5,804 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   My hon. Friend makes exactly the right point about that triple whammy, and about the cumulative effect of changes and the consequences—potentially unintended—that manifest themselves most acutely in industries such as UK hospitality and retail, which have the great virtue, among many others, of contributing to the character of the places in which we live and giving so many young people their first step on the ladder of opportunity and their first experience of work. Without those businesses, it will be inexorably harder for young people. That is one reason that it is of such great concern that the number of people employed on payrolls under this Government has already fallen by 100,000, with a faster rate of decline in the first quarter of this year. This Government are perfectly positioned to achieve the unbroken track record of every Labour Government in modern history of leaving office with unemployment higher than when they started.

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2. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   My right hon. Friend is exactly right. He will correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, one millionaire is leaving our wonderful country every 45 minutes. That is to say nothing of a generation of young people who are yet to have their opportunity. How tragic it would be to think that young people see greater opportunity—notwithstanding their birthright of being born in this wonderful country—in other parts of the world than is present on their doorstep, in their communities and in the heart of their families. It has to be said that this Government’s combination of actions are sending a clear and regrettable message to those who seek to create wealth: “Don’t bother. Don’t even try.” This socialist Government do not want people to succeed. There could be no better example of that than the vindictive family business and family farm death tax, which will carve up successful businesses as and when they are handed down to the next generation. Why do we think this vindictive policy exists? One of the more benign interpretations, to be charitable, is simply the dearth of business experience in the Labour Cabinet. It has to be said, though, that the Cabinet members are world-class in their understanding of, and potential avarice in relation to, trade unions. Perhaps that is why the Secretary of State, who has not deigned to be here with us today, is currently undertaking the most expensive work experience placement in history at taxpayers’ expense at British Steel in Scunthorpe. It is not just that this Government do not understand the mechanics of business; they do not understand and value the principle of business. Running or investing in a business at its core is a profound act of human courage—the triumph of optimism over inertia, and a mindset of someone solving problems themselves rather than waiting for permission from others. It is about embracing risk knowing that there are no guarantees, no bail-outs and that no one is coming to the rescue. When enterprise succeeds, such people create the wealth that funds our public services. Every time a Minister dispenses money and largesse in Whitehall, as this Government are doing at record velocity, they can do so only because a founder, an entrepreneur, or a businessman or businesswoman, took that leap. It should be the Government’s job to get out of their way and to help the business builders, not the blockers, but this Labour Government understand none of that. Instead of leaving business to get on and flourish, they have erected a blockade of bureaucracy and taxes that they promised would never come. They have declared war on employers across this land from the ramparts of Westminster.

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3. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   My hon. Friend, who is himself a very distinguished and successful businessman, knows exactly the importance of that intangible quality of confidence that the Government have your back and you will not wake up in the morning and be hit with a £25 billion jobs tax—on which subject there was not one word, not one syllable, in the Labour party manifesto. We toured the studios jousting with Labour Members and issuing warnings, but we were met with a repeated barrage of denials in respect of their £25 billion jobs tax. [Interruption.] The Ministers are chuntering, and there is probably a fair amount of chuntering to do if they have to explain an inability to balance the public finances along with an attempt to do so by means of a set of vindictive and arithmetically incorrect taxes on business. We can move on from tax. That is just one of the many barrages faced by businesses that are sapping confidence and producing some of the very worrying statistics that we are seeing. We could, for instance, move on to the “Unemployment Rights Bill”, which is an egregious example of red tape and state intervention and overreach. At this point Labour Members are normally uncharacteristically quiet, because they are aided and abetted to the tune of £31 million by the trade unions. The Bill shackles the hands of employers in pubs, bars, garden centres, grocery stores, butchers, hairdressers —businesses rooted deep in our communities—with little clarity and no lead-in time. Seasonal work could be made impossible by the Bill. It is certain that compliance costs will rocket. There will be long delays for employment tribunal hearings; in some parts of the country, the wait for a hearing is already approaching 18 months. Even according to the Government’s own estimate, on top of every other measure, there will be a headwind cost for business of an unwanted £5 billion a year.

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4. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   No one would believe, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you would implement such terrible measures without a proper impact assessment. More significant, however, is the fact that we have heard not just the voice of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths), representing those important seasonal industries, but the voice of employers across the country, who have pointed out that it will no longer be possible for seasonable and flexible work to deliver the economy that we need.

