5,779 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q From your experience of securing finance for green projects, and given that the other side of the coin to the Bill is the mandate and its demands for increasing percentages of blend of SAF, do you think that the mechanisms within the Bill that we are considering in this Committee will deliver scalability fast enough to meet those elements of the mandate—the 2%, or the 10% over time—or are we going to find ourselves in the position where, to meet the mandate, we will still need to rely to some degree on imports? Josh Garton: I think that imports will definitely play a role, particularly for the first-generation fuels. The structure of the mandate provides space for second-generation fuels, which are quite novel with the sustainability requirements attached to them, so the UK will be a good place for producing them. The technical design of the mechanism, which is not set out in the Bill, will be what is most critical to ensuring that the mechanism is adequate for facilitating investment.

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2. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q Building on those last two questions, in terms of the investment landscape in the UK for technology, and for SAF in particular, we are in an emerging technological race where, for example, the mandate itself starts to wind down HEFA use quite quickly. We can see waste-derived fuels coming down, but then we have heard from witnesses, such as Zero Petroleum and other manufacturers of e-fuels and power-to-liquid fuels, that this might be where the technology settles in the long term. How much reticence is there from those who might finance these projects to go there on a technology that could well be stood down in 10 or 20 years in favour of something else coming upstream? Josh Garton: To go there? Are you talking about the first-generation fuels?

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3. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Well, first and second, until we get to third. Josh Garton: It is certainly a consideration, but I think most investors are very cognisant of the fact that the third-generation fuel, while absolutely necessary in the long term, has some way to go to evolve to that point. There is a lot of space still for the first and second-generation fuels to develop, but there will be some consideration about not building overcapacity in those sectors.

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4. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q Can I gently push you on that? We heard from the witness from Zero Petroleum earlier that they are ready to scale now, in reference to a question from one of the Liberal Democrat Members on the Committee. If that is the case, what do you see as the barriers to those later-generation fuels being scalable now, when one witness who actually does it—sat where you are sat not half an hour ago—said they are ready to scale? Josh Garton: Certainly, the technologies are at that point. There are still commercial challenges; they have been proven at demonstration scale but not at the commercial scale. In the UK, we have a mandate that provides space for second-generation fuels. While that mandate remains intact, there will be a lot of space for that fuel over the long term. In the EU they have a different structure, where they do not have that same space for second-generation fuels.

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5. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q Good afternoon, Mr New. Fast-forwarding from your review to where we are today, is there anything that you wanted to see, that you recommended or that you found in that review, that is lacking in the Bill that this Committee is considering? If that is the case, how would you improve it—or is this the mechanism that you think will pump-prime the UK SAF industry? Philip New: The main conclusions from the report that I did were, first, that the SAF mandate as laid out—it was at a slightly more formative stage then than it is now—was a really smart way of trying to define the market mechanisms, the targets and the obligations framing a new market. The question then was what other mechanisms would need to be in place, having got the demand side largely mapped by the mandate, to enable supply to occur. My first thought when I saw the RCM was that there was very little that was needed: if you believe that the market will be short of SAF, as many people do, with a buy-out price and a target, you would expect the product to price close to the buy-out price—that which is available. That sends a very strong price signal to investors. I was unfortunately thinking of that from my historical perspective as a strategic investor and had underestimated the conservatism of the banking community. It was clear to me that they were pushing very hard—perhaps because they had grown very comfortable with the idea of a CFD in other parts of the green transition—and they were really enthused and insistent on the idea of a revenue certainty mechanism. The way that the RCM has emerged so far is very highly aligned with the proposals that emerged in that original report. From that point of view I would say, “So far, so good.” The mandate is evolving well and the RCM feels pretty much where it needs to be. The questions that are still out there, as I think Josh Garton was referring to, are specific to very first-of-a-kind technologies. Part of the issue with the second-generation products is that, while the feedstocks are already wastes, they are often already being used in other sectors. There needs to be, I think, some greater degree of comfort to enable some of those wastes to be bid away without wrecking the project economics of the SAF developer. A good example is black bin waste. The prospect is that by having more competition for black bin waste, we reduce costs for local authorities. It is really nice if we can get there, but for now, while these technologies are so uncertain and regarded as such a risk, it is difficult for local authorities to commit to them with enthusiasm, because they are afraid that they will end up paying landfill fees if they do not manage to do it. That is one example suggesting that there should be some more comfort around feedstocks. The rest of the answer are the mechanisms that could be put in place to smooth some of the risk around the very first projects. The risks there are around integrating new technologies for the first time and then getting through some of the operating teething problems, because everyone involved will be coming across those issues for the first time. It took me about four years to get a much simpler plant up and running to a point of satisfactory operation. We should not underestimate the challenges of getting those initial assets over that first set of hurdles, but the RCM is an absolutely necessary part of the mix that needs to be put in place.

