Unemployment Levels
22. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of unemployment.
5,731 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
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Unemployment Levels
I recently heard from Bill Perera, who runs a franchise of McDonald’s in my constituency of Bromley and Biggin Hill. He runs nine restaurants and employs nearly 800 people, 70% of whom are aged 16 to 24. He wants to increase this pathway and opportunity into employment for young people, but he is finding it increasingly difficult, because of the increased national insurance contributions. Does the Minister agree that one way to reduce unemployment would be to reverse this disastrous policy?
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Topical Questions
T5. I have recently been contacted by constituents who are concerned that local jobcentres are not doing enough to get people back into work. What more can the Minister do to ensure that sufficient support and training help people back into employment?
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Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the adequacy of the evidence on which West Midland police took decisions relating to the Aston Villa versus Maccabi Tel Aviv match.
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Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
I thank the Minister for that response, including the news of the HMICFRS report by the end of the year. The police intelligence used to justify the ban on Israeli fans from Villa Park has fallen apart, and so has the evidence given to the Select Committee by Chief Constable Craig Guildford and Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara. The police say their information came from the Netherlands, after Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax last year, but the Dutch said the West Midlands intelligence report was “not true”. At the Committee, the police repeated claims—denied by the Dutch—that the fans were “militaristic”, threw people in the river and targeted Muslim civilians. They even said that the Dutch police had lied under political pressure from their own mayor. We are asked to believe that the Dutch police lied to their own people, the media, their justice and security inspectorate, their mayor, their Government and even their King, but told the truth once in a Zoom call with West Midlands police that was never even minuted. The police again claimed that the Dutch deployed 5,000 officers—a claim denied by the Dutch—but admitted to the Committee that they made up the number themselves. Asked whether a fictional match cited in the intelligence report came from artificial intelligence, Craig Guildford told the Committee “not at all”, but AI detection programmes conclude otherwise. The police have already had to apologise for wrongly telling the Committee that a local Jewish community had supported the ban. There are many questions here, but I will limit myself to four. First, did the Policing Minister believe the evidence that the police presented to the Committee? Secondly, have the police replied to the letter she sent to them two weeks ago? Thirdly, will she guarantee the publication of all relevant information and correspondence? Fourthly, does the chief constable retain her confidence as Policing Minister and the confidence of the Home Secretary? The police are accused of fabricating evidence to justify a predetermined outcome demanded by Islamists. They have had weeks to defend themselves and have failed to do so. This is fatal for public confidence in the police and in justice, and in my opinion the chief constable must go.
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Child Poverty Strategy
I urge colleagues to be short, as we have just 15 minutes remaining.
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Child Poverty Strategy
Order. If questions are long, I will not be able to get everyone in, so I need colleagues to be respectful of other Members.
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Child Poverty Strategy
As an experienced Member of Parliament, the hon. Member will know that she can seek advice from the Speaker’s Office and the Clerks. That is not a point of order, but she has most definitely got her point on the record.
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Employment Rights Bill
Before we move to consideration of the Lords message, I can confirm that nothing in the Lords message engages Commons financial privilege. Clause 1 Right to guaranteed hours
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Employment Rights Bill
With this it will be convenient to consider the following: That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendments 23 and 106 to 120, does not insist on its amendments 120C, 120D and 120E, and proposes amendments (a) to (f) to the Bill in lieu of Lords amendments 23 and 106 to 120. That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendments 23 and 106 to 120. That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 48B but proposes amendments (a) and (b) to the Bill in lieu of that amendment. That this House does not insist on its amendment 72C in lieu of Lords amendments 61 and 72, but disagrees with the Lords in their amendments 72D to 72H in lieu and proposes further amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of the Lords amendments. That this House insists on its disagreement with the Lords in their amendment 62, but does not insist on its amendment 62C in lieu and proposes further amendment (a) to the Bill in lieu of the Lords amendment.
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Employment Rights Bill
Order. Colleagues should note that the debate will have to conclude by 7.55 pm, so only a couple of Back-Bench Members will get in. A speaking limit of eight minutes will apply to Back Benchers. I call the shadow Secretary of State.