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5. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   My hon. Friend is exactly right. If Labour Members were honest enough to do so, they would admit that the Bill is a rushed piece of legislation. It was introduced because of an arbitrary promise to do so within 100 days, and it was introduced at half its current length, which means that 50% of the words that it now contains—the red tape that our businesses will have to implement and wrestle with for years to come—did not even benefit from scrutiny in this place. Many of the powers in the Bill are not fleshed out or clarified. We will wreak great havoc and uncertainty on business if the Government are determined to proceed. It would be far better for them to shelve the Bill, to listen, to learn and then to come back so that we could use the proper mechanisms of this House to do our jobs for all our constituents to avoid the unintended consequences and the damage that I do not believe anyone would want.

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6. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   One has to celebrate small mercies, and I am delighted by the hon. Gentleman’s conversion to the cause of free trade. Free trade is what has lifted billions of people in the world out of poverty. It has made us the great country that we are today. The business in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency that has formed such a clear view has obviously benefited from considerably more detail than the House, so perhaps he will share its name. We would be very happy to hear about the details of the trade agreement that has been reached. Perhaps, in having that conversation with his local business, the hon. Gentleman would like to engage in a discussion about its views on the Employment Rights Bill. Despite legion opportunities that I, and others, have given Ministers to name a single business that is in favour of all the measures in the Bill, answer still comes there none.

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7. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   I hesitate to stray into the matter of fishing, which I suspect we will debate many times in the future, but I note that those on the other Government Benches next to us tabled an amendment, which has not been selected for debate but which seeks to shackle our small businesses further by having us reverse across a much broader range of topics than the pass that the Government already sold earlier this week, so that we become a taker of rules from Brussels, and our small businesses, entrepreneurs and founders are crushed by the red tape that would originate there.

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8. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   Once again, my hon. Friend has demonstrated his deep and real knowledge of business, having himself, in a past life, employed more than 1,000 people. One rather suspects that taking that risk, having that responsibility and shouldering that burden, moral and financial, is greater than the entire aggregate responsibility of Labour Members for hiring anyone. My hon. Friend has made the right point about who will end up on the receiving end of the higher unemployment. It will be the young, looking for their first opportunities, and it will be excluded and vulnerable groups on whom a benign employer would today take a chance—but not if that chance is likely to lead immediately to being at the back of an 18-month-long queue for an employment tribunal hearing.

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9. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

   Business and the Economy

   I am afraid that to make those points is to misconstrue wilfully what is actually in the Bill. We have a very settled and balanced position of employment rights that dates back to before previous Labour Governments as well as the Government in office before the election. It strikes what will always be a difficult balance between offering employees the chance to enter the workforce and the ability of businesses, and of the public sector and others, to hire and to operate in a way that is profitable. It does nobody any favours to think that we can, merely by passing words of statute, change the outcomes in a way that advantages the most vulnerable, who are the youngest employees. The failure to learn from that point will once again lead to exactly the same outcome, which is why every Labour Government have left office with unemployment higher than where it started. In his response, the Minister may wish to confirm that this time will be different and perhaps lay out exactly why it will be different, but he has a job of work to convince us and, more importantly, every employer in the land that that is the case.

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10. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that very perceptive observation. I hate to say this, but I was not making a casual point; it was a considered point. When we think about how this House continues to legislate and tax in a way that reduces economic growth, that does not celebrate a culture of entrepreneurialism and founders, and that is leading to higher employment, with 100,000 fewer people on payroll than there were a year ago, we should all look deep into our souls. What is the endemic failure in Parliament, and of this Government in particular, that is leading so quickly to precisely those outcomes? It is sad to say that sometimes there is a lack of voice for business. Although one does not want every single sector to be represented in this place, the compensatory mechanism for that involves consultation and diligent impact assessments. In introducing legislation, this Government have been serially criticised for the way that they have casually discarded such measures, and the Treasury maths simply do not add up.

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11. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    I do indeed agree. We ought to confront how we have got here—I acknowledge that it has happened over a period of time—with so many young people unable to work, get an education or be in productive training. That is a headwind on the economy, and a moral failure of us all. The question that we should confront ourselves with is this: what are we doing each and every day in this place to give opportunities to 1 million young people and the 9 million others of working age who remain stubbornly on welfare, while improving our public finances and making the maximum use of the wonderful resources, education and skills of the British people, so that we can grow our economy and be the prosperous nation that we once again deserve to be?