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6. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q That is very helpful. As you raised, for example, the black bin waste stream, it strikes me that looking across the differing technologies to produce SAF, the waste-derived ones could end up being the most costly, not least because the bulk of waste goes through local authorities. Many of those—including my own in Buckinghamshire—are tied up in very long-term finance arrangements on incinerators, so they cannot simply take their waste somewhere else because they are locked in a contract. Buckinghamshire is by no means unique in that. Do you see waste-derived SAF hitting an even bigger buffer when the practicalities come, and it either requiring some significant state subsidy to buy out those incinerator contracts or simply not having the waste in the first place? Philip New: When I first engaged with this, I had exactly the same thought. However, a few things are starting to emerge that sit on the more optimistic side of the balance of risk here. First of all, over time there will be more and more pressure for the energy from waste manufacturers to access carbon capture and storage. It is not at all the cleanest way of generating an electron in this day and age. It would be reasonable to expect that over the next 15 years, we will see a number of those assets get to a point where the contracts are expiring. They will then need to contemplate refinancing, and if they do, whether or not they have access to carbon capture and storage will become important. Not all of them will be able to either afford or justify it, because they are too distant from where the carbon sinks are. There is a probability that enough capacity will start to come off stream for it to be picked up. On top of that, the imposition of the emissions trading tax will start to free up some of the very difficult to recycle plastics, which could be used to make SAF. There is also an interesting stream of waste wood that will become available, particularly as some of the rocks start to fall away, which will start to happen in a couple of years’ time—and assets that at the moment are making renewable electricity out of waste wood will lose their rocks. We also need to remember that it is the local authority that is paying the energy from waste company to move it away. I have recently been involved with some economic analysis. We assumed that for the first wave of sites there would be a 100% discount. In other words, rather than the local authority paying, it would get rid of the waste for free. The developer would not pay for it themselves, but the local authority would still save the money. We thought that would be necessary to give local authorities the comfort to take on the exposure. Later on, there might be scope for it to become a little more competitive, because people will get more comfortable and there will be more confidence in the technology. I do not think that we simply have to bail them out. I think there might be something around a guarantee of some description that simply says to a local authority, “Look, if you give a contract to one of these companies and it fails—if it can’t live up to that contract—and you have to put it into landfill and pay the landfill tax, there could be some kind of keep-whole mechanism,” just to encourage them over the line. The other thing that you could consider is looking at the waste hierarchy. Simply moving this from being recovery to recovery-plus would send a very strong signal to local authorities that putting it into SAF is a better use of their waste than simply incinerating it and turning it into electrons.

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7. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q Good afternoon. Does the Bill get that balance right? Will it increase UK production of SAF to the point that we have domestic fuel security, or is there a better way of decarbonising aviation fuel? Geoff Maynard: I think the short answer is yes. It meets that requirement because, unless there are some incentives for SAF—which will cost more than the kerosene that would otherwise be used—there is no incentive for the aviation industry to use it. That presents a problem because there is then no environmental benefit, which we desperately and quickly need. The Bill is a good way forward, as we see it.

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8. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q But it is the mandate that tells them they have to use it. The Bill is about domestic SAF production. Geoff Maynard: But production is important. You could have a situation in which there is a mandate but nobody can acquire the fuel, except at a totally extortionate price. There would then be pressure on the Government to revise the mandate. That is how we see it.

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9. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

   Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

   Q That is a very fair answer. On the cost basis, the Government have said that the end-user cost—as opposed to the cost to the airline or the producer—of buying a plane ticket is plus/minus £1.50 on a fare. We have heard from multiple witnesses today that that is potentially an optimistic figure. Where does your organisation’s analysis put it? Geoff Maynard: It depends on where you are within the mandate. If you are looking at low mandates, up to about 10%, then the £1.50 figure is probably correct, but as we move further on, it seems unlikely that it will be quite as low as that.

