the energy policies enacted by the Labour Government up to this point had been having a negative impact on the people and businesses of Great Britain. That was why I was more than a little surprised not to see energy as a theme of this Budget debate, and why I was surprised not to see the Secretary of State for Energy speaking as part of it. Or is she not too keen on this change of direction, and this moderate shift from the Government towards something resembling common sense does not sit well with her? Where is she? Absent from Parliament when they announced Jackdaw and absent from the Budget debate, she is either in hiding or being kept hidden. The words of the Chancellor last week that the Energy Secretary has “opposed” rather than approved Jackdaw was not so much a slip of the tongue as a lifting of the veil into the division at the heart of this Government when it comes to energy policy. The truth is that we have a Government totally divided on energy policy, between a Chancellor and a Treasury desperate for growth and some good news, and an Energy Secretary and parliamentary party still <span id="621" class="column-number" data-column-number="621"></span>wholly signed up to a Milibandism approach to energy that values net zero and clean power 2030 above all else—above jobs, cost and our security. We have an Energy Secretary briefing out that she is inclined not to approve Rosebank, presumably on the basis that growth in every postcode does not include postcodes that begin with AB, and a Chancellor briefing that it will be approved soon. We have Labour Back Benchers claiming that Rosebank is oh so different to Jackdaw because it is oil, which is exported, not like gas, which we use at home—as if, somehow, generating revenue from exports, displacing Russian oil from the European market and backing British jobs are bad things. We also have the Office for Budget Responsibility including revenue from Rosebank and future discoveries as part of its projections for Government revenue over the next year. We have the Treasury cutting funding from carbon capture, utilisation and storage projects, Energy Ministers scrambling over themselves to insist that funding has not been cut, the Treasury announcing a cut to the warm homes fund of £1 billion, and the Energy Department insisting that the warm homes fund remains at the heart of the Government’s plans to support those on the lowest incomes insulate and decarbonise. This is utterly chaotic—no wonder the Energy Secretary is being hidden away or is in hiding. For over two years, we have been listening to various Ministers lecture and patronise those of us on the Conservative Benches that we were wrong, that we did not need more gas from the North sea, that it was clean power that mattered over the cost of energy, and that we must have consensus on energy policies. The Conservatives have been clear from day one that the cost of energy, the security of our energy supply, and the future of our North sea are the issues that should guide and shape our energy policies. It is good to see that that consensus may be returning, and not just on the entirely reasonable and sensible step of ensuring that one has a well-stocked fridge of sauvignon blanc ready for emergencies.
It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to learn that I do not agree with him. In fact, what we have seen are billions of pounds generated for this country since the 1960s, driven by the private sector investing in jobs, investing in this country, creating wealth and making the North sea one of the cleanest and safest basins in the world in which to invest. I am very proud of the companies, and the men and women, who have driven that oil and gas industry to be the best in the world. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, and unlike the Government, we want to see that go further—we want to see further investment in our North sea oil and gas industry. As I was saying, consensus is welcome, because we are in an energy crisis and there is no escaping that. The people and businesses of this country face some of the <span id="622" class="column-number" data-column-number="622"></span>highest energy bills, domestic and industrial, in the developed world, and it is getting worse. Under Labour, our energy system is becoming increasingly unreliable and intermittent, and more reliant on imported energy. The burden of expensive energy is bearing down on Britain in households, businesses and industry, and having severe consequences. While the Chancellor acknowledged that, which was as welcome as it was surprising, it was entirely underwhelming. Some of the announcements in the Budget may have seemed impressive, but they will not even touch the sides. There may be £100 for certain households, but when people’s bills are set to increase by over £500 in January, many will ask what was the point—will people even notice it? It is clear, however, that the Chancellor had at least noticed the Conservatives’ cheap power plan. Cutting VAT and scrapping levies on energy bills—I wonder where he might have got that idea?
The hon. Member is absolutely right, but, as usual, the Labour party gives no regard to those with aspiration or who want to succeed and get on. All it cares about is handouts and subsidies for “Benefits Street”. The Conservatives are the party that will support those who are working hard to do the right thing and move forward.
