Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,731 under 12 words. Hide short remarks

1. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

   Seasonal Work

   My hon. Friend may recall my question at Prime Minister’s questions last week, in which I raised the case of Claire Howard Jewellery in Fakenham. It is one of many shops that contacted me in the aftermath of the Budget. There is a real sense of anger that the Budget claimed there would be a reduction in business rates—particularly for hospitality, retail and leisure—but the experience of those shops, looking at the numbers, was that business rates were going in exactly the opposite direction. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a real sense of a breach of trust when people hear politicians saying one thing in public and doing the opposite in the small print?

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2. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

   Seasonal Work

   The hon. Lady is right, but would she agree that there is a balance to be struck in every policy? Here, the balance is between employment rights on the one hand and business growth on the other. The sign of whether an economy has got it about right is when employment and growth go hand in hand. Does she share my concern that, as a result of the policies of the Government, unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, is going up month after month? Is that not a warning sign that the balance is not correct?

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3. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

   Seasonal Work

   I should make it clear that I spent my career before coming into politics running a ledger business, so I am intimately familiar with a seasonal workforce and I employed about 1,000 people as part of my job. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just the business rates—the fixed costs—going up, but the uncertainty in consumer confidence caused, both this year and last year, by the leaking leading up to the Budget, which knocks the people coming through the gate as well? Turnover is depressed at the same time as fixed costs are rising. It is an absolutely catastrophic combination for people who are trying to earn a living and employ others.

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4. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

   Seasonal Work

   My hon. Friend makes an important point, although it is not just, or even primarily, about the increase from 13.8% to 15% on the overall rate, but that it kicks in at £5,000, down—from memory—from £9,200. That has a particular impact on those employed part-time, youth employment, and lower-wage employment, because it means that employers start paying NICs much earlier in the pay journey. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is exactly why we are seeing youth unemployment rising as well as general unemployment?

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5. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

   Seasonal Work

   The Centre for Policy Studies has undertaken an analysis of all the impacts of both the previous Budget and the one last month on the cost of employing 18 to 20-year-olds. The shocking figure is that it will cost an employer £4,000 a year more to employ a single person between the age of 18 and 20. Given that, is my hon. Friend surprised that employers, just like the pub that she has mentioned, are taking rational decisions not to give young people jobs?

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6. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Jerome Mayhew

   Seasonal Work

   It is easy to make the mistake of talking about SMEs as though they are corporate entities when, in many instances, they are not. They are often a husband-and-wife team working incredibly long hours and living above the shop. I was in my local pub, The Greyhound, the other day, which is run by the tenant and his wife. They told me that they were covering the shifts of the employees who they have let go because of the Government’s tax policy changes. The cost of that is not just economic; it is hugely damaging to their relationship and to their whole way of life, and it is incredibly stressful. Does my hon. Friend accept that the damage caused by these changes is not just economic but societal?

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7. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·James Wild

   Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

   This is a rare and serious conduct motion that calls on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to apologise for misleading the country about the state of the public finances, breaking promises on tax and breaching the OBR confidentiality process—in short, for not being straight with the British people. I was expecting to refer to more contributions this afternoon, but it has been a slightly curtailed debate. [Interruption.] We had the comprehensive introduction from my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor. The hon. Members for Harlow (Chris Vince) and for Loughborough (Dr Sandher) were surprised and disappointed that the Chancellor is being held to account not for her personality, but for her conduct. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) just said, this debate is about honesty, trust and confidence and what happens as a result, and about the “shenanigans”, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) put it. On Times Radio this morning, the shadow Chancellor was asked why this debate matters. It matters because the deliberate briefing and misrepresentation of the Budget has damaged workers, savers, pensioners and investors. Let us start with the simple truth: this Government and the Chancellor spun false narratives about the public finances to justify their political choices to increase welfare spending.