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10. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Where does your organisation see the price of SAF going in the medium and long term? In theory, if the Bill works, SAF production in the United Kingdom will increase exponentially. Therefore, the unit cost—the per litre or per tonne cost—will come down. How long does your analysis suggest it will take us—as a country, as opposed to a global market—to be able to supply SAF to the airlines at a cost that is closer to the fossil-fuel equivalent today? Geoff Maynard: On the face of it, you would expect the cost to fall, but the problem is that there is only a limited amount of raw materials for the generation 1 and 2 fuels to proceed. You will have to move forward to meet the requirements; you will have to move to power-to-liquid fuels, and they are going to be more expensive to produce. Therefore, at some point, as they kick in, to meet the overall figures, the cost base will rise. That is why we believe that, in the longer term, it will be slightly more expensive because there are not the cheaper feedstocks that are currently available.

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11. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

    Q It is always good to get an academic perspective on these matters. We can get locked into all sorts of technical discussions and lose the bigger picture. From your work in the UCL centre, is there an academic view—a big picture view—on which of the technologies that the Bill could support through the price mechanism to scale up production in this country has the best chance of breaking through and being a long-term solution, on a scale that will give us domestic fuel security and at a cost that will not drive commercial passengers and holidaymakers away from the airlines? Professor Maslin: We take the very large view that the only way to make the international aviation industry net zero is by SAFs. Electric short haul—possible in the next 20 to 30 years. Hydrogen—forget it; it is never going to work and any pilot will tell you, “Not a chance.” That is just so we have that laid out there. We need SAFs both UK-wide and globally, and we are talking, as an academic institution, with very large airlines that want to produce SAFs in their own country. As academics, my colleagues and I would not pick one technology. What you need to do is what you are doing, which is having a levy that says, “If you produce SAFs, you will then have this benefit.” Then, you will work out which technology comes to the fore, whether that happens to be alcohol production or waste. You should stay agnostic to the successful SAFs output.

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12. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

    Q That is very helpful. You may have heard me ask previous witnesses about the cost to the end user. The Government’s analysis is that it would end up being plus or minus £1.50 on the airfare, but a succession of witnesses have not been willing to put their name to that, or even to go as far as saying that they think that that is a conservative estimate. Where does your analysis sit on that? Professor Maslin: Our analysis is slightly different because it is looking at the industry as a whole. On the airline side, there is a worry that these costs will literally be shoved on to the airlines. Many of us do not realise that the difference between this industry and others is that it is a very narrow margin industry. If there is any change in geopolitics, companies can go bust—for example, Finnair. Airlines are worried about this levy system, not necessarily because of the extra cost, but because they are not reassured that when there is a surplus, which goes back to the actual producers, it will be then be passed back to the airline. Again, they are happy with the up and down mechanism, but there seems to be no way of shunting that back to airlines to say, “Okay, you have done well, so you can get some money back.” That is more the concern. Adding £1 or £2 to the price of a flight does not concern the airlines from the passenger point of view—it will not put passengers off. What will put them off is when the airlines suddenly realise that if you multiply that by 550, which is the number of people in an A380, you suddenly start to bankroll quite a lot of extra money that has to be found. I am hedging my bets, so I will not tell you that it will be higher or lower than £1.50. That is a very small amount per individual, but for the companies that are trying to make aviation work and are positive about trying to move to net zero, this is the perfect time to push, as they have suddenly woken up to the fact that they are laggards.

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13. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Minister, no doubt we will be able to go through much of this on Thursday and next Tuesday, but a central feature of the debate on Second Reading was the ultimate impact on airfare payers of the price mechanism in the Bill, on top of the mandate. You were very clear at the Dispatch Box that it was plus or minus £1.50. I have no reason to doubt that, but some of the witnesses today have. Is there some more work to be done by the Department as the Bill progresses to kick the tyres on those assumptions? How confident are you that it will stand the test of time, given that multiple witnesses today have challenged that number? Mike Kane: As the Minister, may I start by thanking all Committee members and witnesses for their time today? I think it is a great question. We have a world-class aviation sector and, if we want to stay world class, it is absolutely essential that we pass this Bill. It is part of our manifesto commitment. We introduced the mandate on 1 January for 2% on the demand side, and this now begins to give investment to the supply side. You are absolutely right; we have to remain competitive in the aviation market if we are going to remain the third largest on the planet, and one of the most advanced. The figure we have from the departmental analysis teams is that it is plus or minus £1.50 of the price of a ticket over a year. That is less than my Bee Network bus fare, where Andy Burnham keeps the cost below £2. That is what we are looking at. You ask how we are going to look at this. To answer in all seriousness, we are going to continue to monitor and control by managing the scale of the number of contracts we let. This gives the Secretary of State—whoever it is, from whichever party it is in the future—the power to look at what is happening and scale up or down if the market is badly distorted. We feel that there is no big impact on consumers taking their annual holiday to the south of Spain once a year. They will continue to do that unaffected.