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12. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    She is right, and that is one of the chilling headwinds that anyone who wants to grow the economy, and anyone who serves in the wonderful Department for Business and Trade or our Treasury, should confront. We should be going back to officials and challenging exactly that. How can we achieve a culture vibe shift on growth and entrepreneurship? That is the best contribution that we could all make.

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13. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    Yes, I am enormously worried. We have to understand and make the connection that it is only the private sector that truly creates sustainable jobs. We need people to work in our wonderful public services, but ultimately growth and opportunities come from the expansion of the private sector, which is most encapsulated by female-led businesses, such as those in the hair and beauty sector. They often survive on small margins, deal with lots of different pieces of regulation, and try to keep our high streets and communities alive—as well as performing, I suspect, rather a better service for my hon. Friend than for me and some other colleagues. It is a valuable and vital industry.

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14. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    Let us hope that the Minister does indeed have an answer. I am somebody who always travels optimistically, and though we have sparred on the important subject of the 300-page, 120,000-word Employment Rights Bill, it is never too late. That Bill is undergoing scrutiny in the other House as we speak, and the Opposition would welcome and support the Government’s shelving it until we have dealt with the cacophony of headwinds that my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) talked about earlier, including the changes to the tax system and other changes; the damage that has already been inflicted on the economy; the headwinds on costs that we saw this morning, with inflation 75% higher than the Bank of England’s target rate, which will mean that interest rates are higher for longer; and the failure to reform business rates. There is an opportunity to revisit bringing forward specific proposals on employment to enduringly reduce business rates, if the Government feel a burning desire to do so. My right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) is quite right: would it not be good if the Minister could use the ample time that we have this afternoon to consult, and to bring forward some sensible answers that will give us all confidence that we are going to see a Government who are properly on the side of business?

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15. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    Of course, I agree with my hon. Friend, but it does not actually matter what I or others think, because the reality is that the data does not lie. As of now, we have 100,000 fewer people on payroll than we did 12 months ago, so the data is already telling us about the cumulative chilling effect of those measures. That is perhaps unintended. We learn today that the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister are at odds, and perhaps the Business Secretary is the third leg on that stool, with each of them bringing forward measures that are enormously damaging to business. They are perhaps not adding up the sums and seeing eye to eye to understand the lived experience of what it is like to be a business on the receiving end of all of those changes, cumulatively and all at the same time. Many businesses will, from the start of April this year, not only face a payroll increase of around 10%—in an economy without such a level of topline growth, so that hits margins directly—but, because of the failure of the Government to maintain business rates relief at anything like the same level for our retail, hospitality and leisure, have seen their business rates double. Imagine that all hitting a business on 1 April this year.

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16. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    I am enormously glad, and we should be balanced, that we have found something that goes the other way. I am not sure if one can subsist entirely on a seed potato—it may have been tried historically, and not with enormous success—but I congratulate the hon. Member on the success of his seed potato industry. To be charitable, we have found a rare example of the Government actually having the back of a business and supporting it, but would it not be wonderful if they could extend that to much larger sectors of the economy, such as financial and professional services, retail and hospitality industries and even our manufacturing industries, as they wrestle under the cosh of uncompetitive energy costs, so that a business in Birmingham, west midlands, will face an industrial energy cost four times higher than that of a competitor in Birmingham, Alabama?

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17. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    My hon. Friend has made so many good points that I will of course give way again.

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18. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    Most of us would put higher energy costs into the liability rather than the asset column of our economy. We are debating business, unemployment and the economy, and I hope the Minister will devote an ample proportion of his response to the measures this Government will take to remove the yoke of uncompetitively high energy costs, which is simply crushing so many British manufacturing businesses.