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8. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·James Wild

   Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

   If the hon. Gentleman had been here for the whole debate, he would have had the opportunity of the opening 45-minute speech to put that to my right hon. Friend. What happened as a result of all the policy kites that were flown? Pensions were drawn down, fewer mortgages were approved and investment was paused. That is not my verdict; the Bank of England warned that the economy was heading for slowdown as a result of the uncertainty, the British Chambers of Commerce said that that uncertainty affected investment and recruitment, and hundreds of thousands of people drew down their pensions. Those are the real impacts of that activity—the shenanigans—and there is genuine anger across the country at the damage such uncertainty caused. The Chancellor must take responsibility because she is responsible for that uncertainty. People are already cynical about politics, but what could do more to undermine trust than abusing the OBR process to cook up a story to make a case for higher taxes that were not needed? It is the Chancellor who is at the centre of misleading the country. On 4 November, she staged that unprecedented press conference to roll the pitch for tax rises.

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9. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·James Wild

   Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

   I will not. In breach of the confidentiality rules, the Chancellor warned that the OBR productivity downgrade meant lower tax receipts. Indeed it did, but the OBR report makes it clear that that downgrade was more than addressed by higher tax receipts. In other words, there was no black hole. The Chancellor had the numbers and she knew the position. Now we know what she said was simply not true. Instead, she crafted a narrative to justify decisions to increase taxes to fund higher welfare spending. On 13 November, the Financial Times reported that the Chancellor had decided against the much-briefed income tax increases. The next day, after the gilt market had responded badly, journalists were briefed that the tax rises would not happen thanks to an improved fiscal forecast. Yet that is not what the OBR pre-financial measures said. Little wonder the OBR took that extraordinary step of publishing the forecasts, exposing the truth that there was no giant deficit, as briefed to the press. The OBR said it took that action to address misconceptions about the forecasts. Where might such misconceptions come from? We do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to identify the Treasury as the culprit.

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10. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·James Wild

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    I am sure that Madam Deputy Speaker is not questioning anyone. I am pointing out that the Chancellor said that there was a big £16 billion downgrade from the productivity—that was all offset—but she did not mention that—[Interruption.] If the Minister wants to intervene to say that she did mention that on 4 November, I will give way. She did not. She did not at all. Yesterday, when the Chancellor was asked in the House if she had authorised or allowed confidential details of the Budget or forecasts to be briefed to the press, she gave a categorical no. If the Chancellor did not license briefings, can the Minister give a cast-iron commitment that no other Ministers, special advisers or officials in the Treasury or No. 10 briefed or authorised briefings about potential measures or the forecasts? Frankly, if you believe that all of those were unauthorised briefings, the Treasury is utterly out of control and I have a bridge to sell you. There is a leak inquiry, but the permanent secretary said today that it centres on 13 November, not on the tsunami of tall tales on potential Budget measures. Why might that be, I wonder. Nothing less than a full inquiry, with the findings made public, will do. That brings us to the broken promises referred to in the motion. A year ago, the Chancellor delivered the biggest tax-raising Budget in modern history, hitting the British people with £40 billion of tax rises. Then in this Budget, taxes were increased yet again, by £26 billion, despite the Chancellor promising not to come back for more. Life comes at you fast. A year ago, the Chancellor also said that extending the freeze on income tax thresholds “would hurt working people. It would take more money out of their payslips.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2024; Vol. 755, c. 821.] Do Labour Members remember her saying that? I certainly do. She said that she would not freeze the thresholds. Then what did she do? Oh, she froze the thresholds. She imposed a three-year extension, with £23 billion coming out of the pockets of 1.7 million people who will pay higher taxes for her failures. As the motion says, the Chancellor should apologise for breaking her promise not to raise taxes again. What Chancellors say matters. The public and the markets need to believe them, and to trust that they are not being misled. That is not the case around the events of this Budget. That is why this motion calls on the Chancellor to apologise for the misleading picture she presented of the public finances, for the Treasury briefings that did so much damage to businesses and to people, and for breaking her promise not to increase taxes. Frankly, in the face of such a charge sheet, an apology is the very least that the British public deserve. I commend this motion to the House.

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11. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·James Wild

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    To bring the Minister back to the debate, it is about honesty and the real-world consequences of the briefing that happened around the Budget. Does the Treasury accept that hundreds of thousands of people drew down their pensions, which is an irrevocable decision—yes or no?