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14. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

    Q Thank you. That is helpful. Can I also ask for your views on a couple of other areas of evidence we heard today? The first is about a point that also came up on Second Reading: the protection of UK intellectual property as contracts are let and participants come forward to take part in the price mechanism. Has the Department done any more thinking on UK IP, so that we are not just producing SAF, of whichever technology, within the United Kingdom for our own fuel security, but doing so with genuinely UK technology driving it? Mike Kane: As we said, we are agnostic to the technology. As we let the contracts, that is where the innovation will come. There is a wider question across Government and UK security about intellectual property, and of course we will keep in contact with our colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade who look at that. The world is looking to us at the moment, as Lahiru from EasyJet said this morning, because we are the first doing this. We want to maintain the intellectual property by being first in the world to do this and then, as the companies come forward with the innovative technology, we want to properly IP that and maintain the competitive advantage in the UK.

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15. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Greg Smith

    Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

    Q This is my final question before we get to go through the Bill in detail on Thursday and next Tuesday. Accepting the agnostic position, has anything you have heard today from the various companies who have given evidence, be that global giants such as Shell, UK-based innovators such as Zero Petroleum or the companies developing SAFs from waste, changed your thinking on whether there might be emerging winners and losers, given some of the challenges that we have heard about—not least the municipal waste challenges? Mike Kane: As the Minister leading on the Bill, I would say, “My kingdom for a chemistry degree.” Actually, Mark said something that I thought was very pertinent towards the end: we just have to allow the technology to emerge. That way, as we get to the power-to-liquids and the harder piece to do, in five, 10 or 15 years, there will be a market for it. The beauty of the Bill is that we can let contracts over five or 10 years. Personally, even though Exxon has reservations about this measure, the only emotion I would convey to Exxon is thanks for producing this fuel now, in this country. Exxon is happy about the SAF mandate; its issue is with the revenue certainty mechanism. That is an area where, once the market is established, the Government have an exit strategy; once the market begins to work, the then Secretary of State will have ways out of it, because Government will not need to be in it once we have established it.

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16. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Net Zero Policies

    Around Beverley, there are proposals for five solar farms, totalling 465 MW. Can the Minister assure my constituents that the scientific evidence that will be used to assess this will include the cumulative impact of these projects on the area around Beverley?

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17. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Topical Questions

    Evidence from the National Grid, Ofgem and Imperial College London shows that locational or zonal pricing would save billions of pounds a year, lower bills and reduce the need for expensive and often unpopular grid infrastructure. Why has the Secretary of State ruled it out?

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18. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Welfare Spending

    The Minister and Labour Members are in absolute denial about the state of the country. The Government came in with growth as their No. 1 mission, and what have they done? They have brought growth to an absolute, shuddering halt. They have done what every Labour Government do, which is to increase unemployment. Who does that hurt the most? It is the poorest. From an age point of view, who does that hurt the most? It is the young. An increase in youth unemployment of 45% was a scar on this country that the last Labour Government left. It was the Conservative Government that outgrew Germany, France, Japan and Italy over the 14 years we were in power. She should be ashamed of her record, even though it is only 12 months old.

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19. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Welfare Spending

    Does the hon. Lady recognise that there were 800,000 fewer people—including 300,000 children—in absolute poverty and 4 million more people in work in the UK when the Conservatives left power in 2024 than there were in 2010? Labour Governments take us in the opposite direction: they put people in the dole queue and make the whole country poorer. That is why the Conservative party can be proud of its role in poverty reduction, including for children.

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20. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Welfare Spending

    The focus of the motion today is the two-child benefit limit, yet we heard not a single word from the Minister about it. That shows just how listless and drifting the Government are, when those on the Front Bench cannot tell the truth to this House or to those on the Back Benches. The truth is that the Labour party is riven in two, and those on the Front Bench no longer have any power of propulsion.