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19. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    The hon. Member is exactly right. When I describe my constituency as “South Downs”, people occasionally assume that it is in Northern Ireland, but all of our young people deserve the best opportunities. We know that the best outcomes for young people are when they can enter the workforce, and that if, when they graduate from school, college or an apprenticeship, those young people cannot immediately find productive work, the scarring impact of that can run through the entirety of their adult life and they never catch up with their peers’ earnings. That is why it is so important that we have a healthy labour market, and a healthy labour market relies on the ability of employers to feel that they can take a chance, give people opportunities and benefit from that. I want to make some progress, which I suspect may be popular. There are many Members on the Opposition side; sadly, there are disappointingly few on the Government side. Given the paucity of business experience on that side, it is probably appropriate for there to be more listening than talking on the Government Benches. Let us imagine—and, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know this from your wonderful constituency—that despite all the headwinds this Government have imposed on business, an entrepreneur does well, grows their business into a successful operation and wants to hand it down to the next generation after they are gone. Those people, who have taken risks to create something good for society, are now at a competitive disadvantage as a result of the family business death tax. They will be forced to carve up, slice up, or close up shop forever to meet the demands for business property relief and inheritance tax. Analysis from CBI Economics for Family Business UK estimates that this measure alone will result in 208,000 job losses and a £2 billion net loss to the Treasury. Again, I hope the Minister will address that directly when he responds. Family Business UK’s chief executive, Neil Davy, says that “far from stimulating economic growth” this policy “will achieve exactly the opposite.” He is right. To illustrate just how ridiculously flawed this policy is, it applies to families here in the United Kingdom, but it does not apply to overseas businesses that operate here, or to those owned by private equity or foreign corporate owners. Labour has stolen any incentive for success from a generation of home-grown entrepreneurs. We really cannot go on like this. The gulf between those who create wealth and those who govern us has never been larger. Only one Cabinet Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland, has any real experience of running a business. Trying to find business experience among those on the Labour Benches is like trying to find a tax the Deputy Prime Minister does not think needs to be raised. It is no surprise that, according to the Institute of Directors, over two thirds of businesses are now pessimistic about the future of the economy.

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20. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    Our business community is ravaged; my hon. Friend is exactly right. We are plummeting to depths last reached only when the entire global economy was shut down due to an unknown pathogenic virus. If that is the bar the Government set themselves, I urge them to have a little bit more ambition and confidence in their ability to grow our economy. No nation can spend its way to growth, or tax its way to success. I fear that we are about to see a case study showing exactly that this does not work. It has been tried before, and it did not work then. We cannot afford the ignorant short-sightedness of this Government. To achieve growth, we need a country in which everybody’s spark of ambition can find ignition. Not everyone needs to run a business, but for those who do, we want a country that values, cherishes and honours its wealth creators; where transforming a side hustle into a main hustle is straightforward; and where His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is transformed from a predator to a partner, and the tax system goes out of its way to reflect the risk of investing, and of running a business. We want our regulators to think carefully before they intervene, and not to pounce on every perceived failure as another reason to try to eliminate risk.

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21. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    So many businesses feel like that, even when HMRC is doing its legitimate job of trying to balance the books and raise money for the public purse. That is because of how it goes about that job, its one-sided nature, and the uncertainty that it inflicts on small businesses, whose biggest asset is their time, and whose greatest opportunity cost is the need to comply with myriad regulations and taxes. We want a Government with a philosophy of trust in business, and a Government who celebrate personal responsibility and clear the path for innovation. That requires the courage to champion risk-takers and elevate enterprise above sectional interests. As right hon. and hon. Members have said, it is sad that investors and employers clearly do not have faith in this Government to deliver the contract between the state and those who seek to run a business. Instead of this Government opening up investment for wonderful British businesses around the world, top investors are fleeing the country and taking their wealth, creativity and entrepreneurship elsewhere. What could be sadder?

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22. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    One is tempted to say that we should try to remove this wretched Government as quickly as possible. That, of course, is part of the answer. We need a Government who listen to the points my hon. Friend makes so eloquently on behalf of her constituents and the industry; a Government who understand the reality of the energy situation and the high cost of energy for business, rather than pursuing a failed dogma and ideology that is not being pursued by the rest of the world; and a Government who listen to enterprise and businesses, many of which I have met. We could take that approach from a perspective of trying to grow the economy, in order to reduce energy costs to a competitive level, or because one believes in the climate transition but understands that special skills in dealing with the harsh offshore environment need to be nurtured, rather than squandered in a way that results in people with those skills fleeing elsewhere.

