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As we are looking for clarity, what the shadow Chancellor was saying was that if he was in the Chancellor’s position, that is, if he could not cut spending and had to raise tax, perhaps that is what he would do, but that is not what his intention is. His intention, very properly, is to control spending, as any responsible Government would. Why will the hon. Gentleman’s Government not do the same?
This will be a very simple speech, because it has only a single fundamental point, which is that honesty in politics matters. That should not be a controversial statement. In debates in this place, we are advocates for a political philosophy, and for certain political tactics, and yes, we should put forward our case as attractively as possible, perhaps using statistics that make our case more effectively than others, but if we downright mislead the public, a line is crossed. That is wrong, because it is taking the public for fools. In the election of 2024, the Labour party had a manifesto on which every single one of its Members was elected. There was an identified £7 billion that they intended to raise through tax rises, but a core promise at the very heart of the manifesto was that apart from that, there would be no tax rises—in particular, no increases to national insurance contributions, income tax or VAT. That is the very basis of their electoral mandate, and even then, they only managed to secure 34% of the vote. The first breach of those promises came in October last year: the tax rises were for not £7 billion, but £40 billion. That was justified by a wholly fictitious £22 billion black hole, a figure that the Office for Budget Responsibility refused to support, and that the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Financial Times, among others, could not identify. The Government raised taxes on employers; it was a tax on jobs of fully £25 billion. The IFS said that was a “straightforward breach” of their manifesto. We were told that this was a one-off, and that the Government had “wiped the slate clean”. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s words were that they were “not coming back with…more taxes”; they had fixed “the foundations of our economy”, and she said, “It’s now on us.” Those are not my words, but the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The second Budget is in just two weeks’ time, and no global event has blown this Government’s plans off course. There has been no pandemic, and there has been no European invasion sending electricity and energy prices through the roof. If things have changed, it has been as a direct consequence of the political and economic decisions of the Government.
My hon. Friend is entirely correct. The Prime Minister tried—half-heartedly, admittedly—to save £4.5 billion from the welfare budget. He put his Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the ridiculous position of starting a debate arguing for £4.5 billion of savings from long-term disability and health benefits, only for her to end the very same debate advocating for a £300 million increase in those same benefits. The Prime Minister has lost control of his Back Benchers, and he has lost control of his Government’s spending. We have had no global event, but we do have Government policies that have been economically disastrous. Labour is truly the tax-and-spend party. It has raised the tax burden to the highest in history—certainly since the second world war. As for spend, it raised £40 billion in tax, borrowed a further £30 billion, and increased spending by £70 billion. According to the Government’s own plans, they intend to borrow half a trillion pounds extra during the course of this Parliament. And for what? Has there been reform of public services? No. Public sector productivity has declined. We are getting less for our money—even more so in healthcare, where the decline in productivity is fully 8.3%. What they have done is increase wage inflation. For public sector pay, it is more than 6%, whereas in the private sector, it is a third less. The Government are coming back for more. They intend, we are told through multiple briefings to newspapers, to breach their core election manifesto pledge and raise taxes, because they cannot reduce spending.
One quick clarification: waiting times have actually increased in each of the past three months, so they are not going down at the moment. If we hose enough money at a system, we can get increased results, but what we get per pound spent has declined by over 8%. That is a very serious point.
I could not have put it better myself. These are not statistics made up by my researchers; they are from the Office for National Statistics. The decisions that we are told the Chancellor is about to make in two weeks are not inevitable. There is another choice. She can grow a backbone—so can the Prime Minister—and impose some control over public spending. We have set out a plan to reduce spending by £47 billion. I have heard the criticisms and challenges from Labour Members. They have a budget of £1.3 trillion to work with; are they seriously saying that they cannot find £20 billion of necessary savings from a £1.3 trillion budget? If they cannot, then they do not deserve to be in government. The motion is not a sleight of hand. It is a simple, short motion, which merely asks Government Members, when they choose which Lobby to go through tonight, to decide whether they will stick with their promises—their manifesto commitments. Will they treat their constituents as fools, or will they vote with the Opposition and defend their, albeit shaky, democratic mandate?