It is the cheap power plan, not the clean power plan, but I do not want to be too much of a stickler for detail. It may have escaped the hon. Gentleman’s notice that we are under new management now in the Conservative party, and I look forward to implementing our plan when we win the election. There was also the surprise announcement of the removal of standing charges on gas bills—well, only surprising for the SNP group leader, the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan), who did not know whether he still supported the move that he called for in 2024. On the face of it the measure may appear to lower bills, but as ever, the devil is in the detail. If someone is a higher consumer—someone who uses gas for heating, cooking or hot water—then their energy bill is going to go up. Across Britain, temperatures are beginning to drop as we head into winter, and in large parts of this country—in the north of England and Scotland—it has just got more expensive to turn the heating on, thanks to Labour.<span id="623" class="column-number" data-column-number="623"></span> Some 80% of households in Britain rely on gas to keep them warm, which is why the delay before making a decision on Jackdaw was so maddening. When the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero approved the decision, through gritted teeth, it was rightly justified on the basis of energy security. Getting gas out of the Jackdaw field is what is best for Britain, because every bit of gas from that field will go directly into the British gas network. However, the devil is in the detail. As I have said, we were all very surprised to see that revenue from Rosebank is still being accounted for in the OBR’s projections for revenue. Considering that the Secretary of State has suggested to the press that she is not minded to approve Rosebank, despite it being a quasi-judicial decision, does that mean that the forecasts are possibly misleading or wrong—or is the Chancellor about to get his way again, and Rosebank is about to get the go-ahead? We need to have that cleared up. We need to understand. The theme of today’s debate is growth in every postcode and breathing space. This Budget, however, did nothing for growth and gave no breathing space, save for a couple of gasps of cold air from those who will be too scared to turn on their heating this Christmas. It could have done, though. We could have seen a bold Budget: a Budget that said, without equivocation, that we support our North sea oil and gas industry; a Budget that got Britain drilling by removing the energy profits levy today, not in three years; a Budget that reduced the cost of energy by slashing the levies, charges and taxes that still make up too much of an individual’s or business’s energy bill; and a Budget that reindustrialised our country by incentivising investment and growth, not one that doubles down on net zero and linking the emissions trading scheme with Europe. That is the Budget we needed to see. It is the Budget the Conservatives would have presented, and it is the Budget we will present when we win the next general election.
The one county that the Secretary of State did not mention in her very long list is West Sussex, which has been waiting through two and a half years of dither and delay. Will she take this opportunity to tell me the plan for West Sussex?
I am proud to open this Budget debate on behalf of the Government, proud of the leadership of the Prime Minister and of the Chancellor, who is offering this country breathing space today and fresh hope for the future. Before I turn to that, I need to talk about the threat this country faces—one that sabotages our economy, pushes out misinformation and attempts to undermine people’s trust in government. For once, I am not talking about the Russians, but the Trussian, not least the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), who I fear is part of a Trussian sleeper cell operating in the shadows of the Conservative party. He did not say much about his plans today, but I do not think we do not need to look very far. In fact, there is a book out that tells us all about the secret plans he is no doubt saving up for the next manifesto: “Bank Job”, it is called, written by one Liz Truss. The shadow Chancellor knows her well; it is the Liz Truss for whom he helped write the mini-Budget, which crashed our economy and damaged Britain’s reputation, and which he still says contained, “lots of good things.” Maybe that is why, when I tried to obtain a copy of “Bank Job” this morning, I found that there were no copies available in bookshops for miles around. Presumably, the shadow Chancellor has gone around and bought them all up, just in case someone finds out exactly what the Trussians stand for. Because that is the danger, Madam Deputy Speaker: they walk among us, the Trussians, hiding in plain sight— deep-cover sleeper agents masquerading as responsible fiscal Conservatives. But we will not be fooled. We remember when the shadow Chancellor cheered Truss on, and we all know the consequences of their misjudgements. If we are not careful, the Trussians will be coming—they are already winding up to play their own game of roulette with our public finances once again. All joking aside, I think it is genuinely appalling that the arsonists have the audacity to complain as the firefighters are clearing up their mess—never forgive, never forget, and never let the Tories do it again. In fact, in one of the low points of an otherwise dull and inaccurate contribution to this Chamber, the shadow Chancellor had the audacity to level low blows against my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and <span id="490" class="column-number" data-column-number="490"></span>Pudsey (Rachel Reeves). Let me point out that, despite the economic global shocks that this country faces, along with security threats of a kind that we have not faced in generations, earlier this month the IMF upgraded its growth forecast for Britain for 2026. It said that the UK “stands out” among G7 nations, and it credited the Government’s responsible approach to handling the public finances. That is the legacy of my right hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to her leadership, her experience and her hard-headed stewardship of our economy. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em>