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Employment Rights Bill
Order. I assume the intervention will be short. We have we only got 30 minutes left in the debate, so I assume that Ms Olney is coming to a conclusion soon.
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Welfare Spending: Economic Impact
21. What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the potential impact of future welfare spending on the economy.
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Welfare Spending: Economic Impact
In their first Budget, the Government hiked taxes on employers, leading to a sustained increase in unemployment. Earlier this year, we saw a botched attempt to reform welfare, which is now going to cost us more in welfare spending, and in the Chancellor’s “Nightmare before Christmas” Budget, she hammered hard-working families with yet more tax rises. Why do the Government loathe aspiration and hard work in favour of an economy based on welfare and state dependency?
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Digital ID
For the avoidance of doubt, I am on this side of the Westminster Hall Chamber only because it is so packed that this was the only remaining chair. I have not defected to the Labour Party and I never will—nor to anyone else. Can my hon. Friend confirm that this policy was not in Labour’s general election manifesto, so it has absolutely no electoral mandate to extend the surveillance state over the people of this country with this gimmick?
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Digital ID
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does he agree that this is just the latest example of this Labour Government trying to push through something that was not in their manifesto, and that this House must therefore do all it can to stop it becoming a reality?
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Child Poverty Strategy
Despite assurances to the contrary, children in my constituency have had their school courses cut and parents across the UK have lost their jobs because of this Government, with over 180,000 jobs lost over the past year. If unemployment and taxes continue to rise, how many more children does the Secretary of State expect to grow up in poverty—or is this just the price that the welfare party expects families to pay?
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Digital ID
The hon. and learned Gentleman is making an excellent contribution, as always. If this is such an important issue, why was it not in the governing party’s manifesto at the last general election?
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Digital ID
My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution, as always. One issue that I recently learned about in the Chamber is that the roll-out of gigabit broadband throughout the country has been delayed by a further two years from 2030 to 2032. Does she share my concerns that the void between the proposed digital inclusion and the constituents who do not have access to gigabit or wi-fi signals will be an even more manifest issue?
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Topical Questions
T7. The Budget introduced more taxes for people who work and more benefits for those who do not. Since the Government came into office, 1 million more people are claiming universal credit. We are now paying out almost £1 billion a month in benefits to foreign national households. Do the Government really think that their £16 billion benefits bung is fair on the hard-working people who have to pay for it?
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Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) for securing this critical urgent question. It is important not to forget the context of this decision. It came only weeks after the tragic events of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation attack. After the attack, the Prime Minister spoke to the Jewish people. He said that he would do everything in his power to guarantee them the security that they deserve. Yet when it came to a football club predominantly supported by Jewish people, they were suddenly deemed a risk to public safety. That is not just inconsistent but an insult to a community still reeling from a violent antisemitic attack. At a moment when Jewish families needed reassurance, this decision sent entirely the wrong message. It undermined confidence, contradicted the Prime Minister’s own promise and fell short of the duty we owe to the Jewish people to keep them safe. Why was this decision taken? When the Minister addressed the House a couple of weeks ago, she said that the shadow Home Secretary was “jumping the gun a bit” in saying that certain pieces of intelligence were “just made up”. We now know that not only did imaginary matches somehow enter the intelligence picture, but officers giving evidence to Parliament were inaccurate about their dealings with the local Jewish community. That seriously undermines the integrity of this House and the vital work that police forces do in securing accurate intelligence. The Government have asked HMICFRS to review the intelligence, but will the Minister go further and ensure that the details are made public? We need full transparency and more accurate accounts than we have seen so far, so that proper accountability can finally take place.
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Topical Questions
The Chancellor’s Budget put a cap on salary sacrifice for pension savers at just £2,000. That was to raise an extra £4.8 billion in 2029, and it will affect 3.3 million savers and 290,000 employers. What research has the Pensions Minister done to understand and quantify the negative effects that this will have on pension savings?