We have talked about the fear that our constituents have, but there is another fear held by businesses. My hon. Friend will know that business confidence has plummeted to the worst level on record, and investment decisions taken by businesses have been delayed because businesses are worried about the impact of this terrible Budget that we are facing. Does my hon. Friend agree that the speculation fuelled by the anonymous briefings from No. 11 are already damaging our economy?
Does my hon. Friend have any idea why the Chancellor has changed her mind or what it is that has affected her decision? Just a year ago, she said that she did not need to come back for more, but now she says she does. Has there been any great global shock, or does he think the problem lies closer to home?
I have heard what the Minister says and I do not ask him to comment on the Budget, but can he confirm whether he thinks that manifesto pledges are important?
I am encouraged to hear that the Minister wants to link increased funding with productivity increases. In that spirit, why was the resident doctors’ pay rise not linked to any productivity increases?
My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) asked the Minister a specific question. In October last year, the Chancellor said, “We are not coming back for more. We have wiped the slate clean. From now on, it is on us.” What has happened between then and now? What has changed?
I have to say, I am quite surprised at the lack of contrition from the Secretary of State, given a very damning report. In November 2024, Mr Kogan withdrew from the application process because, he said, there was “a lot of noise going around about Labour donors”, but in March, in a move that the commissioner said was “highly unusual”, Mr Kogan’s candidacy was reinstated, and he was rapidly sifted, interviewed and appointed. Are the public really expected to believe that this was an open and fair process, when the decision-makers took donations from the candidate?
I was just wondering whether the Minister remembers what else happened in 2022, around February time, that might have impacted gas prices.
The Minister just referred to the oil and gas sector as “the status quo” or something that we should be moving away from. Does he also mean the 100,000 jobs supported by that sector, the millions in investment and the billions that we get in revenue from that sector? Which part of that does he not support and which part of that does he not want to protect while we transition to new energies? It sounds to me like he wants to shut it down tomorrow. Those are my constituents, the local economy in my area and energy security for the country. He seems to be very willing to get rid of them.
Projections show that if we fully utilised the oil and gas in the North sea we could cover half our energy needs up to 2050, so there is a lot more in there than five years-worth, but even if it were true that there was only five years-worth, why would we be increasing our imports to cover it? Why would we not be using what we have, given that we will be a net importer for years to come in any event? Why are we closing down the North sea if, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, it will all be gone in any case? It makes no sense.
To bring the hon. Member back to the controlling of spending, may I ask him a question that other Members on his side have failed to answer? Would he be in favour of keeping or scrapping the two-child benefit cap?
Under Labour, Britain is living in a doom loop of high spend, historically high debt, and higher taxes. That is killing growth, fuelling inflation, reducing opportunities and absolutely weakening our economy. I have spoken to numerous businesses across Farnham, Bordon, Haslemere, Liphook and our surrounding villages, and they are all anxiously awaiting the undoubtedly business-crushing Budget in two weeks’ time. The Government’s lack of understanding of business should surprise no one; Government Front Benchers have more experience of the trade union movement than of business. Indeed, when the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), was asked which companies supported her damaging Employment Rights Bill, which will cost businesses £8.3 billion and cause around 326,000 job losses, she could not name a single one. The avoidance of engagement runs goes right to the top of this Government. We have seen that in this debate. We have had what I would call a utopian socialist vision from the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), who mentioned that Labour came into power at the last general election to change. Given how much Labour has resiled from its manifesto, “change” is about the only word left that it is still sticking to. Speak to people and businesses in my constituency—and, I am sure, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency—and they will say that things have not changed for the better. I have to say that the Liberal Democrats’ lack of interest continues. Not a single Liberal Democrat Back Bencher has chosen to speak in this debate on the fundamentals of how we will grow and run our economy. Not a single one thought it important to talk in it. That is shameful. I hope that the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard), for whom I have a lot of respect, speaks to his colleagues about this. Our motion asks the Government to stick to their promises; I am concerned to see that that wording would be removed by the Liberal Democrat amendment, which thankfully was not selected by Mr Speaker. It is an extraordinary situation.
The hon. Gentleman has aptly described the social utopia that I accused him of describing. The fundamental point is that if we do not have businesses contributing to the economy, we cannot fund public services. If 90,000 people in the hospitality sector are made unemployed, they are not paying income tax, and we cannot support public services. The idea that the Government can just raise money out of nowhere forever, inevitably, without consequence, is not sustainable, and we are seeing that in our economy.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. Hopefully, that means that the Liberal Democrats will vote for our motion later.