They can shout all they like, Madam Deputy Speaker. The fact is that the former Chancellor restored the confidence of the markets after the Conservatives trashed Britain’s reputation with their catastrophic mini-Budget. She created the platform for our Labour Government to invest in public services, protect the most vulnerable, foster innovation and navigate the headwinds of the last two years. During her time as Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey established a record that the Conservative Front Bench could not begin to touch. Those are the facts. None the less, against the backdrop of the enormous challenges this country faces, the Chancellor, as he set out yesterday, is taking action to tackle the cost of living and give households breathing space today: help for 20 million households to heat their homes this winter; freezing fuel duty to keep prices down at the pump; helping with the everyday cost of the weekly shop so that people have more money in their pockets; action on energy bills; and the minimum wage, the national living wage and the state pension all going up to help people out. No one is suggesting that these measures solve everything for everyone, everywhere, all at once, but people can see that we are doing everything we can, as fast as we can, to give them breathing space today and fresh hope for the future; to show that this Government and this Prime Minister have got their backs; and to show that we can still do big things as a nation, that Government can make a difference to people’s lives, and that Britain is a country we can still believe in. That is important, as we look beyond the optimism of the first 100 days of this new Government and our new Prime Minister to the brighter future that lies ahead for our country if we make the right choices. Yes, we face great challenges, but the character of a nation is not defined by the challenges it faces, but how it chooses to respond to them. And be in no doubt: it is a choice. We choose not to be daunted by the scale of the challenge, but to be motivated by it—to face the future not with fear, but with confidence, and to choose hope. We choose it because we know what hope can do. Look at what this Labour Government have delivered in the past two years: half a million children out of poverty; waiting lists down by a quarter of a million; the asylum backlog down 60% in a year; small boat crossings at their lowest in six years; the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year; free breakfast clubs <span id="491" class="column-number" data-column-number="491"></span>feeding 680,000 children; six train operators brought back into public ownership; and defence spending up by £14 billion compared with the Conservatives’ final year in office. Lots done and lots more still to do, but so many reasons to believe that our best days lie ahead.
I can absolutely confirm that thanks to the responsible choices made by the Chancellor and his predecessor, we have headroom to weather shocks, and the Chancellor is drawing on that. On capital budget reprioritisation across Government, it is absolutely true to say that across the Cabinet, Ministers have been willing to prioritise within their own capital programmes in order to fund defence. We can be absolutely clear, beyond any doubt, that this is a Chancellor, a Prime Minister and a team who choose to prioritise defence. I bet the right hon. Gentleman wishes that he made the same choices when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, instead of leaving our armed forces “hollowed out and underfunded”. It was another great Healey—my predecessor, Denis Healey—who said that without strong defences, “we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.”<span id="vol779_col551" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="551" data-volume-number="779">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 5 March 1969; Vol. 779, c. 551.]</span> The first duty of any Government—to keep our country safe—is a greater and more urgent challenge now than it has been for generations. The gravest dangers of the 20th century are returning, armed with the technologies of the 21st. Britain faces growing threats from state-sponsored terrorism, sabotage and hostile acts that are designed to disrupt our lives, undermine our security and spread fear. Yesterday, the Chancellor gave his response to those threats at this Dispatch Box, delivering more support to the frontline for freedom in Ukraine, plugging the £4.7 billion gap in the defence investment plan and confirming our unshakeable commitment to NATO to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035. But he went even further, with a new target reflecting Labour’s commitment to fund defence spending at 3% of GDP by 2030. That is the commitment the Chancellor made at this Dispatch Box yesterday. That is a record the Conservatives cannot even begin to touch—
I have just set that out. It is there in the Budget. The Government have reallocated from capital programmes across Government to ensure that defence is fully funded. It is disappointing, Madam Deputy Speaker. This has become a running theme of the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition. When we sat on the Opposition Benches, I remember that Keir Starmer always made a virtue of standing with the Government on issues of national security and defence. We provided constructive challenge where we needed to, but we stood with the Government. This lot cannot help but try and score petty party political points at the expense of defence and national security. What is even more extraordinary is the enormous brass neck of the Opposition, considering their record. Just look at it: we had the smallest army since the Napoleonic wars; every single recruitment target was missed; morale fell to a record low of 40%; almost every equipment programme was over budget or behind schedule, and often both; and defence spending faced a real-terms cut between 2010 and 2024, falling from 2.5% of GDP to 2.3%. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> In the words of their own Defence Secretary, the armed forces were left “hollowed out and underfunded”. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> And now the Conservatives have the audacity to turn up and criticise a Labour Government who are investing more, investing more quickly, and cleaning up their mess.