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Topical Questions
Well, it was not us who put it in place; it was Labour. This policy hits the private sector disproportionately: 14 times as many people save through salary sacrifice in the private sector as they do in the public sector. Whether it is kite-flying about lump sum withdrawal or taxing inherited pension pots, in a week when Labour Together is canvassing Labour members about a new Labour leader, is it not the case that the Chancellor is more interested in throwing red meat to her sad and unfortunate Back Benchers in a vain attempt to save her job than she is in the interests of the savings of our hard-working constituents?
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Topical Questions
Following the Budget, a furious Labour voter, 30 years old, texted me to say, “I am furious about the salary sacrifice thing. I give up a lot of things to put 20% of my salary into my pension. That’s going to cost me almost two grand a year for being responsible.” Why are the Government so keen on punishing savers?
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Restriction of Jury Trials
The Government’s proposals on jury trials are causing concern and consternation in my constituency, and my mailbag is quite full of people’s messages opposing the Government’s proposals. Just so we understand where the Secretary of State is on this, could the Minister please explain to us what he is doing right now such that he could not come and answer this urgent question himself?
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Ajax Armoured Vehicle
I think the procurement Minister will know that I asked his predecessor whether the National Armaments Director would have carte blanche to tear up the book when it comes to defence procurement. She answered from the Dispatch Box that not only would they have that ability but they would be held to account for so doing. Defence Committee members do not want them coming in front of us in a year’s time to say, “We wanted to change things, but they wouldn’t let us.” Now that the Minister is in his role, will he reassure us that the policy remains that the National Armaments Director, for their £600,000 a year, will be given carte blanche to tear up the book when it comes to procurement?
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Digital ID
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for his powerful introduction —he is certainly no tin of beans. He highlighted that this debate has united every party in this Chamber, including the Labour party against the Labour leadership. I commend hon. Members for the powerful contributions that they have made. I have to confess that I disagree with nothing that was said by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins), which is a unique thing—people will fear a coalition again. I even have some admiration for the glorious fence-sitting of some of the Labour MPs who still harbour some ambitions under this Government. We are here because so many of our fellow citizens are demanding that the Government abandon their dodgy plan for mandatory digital ID. This is one of the best-supported petitions ever—nearly 3 million people are asking, very simply, for their relationship with the state not to be fundamentally rewritten without their consent. At the instigation of no one—apart from, perhaps, Tony Blair—the Prime Minister sprung his sneaky ID scheme on us in September in what by now has become a familiar pattern. A gaping hole emerges in Labour’s handling of an issue—in this case on migration, but it could equally be justice or the economy—at the same time as they are running some kind of personnel meltdown, such as a Deputy Prime Minister ducking tax or a Chancellor leaking a Budget. And voilà: out shoots from Downing Street some cack-handed policy announcement to get us all talking about something else. Before we know it, we are hurtling toward mandatory ID, fewer jury trials, a horrible menu of new taxes on working people, and, who knows, maybe soon our return to a customs union on whose rules we will have zero say. That is why today we find ourselves debating the imposition of a mandatory ID, despite it being a platform on which no Labour MP in this Chamber was honest enough to stand, and a hapless Minister is left to field questions about the dead cat that his leader just threw on to the table, which is now getting smellier.
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Digital ID
One challenge is that we have had so few of the facts, because this is such a thin plan. The other challenge is that although there are people who support digital identity as a concept, this is about choice and the fact that this Government have no mandate for what they are doing. I do not think that the hon. Member and I are coming from that different a place, in so far as it should be people’s choice whether they have digital identity verification or not. This Government are proposing to rob them of that choice, and that is why the people in this Chamber are united.
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Digital ID
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he spoke powerfully in his contribution. I am sure that today we will hear no answers from the Minister, because behind this policy sits no plan at all. No Minister has any idea how much it will cost—the OBR reckons it will be £1.8 billion.