The hon. Gentleman shakes his head—our motion probably does not fit the narrative that he is looking for. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland just said that neither he nor I know what is in the Budget. While that is technically correct, the Government have been flying many kites about what will be in this Budget, pretty much since the summer—more kites than Mary Poppins—and I think that gives us some indication of what will be in the Budget. As has been said, that has caused great uncertainty and worry. Businesses are either deciding not to invest because they are so worried about what will happen, or delaying investment decisions because of the Budget.
I do not think I have mentioned the Climate Change Act, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising it. I think what my constituents want—[Interruption.] I am trying to answer the hon. Gentleman’s point, and he is barracking me before I have even had a chance to answer. My constituents tell me that they want green policies and sensible moves to reduce carbon and pollution, but they do not want them to hobble our economy and hit them in their pockets at a very difficult time when they are being taxed to death by the Government. The owners of Rutland London in my constituency spoke to me about the Government’s much-vaunted policy paper “Backing your business: our plan for small and medium-sized businesses”, which came out recently. They said that the plan “while promised to cut red tape, lacks delivery details, relies on third-party co-operation, and depends on enforcement rather than details, plans or even an outline, none of which have been set out to us.” Once again, we have another supposedly amazing thing that this Government have done, but businesses do not want it. During the general election, Labour told the public that it would not raise taxes—it said that 41 times. Then, as we have heard, the Government raised taxes to raise £40 billion. At that point we could have had a sensible discussion about how we were going to reduce the size of the state, reduce inefficiencies and increase productivity, but we had none of those discussions. Essentially, we had a tiny change to welfare, which this Government, because of their Back Benchers, could not get through. While I disagree with the Labour Back Benchers on that, I am asking them now to find the backbone that made them stand up to their Front Bench last time and to do so again. If the Chancellor comes to this House and raises taxes on working people, I ask them to find that backbone and vote against the tax rise. Their constituents will thank them, and the country will thank them. In the minute or two I have left, I want to focus on local leadership. I think it is incumbent on us as local leaders to meet and listen to constituents and businesses. That is why I am running a business roundtable next week, and I am very grateful that the shadow Business Secretary, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), is coming to speak at it. I recommend speaking to businesses not just because we are local leaders, but because Members on the Labour Benches would learn something. They would learn that their constituents are not in favour of this. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland made some reference to our constituencies not being the same, but I can tell him that in my constituency, as I am sure is the case in his, there are business owners suffering, families struggling, farmers worried about what they will do with their taxes and small businesses that will be broken up because of this Government’s tax. There are also thousands upon thousands of people who have either lost their job or will not get into employment because of what this Government have done. It is time for this Government to act—stop tinkering, stop the gimmicks, and stop punishing hard-working families and small businesses. This country deserves more than promises. It deserves action, certainty, and a Government who are on the side of those who work, innovate and contribute every day. What we need from the Chancellor in two weeks’ time is a Budget that actually invests in growth, supports jobs, protects household incomes and cuts the red tape on businesses that I described earlier. I urge the Minister to take this opportunity seriously and ensure that the Chancellor and the Government listen to their constituents and my constituents and produce a Budget that restores confidence, ambition and hope in this nation.