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12. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Gregory Stafford

    Resident Doctors: Industrial Action

    These strikes will have a massive effect on my constituents in Farnham and Bordon. I am already getting emails from constituents who are concerned about the fact that their operations will be cancelled. The BMA is being entirely irrational and it holds the lion’s share of the blame for this situation, but the Secretary of State also has to take some responsibility for what is going on. If he gives the doctors a 29% pay rise with no strings attached, it is absolutely no surprise that they come back for more. I welcome the 4,000 extra places. I would like to press him on exactly where those 4,000 places will come. Would it not be better to have published that in the workforce plan, which is continually delayed by his Department? When will that workforce plan actually come about?

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13. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Seasonal Work

    My hon. Friend may be aware that just across the channel in France, high regulation and high tax has led to consistent, long-term high youth unemployment. Speaking of Andy Williams, another song says that there is a “lesson to be learned” from this, and we do not have to look too far to learn it.

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14. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Seasonal Work

    What seems to be missing on the Government Benches is any recognition of the growing anger among young people at the fact that they are being shut out of the jobs market. It is the most damaging time in someone’s life to be barred from work when they are young. The Minister does not seem to be an Andy Williams fan, but The Clash sang under a previous Labour Government: “Career opportunities are the ones that never knock”. Not under Labour.

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15. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Seasonal Work

    My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and he is entirely right about the impact on seasonal workers, but we should always look beyond the producers to the consumers. What will the impact be at music festivals and at all sorts of events—community events—all around the country? We will see higher prices and there will be less competition and choice. It is socialism in action—everybody losing, including society as a whole.

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16. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Seasonal Work

    Tom, the landlord of the Kings Head in Hedon, heard on Budget day that business rates would be cut for businesses like his. Instead, the rateable value of that pub, which provides such an important service to the people of Hedon and the surrounding villages, has gone from £9,000 to £32,000.

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17. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Seasonal Work

    Will the Minister give way?

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18. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Seasonal Work

    Will the Minister give way?

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19. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Seasonal Work

    Would the Minister like to apologise to the more than 280,000 people who are not in work now, compared with the level of unemployment last year, and could she spell out how a business that, for example, provides catering at summer festivals and then ceases to have any festivals to service can guarantee hours to a workforce it does not need any more?

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20. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    Will my right hon. Friend give way?

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21. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    My right hon. Friend is right to put his finger on the issue of trust. It is not the 280,000 people who are not employed now compared with last year; it is not the lost opportunities for so many young people in hospitality or, indeed, the so many other areas of failure, such as the reduction in numbers of teachers. The issue that is most corrosive for this Government is a loss of trust, because we can see their mendacity from Mars.

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22. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    I wonder how best this behaviour can be described—as a falsehood, an untruth, a fib, a lie or a whopper, or are there other synonyms that better describe the repeated failure to do what one promises?

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23. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    I think it is the dishonesty that is catching at everybody’s throat. A year ago at the Budget, the Chancellor said that she was not going to freeze income tax thresholds because—I think I quote—it would be an additional tax on working people, and therefore in breach of the Labour manifesto. A year later, she did exactly that, and then claimed that it was not a breach of the Labour manifesto. That is rank dishonesty. That is why Madam Deputy Speaker is allowing language that would not normally be used in this Chamber: because this motion and this Government mean we have to address issues that normally do not occur.

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24. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    Will the Minister give way?

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25. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    On the issue of the manifesto, will the Minister confirm that it does not say that it would not raise the income tax rates? It just says that it would not raise those taxes. The word “rates” is not in there. It is that that is misleading. It is that that makes everyone outside throw things at their television, because they are disgusted by a Government who cannot face up to simple truths!

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26. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    Let me make a point before the hon. Lady makes it herself: the jobs tax is a peculiarly misconceived tax. It is a £25 billion or £26 billion hit on the real economy, with all the lost jobs that we have seen as a result, and it does not even raise much money. Looking at all the negative impacts in the round, it may actually raise even less than £10 billion. There is a £25 billion or £26 billion hit, and the measure potentially raises less than £10 billion. It is economic madness, and it shows why the Government need to think more deeply.