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Digital ID
I completely agree. On the one hand, the Government claim there is no money left. On the other hand, they can suddenly find billions for bizarre schemes or the Chagos islands, or create policies on the two-child benefit cap that they could not previously deliver. They are just so intellectually inconsistent. The OBR, as I say, reckons the scheme will cost £1.8 billion. Privately, Ministers are briefing that that is completely inaccurate. We have not even begun scoping it yet. I am told the Treasury and the Cabinet Office are now in a stand-off with one another about who will pay for this dreadful thing. Neither wants it, particularly as the Cabinet Office will then have to make cuts to other, much more effective digital projects, the kinds that would actually deliver better services. No one will answer straight questions about how secure the digital ID will be, or into which areas of our lives it will creep. The Prime Minister tells us that digital ID will be mandatory only for anyone who still wants to work in Labour’s welfare Britain. Yet in the next breath he suggests that childcare, welfare and wider service access will all require it. This is precisely how state overreach begins: with reassurance in one sentence and expansion in the next. It was very interesting to hear hon. Members making points about the police being able to access digital ID, or even about people needing it to go to the cinema. There have been no answers on the robustness of the Government’s cyber-security. This Government could not even keep their own Budget secret, and now they want us to trust them with this new system. Ministers point to Estonia and India as models, yet Estonia has suffered repeated breaches. India’s system, the largest ID system in the world, led to the largest ever data breach in the world, with citizens’ data sold on the dark web for the equivalent of £5 or £6. AI is now giving cyber-attackers the upper hand. We have been given no sense of the extent to which digital ID will stem illegal migration, which was the Prime Minister’s excuse for introducing the idea in the first place. Ministers cannot even give an estimate, and that is for a simple reason: because it will not reduce migration. Can Ministers explain why those who enter the country by dodging the rules will suddenly become models of civic compliance, or why European ID schemes have done so little to stem illegal migration on the continent?
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Digital ID
The hon. Member makes a powerful point. The truth is that channel crossings will continue until the Prime Minister puts in place a real deterrent and accepts that the “smash the gangs” plan is nothing more than a slogan. By pretending that his ID scheme is the answer, he fuels public distrust. When the crossings continue but law-abiding British citizens are allocated a mandatory ID, people will feel, rightly, that it is one rule for them and another for rule breakers—a loss of liberty for everyone because of a group of people who have no right to be here. At least Ministers seem to recognise the emptiness of the migration argument, because none of them seems to use it any more. To add to the despicable dishonesty of the plan, it is now being presented as a benevolent effort to improve online services—no more rummaging for utility bills. The Prime Minister’s chief of staff even insists it will be a matter of choice whether to have a digital ID. How disingenuous! First, to oppose digital ID is not to oppose the modernisation of Government. It is not to oppose great online services for people. It is to say that we do not need a monopolistic Government ID scheme, which is mandated if people are to have those online services, and nobody should be suggesting otherwise. The Association of Digital Verification Professionals has called what Labour inherited from our party “a world-leading model for…data sovereignty” that digitises liberty rather than dilutes it. In government we were able to provide trusted, simple and secure services without everyone being mandated to have a digital identity. Paper options were retained. Nobody was forced down the digital route. Privacy-preserving private identity providers, now absolutely hopping mad about Labour’s plan, are recognised as a way of giving citizens choice when it comes to digital credentials and dispersing central power. Let us turn to the idea of choice and consent. If a Government-issued digital ID is mandatory for anyone wishing to work, then if someone wants a job they have no choice but to have one. At a time when Labour has made it more expensive and much riskier to employ people, they now want to add an extra hoop for everyone to jump through. Never mind the digital divide, either. Thousands of adults do not have smartphones. Labour has deprioritized gigabit rollout; its digital inclusion plan is a £9 million fig leaf. It is not bridging the digital divide, but widening it. Conservatives oppose the Prime Minister’s mandatory ID plan in principle and in practice. It would alter the balance between citizen and state in a way that this Government have no mandate for. Conservatives believe that Government should empower citizens, not the other way round. Before this House takes another step down this path, I ask the Minister to answer the following questions clearly and directly. Will the Government bring this matter before the House for a vote, and when can we expect digital identity legislation to be put before us? How much will this scheme cost? If the true figure is not £1.8 billion, what is it? Are Ministers creating a single centralised database—yes or no? Who will be forced to have a mandatory ID and from what age, because we hear that it could be mandatory from the age of 13? What personal information will be collected? Will biometrics and addresses be included? What security guarantees will the Minister put his name to when it comes to the robustness of this system? Nearly 3 million people want answers to those questions and more. This Government have delivered nothing of what they said they would deliver— growth, political stability, competence—and delivered plenty that they never sought permission for. They are a Government who do not have the competence to run a bath, let alone a secure national identity scheme. It seems that many Labour MPs, including those in this Chamber today, now agree. Every day, they are openly jostling and gossiping about the Prime Minister’s demise. If they had any sense, they would make sure that this scheme dies with the expiry of his leadership and that any of the thrusting leadership contenders make a clear promise not to resurrect it. The Prime Minister’s plan is unimplementable and utterly unloved, and it will be totally useless in delivering against its own objectives. So, before Labour sprays inordinate amounts of political capital and taxpayer cash on this digital ID dodo, it must wake up to that reality.