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23. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Andrew Griffith

    Business and the Economy

    I thank my right hon. Friend and predecessor in the role of City Minister. This is an important point: where we can, we will support the Government in continuing the work, which he and I started, of trying improve the investment outcomes for our economy. We want to increase equity investment to mobilise pension funds and, most importantly, deliver good returns for our investors: the constituents who send us here, and who want the best possible outcome for their pension. It is really important that the Treasury leans into that, and that we have abundant capital markets that are well regulated but not over-regulated. We must create the right culture when it comes to the advice guidance boundary, our tolerance of risk, and our financial literacy and education in our schools. That is a really big point. I hope we continue to work collaboratively and supportively with the Government, along with the excellent Select Committee of which my right hon. Friend is a Member. None of that helps if wealth creators and global investors have left these shores due to vindictive measures that simply will not raise anything like the money needed. It is perfectly okay to admit when one makes a mistake, and in this case Treasury Ministers have made a mistake. The amount raised will be nothing like the amount expected. The Centre for Economics and Business Research has done important research on that, and found that the cost will be significant. Far from raising money for the Treasury, the country will, I am afraid, lose money. It is a truism—one that we Conservative Members have to continually teach Labour Members, I regret to say—that we do not make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. Like all socialists, Labour Members are attracted to superficial measures that will ultimately make all of us poorer. Those of us who are left behind will have to pay more, or endure less well-funded public services, as a result of this Government shepherding the golden geese into a pen and then exiling them. The Deputy Prime Minister was right in her memo, which we saw today: this Government are indeed coming for your job, your business, your pension and your savings. It is all very clear in black and white. Whether Members are Team Rayner or Team Reeves, when it comes to decisions on the economy, it is all bad for business. When the Minister responds, perhaps he will share with us whether he believes that the tax measures advocated by the Deputy Prime Minister, which will have a chilling effect on business, are the right way to proceed. Whether they are stabbed by employment red tape or shot by higher taxes, the outcome for businesses is the same. The Government duck the difficult questions while the Chancellor fiddles the fiscal rules, making it up as she goes along. Families know that the cost of living is getting higher under Labour. [Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is so animated that I feel I should keep going, rather than disappoint him. He should listen, rather than chunter. The Conservative party has a clear vision. It understands business from first principles—[Interruption.] Conservative Members could usefully listen and learn. This could be an exercise in understanding what a proper strategy that is on the side of business looks like. We back the millions of entrepreneurs and businesses who create wealth and jobs across this country. We are unafraid to talk about the need for business, and celebrate private capital, international investors and risk taking. It was the Conservatives who delivered the single biggest tax cut for business in modern history through the move to full expensing, and the Conservatives who slashed business rates when we introduced retail, hospitality and leisure relief, and during that terrible covid pandemic, it was the Conservatives who provided billions in finance to keep business and the economy going. That is what leadership looks like. That is what a party that is truly on the side of business looks like. I urge Government Members to do a little less talking and a little more listening. They should think of every business owner and employee whom they told, during the election campaign, that the Government would have their back, and ask themselves whether their actions, rather than their words, have proved that to be anything like the case. With employment falling, wealth creators leaving this country at a rate never before seen, businesses closing, investment crashing and inflation rising today, the Conservatives certainly do not believe so. I commend this motion to the House.

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24. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Alison Griffiths

    Business and the Economy

    You have talked about the risk of seasonal jobs being lost as a consequence of the Employment Rights Bill. In my constituency it is a serious risk, as a number of businesses have told me. Would you say that the Minister should withdraw the Bill, or, at the very least, conduct a proper assessment of its impact?

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25. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Alison Griffiths

    Business and the Economy

    I hear what the Minister says about job security, but if businesses will not be providing jobs because of day one rights, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) has so eloquently laid out, there will not be more people in work—[Interruption.] As my hon. Friend says, that is what the figures already show.

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26. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Alex Burghart

    Interim Custody Orders: Compensation

    In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State left out one crucial detail: the truth is that the last Government did legislate with cross-party support to prevent people like Gerry Adams from receiving taxpayer-funded compensation. The High Court in Northern Ireland ruled that that was incompatible with the European convention on human rights, and the Conservative Government then appealed that judgment. When the Labour party came to power last summer, it dropped that appeal. Will the Secretary of State please set out why the Government decided to drop that appeal?