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27. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    I think it was Gladstone who said that the first duty of a statesman is to be honest. Is the hon. Gentleman, who I think would be recognised across the House as someone for whom honesty is a natural state, entirely comfortable with the Chancellor cherry-picking the confidential briefing from the OBR in that 4 November speech and not setting out the full circumstances that she was then aware of?

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28. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    Britain is hurting: families are cutting back, bills are soaring, and inflation is twice the Bank’s target. Just last month, the Chancellor claimed that she had no choice but to raise taxes on working people, and in true Harry Enfield style she blamed the Tories, the Tories, the Tories—and, of course, the OBR. On the subject of honesty—the thread that runs through today’s debate—it is worth me returning to my earlier exchange with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in which I said that the Labour manifesto did not specify that it was the rates of the taxes that would rise. I was quite wrong, and the Minister was correct. I would like to apologise to him and the House for getting that incorrect. The OBR told the Chancellor in October that tax receipts were £16 billion higher than expected. She knew that but suggested otherwise. That is not spin or sophisticated political communications; it is deceit, and it does matter.

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29. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    I have very limited time, so forgive me but I will not. It matters because the Chancellor has a nearly £3 trillion debt to service, and because trust is everything. Because the policies that are being implemented and the promises that were made by the Chancellor are at such variance, the markets—unlike in any other western nation, I believe —have put a higher and higher cost on borrowing for this country. That has very real-world impacts. Investors from Beverley to Berlin need to believe what the Chancellor says. After all, “credit” comes from the Latin “credo”, meaning “I believe”. If that belief falters, borrowing costs rise and more of our taxes go to paying lenders instead of funding the priorities of the British people. When trust goes, growth goes. Investors hesitate, businesses hold back and families feel the pinch. The Chancellor appears to have learnt nothing from last year’s Budget of broken promises. It was a Budget that brought higher unemployment, fewer businesses and lower growth. She did not learn from that first exercise. As the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) pointed out, the weakness of the jobs tax is not just that it will hurt growth; it does not even raise much money. It was peculiarly poorly thought through. This year’s Budget repeated more of the same. The British people know that the way to tackle the cost of living is by getting people into work, not increasing the number of people on welfare; and by creating opportunity, not dependency. But Britain has a Chancellor who talks about helping working people while making it harder to work, to save and to succeed—and throwing the OBR under the bus while she is at it. That is not a vision for the future, and it is certainly not leadership; it is fantasy dressed up as policy, and the people of Beverley and Holderness can see right through it. Labour came to power promising change. Unfortunately, change has been delivered, but it is not what we were promised. We have 280,000 more people on the unemployment register, more than 200,000 businesses have closed, and 5,000 people are signing off sick every single day, because of the decisions made by this Labour Government. People are angry about the impact of Labour policy, but my constituents tell me that they are particularly angry about feeling misled. I hope I have shown my own candour in addressing my earlier error, for which I apologise again. Can we Members of this House try to speak honestly and accurately, and not gaslight or mislead?

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30. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

    On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Last time I checked, this debate was supposed to be about the conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I know the Minister is relatively new to the Dispatch Box; perhaps he may need a little guidance.

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31. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Gareth Bacon

    Draft Building Safety Regulator (Establishment of New Body and Transfer of Functions etc.) Regulations 2026