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Digital ID
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for magnificently introducing this petition on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I also thank the more than 4,000 local residents in the Scottish Borders who have signed the petition. This issue cuts to the very heart of the relationship between our constituents and the state. I am completely against digital ID. It is expensive, intrusive and will be completely ineffective. It was not in the Labour Party’s 2024 election manifesto, so this is not something that anyone has voted for. Putting that to one side, this Labour Government do not seem to understand why digital ID is needed or what it is for. The Prime Minister initially claimed that it was an essential part of cracking down on illegal migration. Illegal migrants are making long, dangerous crossings over the channel; I hardly think the requirement for a digital identification card is going to deter them. Realising that this argument was not persuading anyone, the Government now claim that it is about simplifying access to Government services. Government services do need to be simplified, but we do not need digital ID to achieve that. Whatever the actual reasons behind the policy, we are inevitably going to see mission creep. I was particularly concerned to hear the Minister for Children and Families, the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), say that the Government are “starting with this issue of right to work check first, but there are loads of other applications for digital ID”. What will be next? Will digital ID be needed to access NHS services, to get a school place for someone’s son or daughter, or even potentially to go to the pub? The policy puts the personal data of all our constituents at risk. It would be a honeypot for cyber criminals and foreign state actors at a time when we are under increasing threat. I implore the Government to, for once, listen to the people and to the genuine and principled concerns of Members across the House. There is no deep need for digital ID. People do not want it and the Government have no mandate to introduce it. It fundamentally changes the relationship between the state and its citizens. We must say no to digital ID. It must be scrapped.
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Digital ID
On a point of order, Ms Furniss. Could you clarify how long the Minister has left to speak? By my understanding, he has until 7.29 pm so as to give the proposer of the motion a minute to respond.
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Ajax Armoured Vehicle
Civilians talk tactics and veterans talk logistics. Although the MAN trucks might not be as sexy as Ajax, their loss, however temporary, will be keenly felt. Can the Minister outline what practical steps are being taken to make sure that the wheels are not coming off—so to speak—any other mission-critical equipment?
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The Customs Tariff (Establishment) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2025
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Barker. As the Minister said, this statutory instrument clears up a couple of errors, one of which happened on our watch, as he pointed out—fair cop; we plead guilty to that one. The other part of the instrument corrects a previous error by reinstating the 14% import duty for fruit jellies, marmalades, fruit or nut purée and fruit or nut pastes. There is no impact assessment for the instrument because, as the explanatory memorandum says, the impact on the private and public sector is expected to be minimal, but I did get the House of Commons Library to do a bit of research for me. According to HMRC’s trade tariff tool, the incorrectly applied 0% tariff on jams, fruit jellies, marmalades, fruit or nut purée and fruit or nut pastes appeared on July 2025, and the UK imported roughly £3.2 million of such products in 2024. I am keen to understand from the Minister how the error occurred. Was it simply human error? What measures are in place to prevent slightly more important tariff codes being incorrectly entered, with the impact that that could have? Tariffs are taxes, of course, with higher prices passed on to consumers. We have just had a Budget that increased taxes on incomes, savings and employment, and that introduced a new tourist tax and a taxi tax. We now have another one: the marmalade tax. Marmalade makers in Peru will be giving the Minister a Paddington stare after this. On basmati rice, as the Minister said, this was an error made by the previous Conservative Government. The Library was unable to find any data on the volume imported, so how much does he expect the new £25 a tonne rate—the rate that should have been in place—to raise in the years to come? If he does not have those figures at his fingertips, perhaps he will write to me. To conclude, higher import tariffs mean higher prices for consumers. There can be good reasons for them, such as ensuring a level playing field for our domestic producers, but it does seem that this Government have yet to come across a tax they do not like—even on marmalade.