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21. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Welfare Spending

    I am sure that the Minister wants to give a fair and balanced overview, and we all wish to see fewer people in relative poverty, notwithstanding his support last week for a measure that would have put it up by a quarter of a million. Just to have balance on the record, does he recognise that, in absolute terms, between 2010 and 2024 the number of children in poverty dropped by 300,000, and the number of people in poverty overall by 800,000?

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22. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Welfare Spending

    On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given collective responsibility, is it in order for a Minister of the Crown to argue against a policy of his own Government? If I have understood correctly, it is the policy of the Government and the Labour party to maintain the two-child benefit cap.

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23. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    Amid the shadow Chancellor’s quite correct exposition on the subject of where the Government have gone wrong, does he not have a little pity for the Ministers on the Government Front Bench? After last week, it is quite clear that they are no longer responsible for the running of the Government, as that has been handed to the hard left who have no interest whatsoever in balancing the books, and do not care about rising debt, rising gilt costs and the other irresponsible outcomes of this Government, who are now absolutely out of control.

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24. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    The Chief Secretary said the name of the game is to get the maximum number of seats. I gently suggest to him that that is not the name of the game; the name of the game is to serve the British people and honour the promises we make to them. [Interruption.] He thinks that is amusing. If he wants to know where his vast majority came from, it came with a series of promises that, one by one, he is breaking.

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25. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    As a Scottish MP, does the hon. Gentleman wish to differ slightly with those on his Front Bench, who have said there should be no new licences for North sea oil and gas? That policy does not mean that we will consume a drop less oil and gas; it simply means that we will import it from abroad with higher emissions and with tens of billions of pounds of tax and tens of thousands of jobs lost. Surely, as a Scottish MP, he should speak up for his constituents and say to those on the Front Bench, “Come on—let’s get those licences going again.”

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26. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    The hon. Gentleman is giving a powerful speech on this subject. I was at the Great Yorkshire Show last week, and there we had not only livestock and farmers, but the whole supply chain around that. The only conversation there was exactly as the hon. Gentleman describes, of a whole industry brought low because of this misconceived measure. He talked about Chancellors being presented with things. The caravan tax was presented to the Chancellor in 2012, and it took Government Back Benchers to persuade those on the Front Bench to change path. I hope Labour Members might do the same with the farm tax.

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27. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    On the trade deals, it turned out that the deal with the US entirely excluded the British bioethanol industry, until the President of the United States phoned up the Prime Minister and he unilaterally gave away the entirety of the market, putting at risk hundreds of jobs at Vivergo and thousands of jobs in the supply chain and at Ensus.

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28. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not want to mislead the House, so he will recognise that in 2010, fewer than 12% of homes in this country were properly insulated with an energy performance certificate rated C or above; when we handed over power last year, that figure was over 60%. He can look up those numbers, and I ask him to never misrepresent that record in this House, because that is the reality.

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29. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. It is worth reminding the House of the situation in July last year: we had the fastest growth in the G7; employment was 4 million higher than in 2010, with up to 33 million people in employment; inflation was on target, at around 2%; and the UK, between 2010 and 2024, had grown faster than Germany, France, Japan and Italy. That was the legacy of Conservative stewardship. I have asked Labour Members to give a more rounded picture, but sadly they almost always refuse to do so. Debt to GDP had gone up significantly, partly because of the massive deficit that we inherited in 2010, at more than 10% of GDP—that was phenomenal and had to be brought down over time—and partly because of covid and Ukraine, when we intervened to pay half of everyone’s energy bills. That is a more rounded picture. Overall, we managed to come out with people helped through covid and through the energy crisis, and with remarkably high levels of employment. Yet just a year later, under this Chancellor’s watch, that strong foundation has crumbled. The Labour party needed to recognise that the economy was recovering and to let it grow. Instead, by coming in and being held by the manifesto commitments not to put up the main taxes on the one hand, and on the other, thinking that they were being clever and somehow keeping to their pledges by imposing national insurance rises on business but not individuals, that had the most bizarre and perverse effect. The £25 billion hit on the economy created by the jobs tax comes down to about £16 billion after behaviour change, according to the OBR. Then, after compensation for the public sector, it comes down to about £11 million. Then, people have had to scrabble around for hospices, GPs and so on, which means the net is probably about £10 million, and that is before the depressing impact on the overall economy, meaning it almost certainly comes to single-figure billions. But guess what the OBR also says: from next year, 76% of the impact of the £25 billion hit comes out of ordinary people’s wages. That is the situation. The Government have imposed a tax of £19 billion on ordinary people’s earnings in order to generate less than £10 billion of tax revenue. That is utterly insane, and I ask Members on the Government Back Benches to have a look at that, follow it and come back. I would love to hear that those numbers are wrong, because I would love to hear that we are not doing something as suicidal, crazy and damaging as it appears to be. I wish I could drink the Kool-Aid, like the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger). The funniest thing about him—a man for whom I have a great deal of respect and affection—is that, unlike some of his colleagues who spout this stuff, he gives every impression, which I believe, that he believes it himself. That is what is truly extraordinary.