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, for, I believe, the first time. I welcome the opportunity to sit opposite the Minister again, and I appreciate her remarks. His Majesty’s Opposition views the Government’s decision to transfer the oversight of the functions and institutional workings of the Building Safety Regulator from the Health and Safety Executive to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to be a sensible one, and we will support it today. However, if the move is to be successful and effect real change in how the Building Safety Regulator operates in the housing market, it must ensure that the shift in oversight brings improvements in delivering remediation, standards of safety and the best outcomes for local communities. As I said in a Westminster Hall debate a month and a half ago, which the Minister will remember, the Building Safety Regulator was set up with the best of intentions in the aftermath of the tragic loss of 72 lives in the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017. I believe there was collective agreement on that point. The original intention behind the creation of the Building Safety Regulator was for it to play a key role in regulating high-risk buildings, to raise the safety of all buildings, and to help professionals working in the sector, thereby fulfilling the Government’s duty to provide safe, high-quality and decent homes for the public to live in. None of those are contentious objectives. Along with other Members in that debate, however, I made the self-evident point that the Building Safety Regulator is not functioning as intended. In far too many circumstances it is preventing rather than aiding the building of those safe and decent homes. It has become a constraint on building—an all-too-large part of the increasingly muddled puzzle of red tape that now actively prevents Britain from building. According to the Construction Plant-hire Association, severe delays to a key safety approval process have stalled more than 150 high-rise residential construction projects across the UK. The CPA has stated that that has been caused by the bottleneck stemming from the gateway 2 regulatory checkpoint introduced under the Building Safety Act 2022. That is because the gateway 2 regulatory checkpoint currently requires developers to gain sign-off from the Building Safety Regulator before construction can begin on high-rise schemes. The CPA states that that is “paralysing projects”. The non-executive chairman of the Building Safety Regulator shadow board, Andy Roe—a man I know very well from my London City Hall days—appears to agree with the CPA. Earlier this year, he said that the gateway regime had “very real challenges and issues at gateway 2” and involved a process that was “designed in good faith that does not work”. I recognise and welcome the Government’s announcement in June this year that they are working to reform the process and to solve the issues, but that alone will not be enough. It will certainly not make up for the severe shortfalls in their ambitious yet increasingly impossible-looking target for 1.5 million new homes by the end of the Parliament. That is because, beyond gateway 2, around 70% of the applications that get through the Building Safety Regulator’s processes are rejected, compared with the roughly 10% to 15% of applications that get rejected in the wider British planning system. Schemes are now often delayed for 38 weeks longer than the two-week target time for approval, with 60% of adversely affected schemes in London, the city with the highest need and the greatest demand. With the lowest number of additional homes for nearly a decade, the Government have left themselves on track to fall well short of their target. Blockages resulting from the Building Safety Regulator are one part of the problem, but not the only one. As the Building Safety Regulator moves from the Health and Safety Executive to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Government have an opportunity to make genuine reforms to the operation of the Building Safety Regulator. It is very important that that opportunity is seized. As I suggested in the previous debate, improved dialogue with applicants, more guidance on the applications process, machine-readable submissions as standard and an electronic file management system will all go a long way to creating a Building Safety Regulator that works faster and more efficiently, but without any compromises on standards, equality and safety. Thank you, Ms Vaz, for the opportunity to make these points to the Minister. I sincerely hope that she will be able to take them on board and use this opportunity to effect real change, unlock the housing market, and transform the Building Safety Regulator into the trusted, pro-growth and pro-development body that it has always been intended to be and that I am sure we all want to see.

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32. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Neil Hudson

    Seasonal Work

    Epping Forest is home to some wonderful pubs and hospitality businesses, such as The Bull and the Queen Vic in Theydon Bois, the Theydon Oak, and Mila in Loughton. I hope he will join me in congratulating Mila on reaching the final of the British kebab awards next year. Does he agree that it is only through the Conservatives’ approach of scrapping business rates and supporting our high streets that these fantastic businesses will be able to survive and then thrive in the future?

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33. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Engagements

    Q7. Mr Speaker, I feel for the Prime Minister. It must be tough, wherever he goes in the UK, because of his policies: a pub, higher taxes; a restaurant, higher taxes; a café, higher taxes; a farm, higher taxes; a GP, higher taxes; a care home, higher taxes; a hospice, higher taxes. Is that the reason the Prime Minister chooses to spend so much time out of this country?

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34. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Seasonal Work

    On the tourism tax, only a couple of months ago, in response to a question that I had posed, the then Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), said, “We think they have been taxed enough.” Is it a surprise to Opposition Members to see a tourism tax being brought forward?

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35. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Seasonal Work

    It is not just wealthy people who have left. We know from the Office for National Statistics data that 257,000 Brits have gone—it had been estimated at 70,000—of whom about two thirds to three quarters are under the age of 35. We are losing young people to the rest of the world because of the implications of not being able to get a job in this country.