As I told the hon. Member yesterday, he has the second worst job in Government, which I think he is feeling today. Even if what he has just said is true—I do not agree with him—after the Budget last year, the Chancellor said that the slate was wiped clean and that no more tax rises or borrowing would be needed. What has changed between then and now?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. Since the Labour Government took office, they have pursued an ideological net zero agenda that places meeting targets above supporting our constituents and cutting bills across the country. The carbon budget delivery plan is the latest example of that: a glossy plan that completely ignores affordability and reality. The Secretary of State has spent much of his time in office promising that his policies will cut household energy bills by £300. That promise was made at the last election and was supported by the Prime Minister, yet that figure is not mentioned once in the flagship carbon budget delivery plan. There are sections on energy security and lower bills, but nowhere does it reference the £300 promise that the Secretary of State and others from the Labour party incessantly trumpeted across the media and from the Dispatch Box. If that pledge were real—if it were costed or credible—it would surely appear in the document that is supposedly designed to deliver it. Its absence tells us everything. The Government’s priority is not cutting bills, but chasing net zero goals regardless of the cost to hard-working taxpayers. At a recent Energy Security and Net Zero Committee hearing, senior executives from the country’s biggest energy suppliers warned that even if gas were free in 2030, household energy bills would still rise because of the policy costs being loaded on to bills in the relentless pursuit of net zero. I repeat: even if gas were free—even if the wholesale market delivered us a miracle—bills would go up, not down. That is a failure not of the market, but of Labour Government policy. Those energy companies are not hostile to decarbonisation; they are some of the loudest champions of net zero. Yet even they warn that the current approach—piling levies, subsidies and obligations on to consumers—is unsustainable and unrealistic. When those who believe in the Government’s energy objectives start doubting the approach, perhaps it is time for the Government to revisit their plans. Even Professor Sir Dieter Helm, one of the country’s most respected energy economists, has in effect described the Government’s clean power 2030 plan as economically incoherent. As he put it, we are “baking in very high costs” for the future. He is right. It is not possible to legislate for lower bills while loading more costs on to every unit of power people use—a simple equation that the Government do not seem to have grasped, exemplified by what we have all seen in the carbon budget delivery plan. It is a classic Labour approach: a headline without a policy, a promise without a plan, a bill for everyone else to pay, and a vanity project that will simply not work. The truth is that Britain will not decarbonise by taxing, banning and bribing people into submission. As the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), said at our party conference, the best way to cut emissions is to “make electricity cheap”. Cheap means clean power, because people and businesses naturally choose the most efficient technology available when it saves them money. This Government, however, have made electricity the most expensive form of energy that we produce. They have loaded every kilowatt with green levies, obligations and subsidies, and then tried to subsidise and redistribute when families cannot afford to heat their homes or to switch to electric vehicles. We see the same erratic pattern in the operation of the Climate Change Act 2008, which forces Ministers to take decisions that make the British people less well off and our economy weaker, for the sake of meeting arbitrary climate targets. Take their boiler tax: it increases the cost of gas boilers to force people to adopt heat pumps, which may not work for them, to meet climate targets. We are chopping down trees in America, shipping them across the Atlantic and burning them in Yorkshire to generate electricity at three times the price of gas, because it is labelled as clean for the purpose of meeting the Government’s climate targets. These are not the decisions of a Government guided by science or economics; they are the decisions of a Government trapped by targets, with a Secretary of State dogmatically following them. If the Government truly believed in innovation, they would focus on reforming the electricity market to bring prices down; they would remove the outdated levies that make our electricity the most expensive in the world; they would spend more on nuclear baseload; and they would back British energy security, from new nuclear to North sea gas, rather than making us more dependent on imported fuel by choosing to shut down the North sea. The public understand that we must reduce emissions. They want a cleaner environment and a stable climate for their grandchildren. But they also expect honesty from the Government, and an approach that will actually work and actually decarbonise.
3. When she expects all rural communities to have a reliable mobile signal.
I am grateful to the Minister for his answer, but villages in my constituency—less than 50 miles from where we all are now—such as Cuddington and Bryants Bottom still have zero mobile coverage. I have raised this issue with the Minister’s predecessor and all the networks. When are we going to get to a point where warm words about rural connectivity turn into actual rural connectivity?
Even before my right hon. Friend came into the Department and asked for a whole-system energy cost analysis when I was the Energy Minister, our strategic objective was to be among the countries with the cheapest electricity prices in Europe by the 2030s. Does she have any idea why the Labour party has now dropped that as a strategic objective?
The Minister talked about honesty, which is ironic given where he sits at the moment, in the Government of which he is a member. The Minister is better than this. He was talking specifically about renewables. Less than 7% of our electricity came from renewables in 2010, and by 2024 the figure was approximately 50%. To suggest that the Conservatives did not transform and improve our renewable energy is a falsehood, and because I know he is a better man than this, I am sure the Minister will now withdraw the allegation he made.
As this is supposed to be a debate, will the hon. Gentleman give way?