I am trying to make my voice heard from the Dispatch Box, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I have said from my first day as Defence Secretary, I trust this Chancellor to give us what we need to keep our country safe, and yesterday demonstrated why. His Budget proves why Labour can be trusted on defence—<em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> It does say that here, because I wrote it. We are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. That was Labour’s record before the Budget; this Budget takes us even further, and next year’s spending review will take us further still. What a contrast with the abysmal record of failure staring us in the face from the Opposition Benches. I appealed in my first statement to this House for national unity on national security. It is important that our allies and our adversaries know that we agree far more than we disagree. We all believe that we should spend more on defence; we all believe that we should stand with Ukraine; we all believe that we should invest <span id="493" class="column-number" data-column-number="493"></span>in homeland security. What a pity, then, that the Leader of the Opposition and her ragtag band of political vandals choose to play politics with national security. For the Opposition to do that in the current environment is bad enough; to do so with their abysmal record in government takes some brass neck.
I just do not know what the Opposition have to moan about. We came into government with the abysmal inheritance that we faced, and we chose straightaway to invest more in defence to clean up their mess. We have now gone even further than the NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035 by choosing to set our own target of 3% by 2030. That is not just about the future; it is built on our record in our first two years. Defence spending has gone from 2.3%—
In a moment. Just so that we are clear, we have gone from spending 2.3% of our GDP on defence when we came into office to spending 2.7% next year. It is very clear that we are on the right trajectory. That is not a record that they can speak to. I do not know how they can be so shameless—
I have been too generous with allowing interventions, but let me take that point head on. I think that is completely unfounded criticism—
I don’t care if he is the Chair of the Defence Committee. I would say it directly to him, and I am sure I will get the chance to say it to the entire Committee. It would be fair criticism if this Government had not already made decisions that are leading to the fastest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war—not in future years but already, on the basis of our first two years in power. The Chair of the Defence Committee is a good friend, and I am sure that, just as I can take his criticism on the chin, he will take mine. I will gladly accept criticism where I think it is fair, but I robustly reject it where I think it is wrong. I have referred to the Conservatives’ record of 14 years in power. Let me contrast that with what I have presided over in the last 14 weeks: armed forces recruitment showing its longest run of growth for half a decade; 400 contracts signed, worth £4 billion; £400 million for spy drones for the Army; £135 million for Royal Navy torpedoes; £700 million for next-generation fighter jets; over £8 billion for our nuclear submarine fleet; and the UK’s sixth attack submarine and first ever space squadron launched. We have returned gun barrel manufacturing to the UK for the first time in decades; we are backing British industry to build the docks for our nuclear subs; we have increased monitoring of Russian vessels in the English channel; provided 50,000 apprenticeship opportunities for young people; welcomed record-breaking investment in Scotland; deployed our armed forces to help Saudi Arabia defend itself from Houthi attacks; bolstered support for Ukraine; and signed a landmark AI deal to access cutting-edge battlefield data. We have strengthened our NATO alliances, as I have visited Washington, Paris, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Reykjavík and Kyiv. We have mobilised with our allies in the Ukraine defence contact group, the E5 and the joint expeditionary force, and hosted our friends from Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, Qatar and Oman as well as the NATO Secretary-General. And in case the Conservatives missed it, as their party leader seemed to yesterday, on top of the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, we have set out our target to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. That is our record, and it is a record that the Conservatives cannot begin to touch. This is a Government who actually put our money where our mouth is—strengthening our armed forces, alliances and industrial base, and backing Britain by buying British. That is how to defend this country—not with the gimmicks and grandstanding of the Conservatives but by making this country ready with our allies to fight and win so that our adversaries think twice about launching an attack in the first place. The truth is that this is a more dangerous world, and that makes greater investment essential. Delivering what the Chancellor announced yesterday requires choices and trade-offs. We will ensure that every pound that we invest is well spent and creates jobs and opportunities—not just a Ministry of Defence but one of growth and opportunity. We will help to deliver the Prime Minister’s domestic agenda—stronger regional economies, a rebuilt industrial base, good jobs and better opportunities for the next generation. We will have a more resilient United Kingdom built by the British people to keep Britain safe. Spending on our defence is a measure of our commitment, but capability is a measure of our credibility. That is what this Labour Budget does, rooted in our values. It gives breathing space to working people. It gives us <span id="495" class="column-number" data-column-number="495"></span>fresh hope for the future, and it strengthens the security on which we all depend. Building a Britain ready to fight and building a country worth fighting for—that is our record and plan. That is why I am proud to stand at this Dispatch Box and commend the Budget to the House.