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36. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Seasonal Work

    How much would the 5% VAT policy cost?

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37. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Seasonal Work

    How much is it?

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38. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Seasonal Work

    As it comes towards Christmas, I tend to think of the shows I like to watch, and one is “Blackadder Goes Forth”. Near the end there is a famous quote. Blackadder is finally trying to get away, but he cannot. He knows he is going to go over the top and he says, “Well, it rhymes with clucking bell”. For me, that is what many in my constituency who run businesses are now feeling about not one but two Labour Budgets. When I think about high streets in Earl Shilton, Barwell and Hinckley, I think about our little cafés and restaurants, the shops, and the pubs. They are really feeling the pressure. The Government came in on a mandate of raising taxes—that is true—but to the tune of £7 billion or perhaps £8 billion, not £40 billion in the first Budget, and £26 billion in the second. Every Government may need to raise taxes—the Conservatives did it when we were in government—but the problem with the current Government, and the issue hitting all my businesses, is the toxic concoction of everything changing at once. There is constriction around the whole idea of growth. We see that at micro level on the high streets of Hinckley and Burbage, and at macro level as a country, with ever tightening red tape and tax, all under the auspices that we are supposed to be growing as a country. We have seen inflation and unemployment go up, and growth stagnate. That is the reality that the country is facing, and so are my high streets.

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39. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Seasonal Work

    I would love to elucidate, because if we go back to 2010, we had to deal with the financial crisis, and we had to borrow £158 billion to deal with that. Then we had to get the coffers back in the right position, and we were just about doing that before the pandemic hit and we had to borrow another £400 billion. The hon. Lady was not here under the previous Government, but every time we were here, the Opposition were asking us to spend more, and we are now feeling the pressures of having to deal with that. The hon. Lady talks about what Labour inherited, but it also inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7. We also had inflation at target and very little unemployment, but all those things are now changing under this Government, because of their polices. It is easy to see why. In the first Budget, there was an increase in the national living wage and in national insurance contributions, and business rates relief for the hospitality sector was cut from 75% to 40%. If we fast forward to this Budget, the national living wage has been raised again and the business rates relief has been cut again. Now the Government have come forward to say, “We are putting transition measures in place”, but those measures will mean a 15% increase for the vast majority of businesses. That increase is capped—I give the Government credit for that—but for the vast majority of businesses, the increase is 15% this year, and then up to 30%, 40% or 70% over three years. That is the prospect for hospitality businesses. They were already struggling because of the very nature of the pandemic as well as high inflation because of the war in Ukraine, so the situation is difficult for those businesses—they are the most vulnerable ones—yet the toxic concoction put in place by this Government is making things worse. I will go down my high streets this Christmas to speak to those businesses, but I fear what lies in prospect for them as a result of this Government’s actions. How will the measures that the Government have put in place encourage those businesses and help them to move forward? I do not think that Labour Members are anti-business and I agree that they want to support workers, but they are blinkered and naive to think about giving extra rights and pay to workers without taking into consideration the consequences of what may well happen. It is all very well having increased pay, but for people who do not have a job, that is an increase in nothing. That is the heart of the problem. We want to see more secure pay. The previous Prime Minister, the former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, talked about high productivity and high-value jobs, which all hon. Members want to see. The question is how we get there. We do not get there by tying a tight noose around the businesses that will drive those jobs, which is a real concern for me. Why would anyone take the risk of setting up a restaurant in Market Bosworth or a new pub in Donisthorpe? Why would they take on the responsibility of the livelihood of their employees? Most employers are good employers and care deeply about their workforce.

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40. 10 Dec 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Seasonal Work

    My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I bow to her experience as I know that she has run and been involved with many businesses. She speaks the truth about what businesses and risk-takers are looking at in this country. They are saying, “Why would I take that risk? Why would I take on that responsibility if there is not any reward?” I would have had more truck with the Government if they set out what they were trying to achieve over the next three or four Budgets sequentially. They could then have increased national insurance contributions, for example, as a one-off, and built around that. However, the problem is that there is a toxic concoction of measures all coming in one go.

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