One of the hon. Gentleman’s fantastical suggestions is that he has a way of breaking the link between gas and electricity prices. I do not know which model he wants to follow—that of China, or perhaps a Korean model—but will he please explain how exactly we do that? When I was the Energy Minister, I looked to see whether that could be done, and we could not find a way of making it work. I am really interested to see the Liberal Democrats’ detailed work, and for them to explain it to the House.
The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. Under the last Conservative Government, we went from 7% to nearly 50% renewables. We cut emissions more than any other major economy on earth, but as has been said, we also saw electricity prices go very high. When I was the Minister responsible for net zero, we were looking at heat, transport and industry, and the fundamental way of decarbonising each of those is through electricity. How can we decarbonise them if we keep driving electricity prices ever higher? I admire the hon. Gentleman’s ideological fervour, but we have to get prices down if we are to take a balanced approach that looks after families and decarbonisation.
The Minister is a thoughtful person, and I think he will share the concern about North sea oil and gas, for instance. On the specific topic of renewables, we are proud of what we did, but under the Climate Change Act—which has no cognisance of what happens to the economy; it is just decarbonisation or bust—we now have extraordinarily high electricity prices. We need to decarbonise heat, transport and industry, and the main way to do that is by electrification, which puts us in a bind. That is why I believe we are right to look at getting rid of the Climate Change Act and look at a new, balanced system that recognises that we must balance economics with the righteous move towards tackling climate change.
The Prime Minister is of course responsible for the enforcement of the ministerial code. If he has breached it, as appears to be the case, is there a role here for Mr Speaker? What other methods are there, not just for securing a debate on the matter in this place, but for the Prime Minister to be held to account for not doing what he is supposed to have done, and what his ethics adviser said he should have done?
I am grateful to be able to respond to the debate on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. Let me start by thanking everybody from both sides of the House for their contributions, but in particular those on my side of the House. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) pointed out the impact of the family farm tax on his farms in Shropshire and that 6,000 farms across the country have closed. The hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince), who is sadly not in his place—probably on the phone to his mother—spoke well about Harlow and his mum. I particularly enjoyed the bromance emerging between him and the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer). My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) spoke well about the impact of the rise in national insurance contributions on the Gosport employment market. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) said a good quote by Margaret Thatcher. As the MP for Grantham, I particularly appreciated it, but it still rings true today about spending other people’s money wisely. My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) rightly highlighted that not a single Liberal Democrat Back-Bench MP has turned up, which I agree is completely shameful. We did hear from the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard), who had the temerity to talk about our country’s reputation when it is his leader who is prancing about in a wetsuit falling off paddleboards—slightly ironic. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), who made a number of important interventions, pointed out that every Labour Member should ask themselves the same question every morning when they wake up, “Who voted for this?” None of them have a mandate for further tax rises, just as they did not have a mandate for last year’s jobs tax increase. They must know this. The proof is right in front of them. Labour has over 400 Members of Parliament and fewer than 10 have shown up. I was going to say that they have come to defend the indefensible, but they have not even done that. None tried to defend the indefensible; we just heard more and more speeches about the past, while their constituents are living in the present. I think that Labour Members know that the upcoming Budget is surely the beginning of the end. The Government have lost control. Just when the Prime Minister should be focused on fixing their mistakes, he is instead having to oversee co-ordinated briefings against the apparent plots to depose him by his own Health Secretary. It is troubling, to say the least, that the Prime Minister seems more worried about the damage coming from inside his own Cabinet than about the damage already done outside it. The truth is that the Labour party will not be forgiven. Socialism has failed everywhere and every time it has ever been tried. We should not forget that Labour won the last election because it promised not to be a socialist Labour Government. It said that it would not fiddle with the fiscal rules to borrow more money. It said that it would not increase national insurance, income tax or VAT. It said that it would not pursue ideologically driven policies that would push up energy bills—in fact, it said that it would cut those bills by £300. Unfortunately for the country, this has very much turned out to be a socialist Labour Government after all: higher taxes, fewer jobs, lower confidence, and an economy put into reverse—back to the 1970s. That is felt in every boardroom, every workshop, every pub and every place of work across this country. The best thing that the Government can do right now is take responsibility for their actions and show leadership. After just 16 months of Labour, inflation has doubled, taxes are heading for record highs, borrowing has risen rapidly and unemployment has surged to the highest level since the pandemic. And none of that takes into account what may yet be to come. We know that the Chancellor deliberately picked the latest time possible for her upcoming Budget, in a last-ditch hope that someone, somewhere might come up with something that makes it all better. The date of 26 November is a highly unusual one for an autumn Budget. The last time we had a Budget this late, phones still had aerials, Mark Morrison was “returning the mack”, and we had to rewind VHS tapes before taking them back to Blockbuster. If only we could rewind the past 16 months; sadly, we cannot.