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30. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Graham Stuart

    Taxes

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. The economy has contracted for two consecutive months, shrinking by 0.3% in April and 0.1% in May, in a textbook sign that we are in, or could be headed into, recession. Employment is down too, with Office for National Statistics data showing that payroll jobs have fallen by more than 100,000 in a single month, with around 274,000 fewer jobs compared with last year and unemployment climbing to 4.6%. Following the excellent speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), I would just say that we should look at the big picture. Again, I appeal to colleagues on the Labour Benches. There was a magnificent victory for Labour last year in the election, with 400-plus MPs elected, and it really is up to Labour Members to recognise just how scary a position we are in. We have debt to GDP at about 100% and we have a world in which the fastest growth is to be found in developing states, some of which are quite hostile to us and to our values. The truth is that no rich, powerful country has a divine right to stay that way. Wealth does not just come down from the heavens. Even in the 14 years when we were in government, too often in this place we seemed to obsess only on how we would spend money. From the moment we got up in the morning to the time we went to bed at night, we would talk about how we would spend the money, but we have to generate it first. It does not matter whether our No. 1 concern is the alleviation of poverty, the defence of the nation, education or the health service—we have to have a strong economy. That is why the Government were right. One of the reasons they got that majority may be because they said that their No. 1 mission was economic growth. Remember that? It does not come through in the speeches from Labour Members now. Their No. 1 mission was economic growth. We should be sweating in Select Committees, in all-party groups, on the Floor of this House and in Westminster Hall over how we deliver that economic growth, so that we are not going backwards but are actually growing the economy. We also have to accept something that is going to be tough for Labour Members, most of whom have not had any private sector experience and who tend to believe that the rich are just there to take money off and wealth creators can be endlessly offered haircuts and will just put up with it and if they do not, it shows some moral flaw on their part. We have to accept that the art of government is to recognise the realities, to align the incentives of actors—in this case in the economy—with the public goods we want to see. After a year, there are so many flashing red lights and warning signs that the Government are not getting that right, so they need to be prepared to think again. I was involved after that omnishambles Budget of 2012, when I was part of helping the then Chancellor see his route to a better path forward, and my experience tells me that Labour Members must recognise that the country is potentially in a really serious, parlous position. We have no divine right to be a wealthy, powerful nation. The next four years are important. I hope and expect that there will be a Conservative Government after that, but whatever happens, the next four years are important and I hope that Labour Members will start to give rather more nuanced and thoughtful speeches in order to influence the Front Bench.

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31. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Taxes

    I am grateful to the shadow Chancellor for making that point. Does he believe that a humble toolmaker who happens to own a small business is a working person?

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32. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Luke Evans

    Taxes

    The shadow Chancellor makes a very good point. Is he surprised by the Federation of Small Businesses, which has come out and said that for the first time ever in its index—since records began in 2008—more small businesses will contract than will grow? Is he as worried as I am about what signal that sends to those small business owners who are trying to grow for our economy?

    Hansard source
33. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, which at its heart is about fairness and what works, rather than what sounds good. I believe that supporting families and helping parents requires a balanced system that provides support for those who need it, but that also ensures a sense of fairness to the taxpayer and the many working families who do not see their incomes rise automatically when they have more children. The previous benefit structure, which adjusted automatically for family size, was unfair on taxpayers, who pay for the extra benefits being received. Indeed, under the previous Labour Government, 1.4 million people spent years trapped in out-of-work benefits, with 50,000 households allowed to claim benefits worth over £500 a week, or over £26,000 a year, which was higher than the average wage at that time. Taxpaying families who are not in receipt of benefits often have to make tough decisions when choosing how many children to have, and many will have made the decision not to have more simply because they could not afford it. As others have pointed out, for demographic reasons we may wish that that was not the case, but it is, and it simply is not fair to ask families who are making those difficult decisions to pay for the benefits of others who are not making those choices.