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Restriction of Jury Trials
There is capacity for almost 2,000 more court sitting days that are not being used for rape or other trials at the moment. Why is the Justice Secretary not prioritising funding those days to help reduce the backlog, rather than trying to scrap jury trials?
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Ajax Armoured Vehicle
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the latest developments concerning Ajax and other Army vehicles.
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Ajax Armoured Vehicle
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I state how shocking it was to hear of the Army exercise that took place on 22 November that resulted in more than 30 casualties among soldiers operating Ajax? There have been reports of symptoms ranging from sickness to hearing loss. As the Minister said, the priority must be the safety of our personnel, and we wish all those affected a swift recovery. This matter is particularly disturbing for me, as the renewed incidents with noise and vibrations sound strikingly similar to the problems that I was assured had been resolved when I was the Minister for Defence Procurement. In the Defence Committee, the Minister confirmed that he received similar assurances when he agreed to announce that Ajax had reached the key milestone of initial operating capability on 6 November. The Minister and I may have our political differences, but may I suggest that we have something in common on this issue? We have both been misled about the viability of the Ajax programme. After all, it is not just about the recurrence of extremely worrying noise and vibration problems; over the weekend, we have seen reports of serious allegations from anonymous General Dynamics employees suggesting systemic flaws with the Ajax platform. That includes a disgraceful incident in which a General Dynamics employee publicly belittled the injured soldiers. That is utterly unacceptable. Given all that, and contrary to assurances given to and accepted in good faith by successive Ministers, including myself, surely the only possible conclusion is that the Ajax vehicle is fundamentally flawed. Does the Minister agree that the manufacturer, General Dynamics, must have been aware of that for years and must be held to account? As such, remembering that the procurement reform I launched in February 2024 stressed the need for a second opinion, will he bring in a completely independent organisation or company steeped in engineering excellence—from outside the Ministry of Defence, with no skin in the game—to pronounce on the one question that we all need answered: is Ajax viable without a fundamental redesign? If not, how much more will it cost to remedy? On a personal note, I imagine that the Minister is as furious as I am at having been repeatedly given what now turn out to be false assurances by those responsible for the Ajax programme. Surely he is now left with a binary choice: fix it, or fail it.
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Welfare Spending: Economic Impact
In the Budget last month, the Chancellor put up taxes in order to spend £16 billion more on welfare. The Government chose to make working people worse off in order to spend more on benefits. The sickness benefit bill is now set to skyrocket to more than £100 billion by the end of this decade. The Secretary of State likes to blame us, but his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), cancelled our reforms, and Labour Back Benchers stymied the Government’s. Working people are saying to me, “Why bother? I’d be better off on benefits.” The country cannot afford that. The Secretary of State must know this—he is no fool—so when is he going to come up with some welfare savings?
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Unemployment Levels
I was sorry that the Secretary of State could not answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) earlier. Fortunately, there are people who can help. For instance, UKHospitality has told us that 100,000 people will lose their jobs because of the Budget. That is on top of the 150,000 jobs already lost since Labour came to power. At this rate, there will be queues forming outside jobcentres. Can she tell me what preparations the Government are making to cope with the influx of benefit claimants from all these job losses?