The higher education mental health implementation taskforce was convened in 2023 to improve mental health support for higher education students and to ensure that universities were better equipped to support student wellbeing. This taskforce, chaired by Professor Sir Steve West, as the higher education student support champion, was expected to meet until May this year, but no minutes have been published since October 2025. Will the Leader of the House please ask the Department for Education to provide an update on the taskforce’s status, confirm whether Professor West is still in post, and set out when the taskforce expects to publish its final report and recommendations?
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{90FD0593-C812-4DBF-8709-0DF25C670BCB}"> </QNum></strong> It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I have two questions. First, the Bill looks specifically at the crossing, but there are other infrastructure upgrades—as an MP in north Kent, my example is the A229 Blue Bell Hill upgrade. There are key junctions where congestion is a problem. In your view, does the Bill take into account the other, wider infrastructure upgrades that might be necessary? Secondly, this week, the Public Accounts Committee, which I sit on, released a report on the RAB model for Sizewell, which there are concerns about. Do you have a view on that model? I appreciate that you have indicated that the model will not be used elsewhere, but is there an educated view on whether an alternative model might have worked better? <em><strong>Steve Gooding:</strong></em> On the first point, the Bill is not specific even to the Dartford crossing or the lower Thames crossing, so I do not think that it takes account of the other schemes we have talked about per se, other than in the general duty for the Secretary of State and ORR to consider the network as a whole. That has already been raised, but the Committee might want to probe it a bit further. As for the RAB model, I can certainly see the logic, but one has to start with a decision that the Chancellor does not wish to borrow the money himself. If that is the case, in these circumstances, given where National Highways has got to already with contracting for the construction of the tunnel, this appears to be a sensible <span id="11" class="column-number" data-column-number="11"></span>model, provided that lessons are learnt from past RAB projects. One of those is about the ability and capability of the regulator to do what it is being relied on to do. <em><strong>Edmund King:</strong></em> One of the features of the RAB model that is quite hard to get your head around is that it is open ended. There is no finish date. On the M6 toll I know that it is a different private finance model, but it was given a 53-year concession. Under this model, in effect, the concession could be 100 or 120 years unless the licence is revoked. That is quite difficult to get your head around at first, because when you look at the Dartford crossing and the tolls going to the Treasury, this is totally changing the model. We have to be sure that the safeguards are there and built into the model. That is why I think toughening up and strengthening the Office of Rail and Road and bringing in a greater degree of independence is increasingly vital.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{8D064BCE-E979-4A4C-85B7-6F950722745A}"> </QNum></strong> Under the French model which you have cited as a template, 91% of roads are owned by privatised companies, and that is very different to the UK. They are extremely controversial and many accuse companies in France of price gouging. We have concerns about asset management and the valuations. You have said that the RAB model is potentially ideal, but is there any element of it that you can say is better than the French concessionary model? What teeth would you give the regulator to make it so, if we were to go down that route? What is missing from the RAB model that would make it more effective? <em><strong>Ben Hopkinson:</strong></em> It is a good question. First, in the French example, I am well aware that it is quite expensive to drive on a French motorway. On the other hand, they have many more miles of motorway, and if it is too expensive you can take the equivalent of an A road for certain journeys. Judging by the number of people who drive on French motorways, I think people are generally willing to accept the costs, especially given that they have built many more miles of motorway just this century than we have in total. I could be proved wrong if it works really well, but the main challenge with the RAB model is the sheer uncertainty of whether the ORR is up to the task and has the right staff in place. It has never done this before. I know there have already been some concerns about <span id="33" class="column-number" data-column-number="33"></span>capacity issues and general commercial experience within the ORR. I would be concerned if the private sector had large commercial control and contract teams and the public sector did not have them and was out-negotiated. That is certainly possible if civil servants are not able to properly push back on price increases. I think the fundamental incentives in a RAB model are not right for delivering one-of-a-kind, unique pieces of infrastructure. It works a lot better for infrastructure that has very clear unit costs—for example, the cost of laying 100 metres of pipe. That is good because a regulator is clearly able to understand how much 100 metres of pipe costs to lay and can apply that across its base, whereas the cost of one lower Thames crossing is up in the air. Some additions from the private contractor might