    Hansard source
34. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    I agree. I find it hard to believe that Labour Members would allow and support a system where someone could have five, six, seven, eight, or nine children—all being paid for by somebody else—and think that that is fair.

    Hansard source
35. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    It is the inability to have difficult conversations and make difficult points that puts Labour Members on the wrong side of these issues and on the wrong side of British taxpayers, who understand the complexity of these things.

    Hansard source
36. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    Not right now. I recognise, of course, that some people are not able to make the same choice about the number of children in their family—including, for example, children who are cared for under kinship arrangements, or adopted; there are many exceptions to the policy to make it fair. The welfare system is already growing unsustainably, with spending on health and disability benefits alone set to hit £100 billion by the end of the decade, yet Labour, Reform and the Liberal Democrats all back higher welfare spending, including scrapping the two-child limit, which will keep taxes high. The Resolution Foundation estimates that scrapping the two-child benefit limit will cost £3.5 billion a year by 2029-30. Is this really an appropriate time to put more pressure on the public finances?

    Hansard source
37. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    As others have pointed out, the Government put forward welfare reforms that were supposed to save money but ended up costing money, and this is yet another attempt to placate their Back Benchers in a way that we cannot afford. We must be clear about our record: we brought down absolute child poverty when we were in government. Labour Members are happy to quote figures on relative poverty and take them at face value, but when we quote figures on absolute poverty from the same datasets, they do not want to hear it. I am clear that I care more about absolute poverty, and how much someone actually has to spend on things that they need, than I do about relative poverty.

    Hansard source
38. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    I think we need to look at the absolute poverty figures and at what difference we can make to them—and what makes a long-term difference to the number of people in poverty of any kind is employment. We reversed the decline in employment, but we are now seeing it get higher every day under this Government’s policies. That is what is bringing even more people into poverty—their record on the economy and on employment.

    Hansard source
39. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    I want to finish my speech. Poverty is, of course, a matter for Government. It is about policies and about incomes, but there is another important side to child poverty in this country that people are too uncomfortable to talk about: child maintenance and the absence of payments made in single-parent families. Research by the single-parent advocacy organisation Gingerbread found that 43% of children in single-parent families in the UK are living in poverty, compared with 26% in couple families. We know that poverty has many causes and there is no single solution, but there is clear evidence that when child maintenance is paid in full, it has a significant impact in lifting children out of poverty. Research shows that where it is received, child maintenance cuts the child poverty rate by 25%. Gingerbread’s “Fix the CMS” report found that 57% of parents who care for a child and had a child maintenance arrangement in place reported that they did not receive the full amount. The amounts involved are significant. At the end of September 2024, total cumulative arrears of payments that were formally expected stood at £682.1 million, and that figure is due to reach £1 billion by the end of the decade. That is just a fraction of the story, because those figures are based only on the sometimes quite pitiful amounts that non-custodial parents have to pay, either because they earn little or because they hide what they earn. Those figures also do not include parents who are not pursued for money by the custodial parent. Absent parents are denying children much higher amounts of money than the official figures suggest, and there is a deep unfairness to that. If a custodial parent simply chose not to provide any more resources to the child they care for, they would face criminal sanction for neglect. A non-custodial parent who does not give money for the upkeep of their child faces no similar ramifications. I have no idea why we do not place an expectation on a non-custodial parent to make the same efforts to find work and earn money as we do with out-of-work people on benefits, as they are also creating a burden on the taxpayer. As the Minister may know, there is legislation that allows steps to be taken to place non-paying parents in home detention. I urge her and the Government to look closely at that. If people cannot be bothered to go out, work and pay for their children when they do not live with them, they should not be allowed out on a Saturday night to drink beers with their mates. That would help to drive down the huge amount of money that is owed to children by parents who are simply not paying for them—

    Hansard source
40. 15 Jul 2025·Parliament·Dr Kieran Mullan

    Welfare Spending

    I am deeply moved by the Minister’s commitment to reducing poverty. Will he explain why, as a Minister, he supported the Government’s proposals in the Universal Credit Bill last week, which their own impact assessments said would increase poverty?

    Hansard source