I could not agree more. In fact, markets and investors have now endured week after week of reckless and irresponsible speculation, not about whether Labour will put up their taxes, but about which taxes will go up. The endless uncertainty that my hon. Friend mentions has caused relentless Treasury kite-flying that has damaged confidence. There are so many kites in the air but none of them is tied to an actual plan. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) said it well: everyone seems to be looking over their shoulder to see who the Chancellor will come for next. That cannot be what Labour MPs want in the run-up to Christmas. They have a chance tonight to reaffirm the promises that they made to all their constituents. It should be their easiest vote this year. Their core manifesto commitment, which won them the election, is printed in black and white in the motion. To fail to support the motion is to confirm to each and every one of their constituents that Labour is content to betray their trust. Be in no doubt, the country is watching.
It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison, and to sit next to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). I also welcome the opportunity to sit opposite the Minister, and I appreciate the remarks he has made in this Committee. I welcome the opportunity to address this statutory instrument on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. As the Minister has said, the UK is home to Europe’s largest data centre market, and the Opposition welcome the aims of the regulations in so far as they wish to enable the market to continue to grow—and to do so with greater ease. It is fair to say that the Government and the Opposition have not always seen eye to eye on aspects of the Government’s planning reforms. The Opposition would not being doing our jobs correctly if we did not draw attention to some of the brazen power grabs made by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government—and specifically by the Minister’s former boss—in the name of devolution, reorganisation and planning reform. When it comes to data centres, however, we are clear that it is the right approach to work towards a less complex system to help see them built. That is not to say that the regulations are perfect. Having looked over the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report, it is regrettable to note that the Government have brought the regulations without the accompanying draft national policy statement, which, in the Government’s own words, “will set out the framework for decision making in relation to data centres.” As the Committee pointed out, it makes it much more difficult for this House to consider and fully understand how the applications will be assessed without having seen that first. Secondly, as the Committee noted, the Government are removing the current statutory consultation requirements at the pre-application stage of the nationally significant infrastructure policy process and substituting them for non-statutory pre-application engagement with local communities. As we have seen throughout the debates regarding the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, it is not just the Opposition that are concerned about proper consultation with local communities. As the Committee suggested, it would be prudent to seek further assurance from the Minister that meaningful opportunities will still exist for local communities to make representations on proposed developments. I seek that assurance from the Minister today. The need for that assurance is underlined by the fact that the former Secretary of State waved through two data centres due to be built on the green belt that were not just deeply controversial in their local communities but rejected by the local planning committees. The green belt is not there to be torn up or concreted over on a whim, and it is vital that the Government manage to not just build data centres but build them where they are most wanted, needed and appropriate. Beyond that, there is also a concern that there is no size threshold for data centres in the regulations, nor any definition, which raises the question of whether very small developments should be captured or included. I hope the Minister will be able to clarify that. Finally, it is vital that the Government go further and faster to reduce the high commercial energy prices that put our data centre market at risk. To date, companies have sought to invest in the UK for our data centre-friendly business environment, but the energy policies of the Minister’s colleague, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, are putting that status at risk. I hope the Minister shares those concerns and makes his colleague aware of the potential damage he is doing. I hope the Minister will respond to these concerns in full and in good time, and I thank you, Dr Murrison, for the opportunity to share them with the House.
Further to the intervention by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), is my hon. Friend aware of the Office for National Statistics report from last week, which showed that NHS productivity has declined since the Labour party took office? Would he like to invite the hon. Member to retract what he just said?