seem sensible; they might get away with that. Having a more environmentally friendly construction process certainly seems sensible on the face of it, but that also adds cost. I would want to be reassured that the ORR is up to the task and has both the capacity and the know-how to properly understand the arrangements it is entering into. <em><strong>Sam Dumitriu:</strong></em> You mentioned price gouging. It is important to work out what the main risks are. Roads are, in most cases, natural monopolies, and the best thing about being a monopoly is a quiet life. It is not necessarily that you have all these opportunities to gouge your customers; it is that the lack of competition means you are not forced to adopt cost-saving measures, or become more customer-friendly and so on. You might have a situation where various people are claiming quite high margins or they are being aggressive in that sense, but the UK has the other problem, where people are not on it around costs. They are not working out what the best structure is to ensure that costs keep falling. On Ben’s point, one possible way of resolving the issue is quite a radical reform that is probably beyond the scope of the Bill. I have always wondered whether it makes sense for the UK to have Ofgem doing RAB regulation for energy networks, Ofwat doing it for water, the ORR for road and rail and Ofcom for telecoms, or whether it makes sense to have a specialist economic regulator that deals with the costs of natural monopoly networks. That would have a bunch of advantages. It would potentially resolve some of the revolving door problems that you might see. It would also ensure that there is a similar expertise and a standard approach. You do not want varying approaches between all the regulators, because that suggests that they are doing something wrong when you have essentially the same economic problem to solve. As I say, however, that would be far beyond the scope of the Bill.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{E82D8C92-EC40-438A-8079-60CF1B9D5440}"> </QNum></strong> The recent independent regulatory review of the ORR included a section specifically about the Thames crossing. Paragraph 5.58 of that review indicated that there are resource concerns: “There are, however, likely to be gaps such as those relating to construction phase price controls, project specific I know you said that you had confidence in that area, but that report was published just last month. Can I get some clarity? Are you saying that the report is not entirely right and that you are confident that the three aspects it raised will be covered going forward? <em><strong>Will Godfrey:</strong></em> We very much welcome that independent review of the ORR. It is always helpful to have that sort of outside-in look and scrutiny. On what it describes as gaps, the other point that Dr Richard Judge brought out was that we are not building from scratch, so this is about providing incremental capacity. I think he was right to draw out those areas as ones where you would want to make sure that the gaps have been filled by the time you are past Royal Assent, the first licence has been awarded and you are into the start of the first price control, which is a long way from <span id="43" class="column-number" data-column-number="43"></span>today. The point I am making is that, from the discussions I have been having with the Department, I am reasonably confident about being able to resource what I would describe as incremental gaps, rather than starting from a blank sheet.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{CA014A61-B97E-4620-9FF6-B1EA760D3D1E}"> </QNum></strong> This question links to the independent review. I questioned the ORR on this. Obviously, you are sitting on the other side of the table, and you are looking to extract as much as you can from an investor perspective. You represent one side of the spectrum, and the regulators are on the other side. There has to be a working partnership between you both. Obviously, the efficiency of a project finance model such as the one for this crossing relies on certainty and predictability for investors, and regulators being there to ensure the stability of the regime. Obviously, we do not have a regulator that manages this at the moment. Where does investor confidence stand regarding the ORR? Do you think investor confidence is there for this model to work going forward? <em><strong>Andrew Truscott:</strong></em> I would slightly reject your first statement, if I am honest. As an infrastructure investor, we provide, candidly, the lowest cost private capital that is available across the world. If you are attracting John Laing and people like us, I can guarantee that you are getting the lowest cost of equity capital that you can possibly attract and therefore the risk transfer needs to be accordingly appropriate. I will slightly repeat my opening comments: when we first started interacting with DFT about this project, I was quite nervous about the RAB model. I am not a RAB nerd; there are lots of RAB nerds, and I am not one. RAB can be incredibly complicated, and it can take a huge amount of time to drill down. There is not a regulator. There is an awful lot of work that needs to be done. Am I nervous that that is going to take longer than it should do or could do? Yes, I am, but again, credit to DFT and the Treasury, they seem to be well on track. Maybe the better answer to your question is that we as investors will need absolute certainty—and I mean absolute certainty—about what that regulatory model is, who the regulator is and how that regulation is going to work before we will put in a dollar, a pound, or a euro—whatever currency you like.
<strong>Q</strong><strong><QNum HRSContentId="{12734FC0-8D04-412C-BBF5-27BA03AAC72D}"> </QNum></strong> I have a question on the ORR. My line of questioning is about whether the regulator is ready. Obviously we had the independent report last month. I challenged on one particular finding of that. Is the ORR ready for this challenge? Is the regulatory landscape in a firm place where we can solicit investor interest next year? Again, speaking to the investor spokesperson today, they said that regulatory certainty was absolutely critical for them. I want to understand the operational capabilities, the engagement between the DFT and the ORR, and whether or not we will have that structure and that robust regulatory regime in place, and how confident you are about that. <em><strong>Justin Madders:</strong></em> I am confident about that, because that is what the Bill intends to do. It sets it out very clearly. We have heard from the investors that that certainty will be a very attractive opportunity for the long-term investment we are seeking to deliver. There will be a need for some additional capability and capacity in the ORR, but I was very impressed with the evidence we heard today. It is very much on top of this, but there is much more to be done, and the Bill will enable it to do that.
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a personal statement. Following a complaint to Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme by a former member of my constituency staff, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Independent Expert Panel have found that, on three occasions in February 2025, I breached Parliament’s bullying and harassment policy. I accept those findings in full. At a small gathering to thank my former colleague for her work establishing the constituency office, I initiated a hug. I assumed that she was content to be hugged, but I did not ask, and the hug was unwelcome to her. Later that month, while out of the office, intending to join an online meeting that was not in my diary, I took my former colleague’s phone from her hand without her consent to join that meeting. She immediately challenged me and took the phone back. It was not mine to take. The next day, two calls between my former colleague and me were ended abruptly while I was trying to find the venue for a constituency appointment—one of them deliberately by me, after I entered a live church service. Regrettably, I never explained why these calls had ended, as I ought to have done. As a result of these behaviours, my former colleague was upset and humiliated. My behaviour had a real and continuing impact on her and her family, and I am truly sorry for this. I was the employer of my former colleague. There was an imbalance of power between us, and I was not sufficiently alert to it, as the behaviour code requires. The responsibility for behaving in a way that was mindful of that imbalance was mine, not hers. I also recognise that behaviour like this could well impact on somebody who is vulnerable, whether or not it is known that they are vulnerable. That is why respect and courtesy must come first in every interaction I have with others. Since these events, my approach has changed. I am more alert to the need for sensitivity to those I work with. I have undertaken further training, including one-to-one training. Going forwards, I will be mindful of the need for both courtesy in my dealings with staff, including in times of stress, and for my personal attention when staffing problems arise. I made mistakes, and I breached the policy. I apologise unreservedly to my former colleague and to this House.
<Question HRSContentId="{5DEF7B36-C6CE-4A04-9F84-D2CD1D7C0343}">2. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{04FA4FD8-72F1-4A58-8257-ED29B0E3AB2D}">What recent steps she has taken to help tackle nuisance behaviour on public transport.</QuestionText> </Question>