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am slowly beginning to get used to life on the Back Benches and to sitting on neither the Government Front Bench nor the Opposition Front Bench in Delegated Legislation Committees. Following the Minister’s announcement earlier, I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Helen Newlove. I had the privilege of working with her in both her first and second terms as Victims’ Commissioner, both times while I was serving as the Victims Minister—the role the Minister now occupies. Helen brought to her role integrity, decency, kindness and fun; indeed, when I first met her, she had been on “Desert Island Discs” and we ended up singing one of her choices, “Bring Me Sunshine”, before our first ministerial meeting. That set the tone for how we worked together, and she became a friend, so I will miss her hugely. I know the same will be true of victims up and down the country, because whatever her friendship she was always fearless and forthright in speaking up for the rights of victims and in making sure their voices were heard loud and clear. Today, this country—but especially the victims community—has lost a very powerful champion. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, for his comments: I did take the legislation on which this statutory instrument is based through in the wash-up period just before the last general election. I also pay tribute to Dame Maria Miller, who campaigned very hard on this issue, and to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who was a forceful advocate—although always polite and friendly—in banging on my door and seeking to nudge me a little further. I will not comment on the amendments before the House more broadly in the Victims and Courts Bill. All I will say is that I welcome the pragmatic and sensible tidying-up in this instrument, which is a bridging measure, but also a means to fill in a few gaps that were, I suspect, missed by both sides of the House in their desire to get the 2024 Act through before the election. I therefore welcome the instrument the Minister has brought before us today.
This debate is much broader than mere numbers on a spreadsheet buried in the Treasury; it is about trust, stewardship and the future of our country. That matters because, at the last general election, the now Government and all those elected on their manifesto said they would not raise taxes on “working people”, yet at last year’s Budget, they did precisely that. They introduced £40 billion-worth of tax rises—under the guise of national insurance in the majority of cases—which have a trickle-down effect on working people up and down the country. To compound matters, on 25 November last year the Chancellor addressed the Confederation of British Industry and made a cast-iron promise: no more borrowing, and no more taxes. That was a pledge to every family, every community and every business in this country, yet we are now on the precipice of the Government breaking their promise. To do so would irreversibly damage the public’s confidence in the Government’s ability to manage our economy. Simply put, every tax rise hits families, pensioners and small businesses. There is a simple maxim: borrowing today is merely debt for tomorrow. Every pound borrowed has to be repaid, and it has to be repaid with interest. I know that those on the Government Benches do not necessarily regularly take the words of Margaret Thatcher to heart, but she said: “Pennies don’t fall from heaven. They have to be earned”. That is what people up and down this country are doing every day: they are grafting to provide for their families and their future. She was absolutely right. History teaches us that unchecked spending commitments undermine growth, reduce confidence and erode the state’s ability to serve those who are most vulnerable. By contrast, having control over public expenditure is not an ideology or something to be feared; it is simply common sense. It is about cutting waste, and it is about making hard choices today so that future generations are not saddled with crushing debt. That is responsible government. It was Churchill who said that “the price of greatness is responsibility”. When the Government came into power with great fanfare, there was a sense that they wanted to be a great reforming Government. Well, is there any greater responsibility than to families, who budget carefully; to citizens, who trust the Government to keep their word; and to the public, who expect manifesto promises to be kept? People live within their means.
The hon. Member may have forgotten the covid pandemic that swept this country, which of course turned the tables, and difficult decisions had to be made.
No, I want to make this point. The difference is that the Chancellor told the media last year that the buck stops with her. She has to own these decisions. As I say, people in this country are asked to live within their means, and they make sacrifices and plan for contingencies. They expect the Government to do the same, so when the Chancellor promises not to borrow more and not to tax more, the country should be able to take her at her word. Such promises are bonds of trust between the Government and the people. I have a certain degree of sympathy for Labour Members, who have been put in an invidious position. They have been asked to break a promise that they made to their constituents and their country. I ask them to look into their hearts, and to think about whether this is really what they want to be remembered for. Will they show the leadership, the independence of thought and the resolve to vote for this motion?
To put it in simple terms for those listening at home, the Chancellor raised taxes by £40 billion, she spent £30 billion and she borrowed £70 billion. Cumulatively, that will make people think, “How am I going to get the return on that investment if we are not growing the economy? How do I ensure that the interest will be paid?” That is why interest payments go up and we as a country end up paying more debt—because of the decisions the Chancellor has made.