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27. 21 May 2025·Parliament·Alex Burghart

    Interim Custody Orders: Compensation

    The whole House will have heard the Secretary of State not give a reason why the Government did not continue the appeal. Government lawyers told the last Government that there were grounds for appeal. Policy Exchange, in a report in January written by Professor Richard Ekins and Sir Stephen Laws, said that the High Court had almost certainly been “mistaken” in its judgment and that there were strong grounds for an appeal. Why did the Government drop it, and why have the Government not yet brought forward their own legislation to clear this mess up once and for all?

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28. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Roger Gale

    Pensions: Expatriates

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on raising an issue that, quite simply, is a matter of national shame. I had the privilege of chairing the all-party parliamentary group on frozen British pensions for more years than I care to remember, and in that task I had the staunch support of Sir Peter Bottomley, Lord German and many others. We all regarded this as a non-partisan issue. It was quite simply a cross-party matter that had to be resolved. In spite of the effort that we put into it over many years, successive Governments of all political persuasions have sheltered behind the myth that we uprate pensions only in countries with which we have a reciprocal arrangement. Historically, we have had a reciprocal arrangement with the United States but not with Canada. On one side of the Niagara Falls, people get their pension uprated; a couple of hundred yards across the river, people do not. That is arrant nonsense, and it is unjust for all the reasons we have heard this morning. These are British citizens who paid their dues over their whole working lives before emigrating. They are as entitled to the full state pension as any other British citizen. John Markham, of blessed memory, led the campaign in Canada for many years. The irony is that, every time he came back for two weeks to make the case to whoever was in power, he would claim his two weeks’ uprated pension, because the moment he set foot on British soil, he was allowed to have it. Where is the sense in that? The point has been made that pensioners in the majority of Commonwealth countries do not receive uprated pensions, but pensioners in the European Union do, because we reached a reciprocal arrangement when we left the European Union. I am delighted that expat UK citizens living throughout the European Union are getting their pension uprated. That is absolutely right—they have paid their way—but I fail to see why people living in what we proudly used to call the British Commonwealth do not get their money. What about those living in Australia? What about people like Norma Maloney in South Africa or the greatly revered Anne Puckridge, who I have been privileged to meet on many occasions, in Canada? Why do they not get their money? The answer is quite simple: it comes down to the Treasury solicitors, who have historically been absolutely terrified that, if we give an inch, somebody will try to bring a class action to get a backdated pension, and of course those sums would be astronomical. When Sir Oliver Letwin was in the Cabinet Office, he made the eminently workable proposal that we should uprate whatever pension the recipient was getting at the time of the uprating. Anne Puckridge would get the triple-locked increase on her fairly pitiful pension, not on anything retrospective. That is not what the expats ought to be receiving or what they are entitled to, morally, but it would work, because over time—by attrition, as people fall off the perch—we would reach the parity we ought to have today. I was as critical of the previous Government as I am of the current one. They are sheltering behind a Treasury lawyers’ position that is wholly untenable and, I believe, patently dishonest. These elderly people—and I speak as an elderly person—have paid their way. They are entitled to their money. They should have it, and the Government must do something about it now.

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29. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Roger Gale

    Pensions: Expatriates

    It saddens me enormously that the hon. Lady is trying to make a partisan case, simply because—as I recall, and I think I do recall correctly—a member of her party was the Pensions Minister in the coalition, and one of many pensions Ministers who stood by the present policy of refusing to allow these pensions to be paid. The blame lies across the board, not with any one political party.

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30. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Roger Gale

    Pensions: Expatriates

    Does the Minister consider that it is morally acceptable for Canada to uprate the pensions of its citizens in this country and to also bear the cost of this country not uprating its pensions for UK expats in Canada when Canada has formally offered to enter into a reciprocal arrangement? Why is that offer not being accepted?

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31. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Roger Gale

    Spending Review: Cross-departmental Planning

    While discussing the spending review, will the Treasury get the Agriculture Secretary and the Energy Secretary together in the same room, and make sure that agriculture receives the funding it needs and that energy is not allowed to charge agriculture, effectively, for its loss of income? In other words, will the Chancellor ensure we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul?

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32. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Roger Gale

    UK-EU Summit

    I do not want to be a dog in the manger, but the Prime Minister’s statement appears to be very strong on self-congratulation and very short on detail. I know he does not like answering detailed questions, but the response he gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) was quite simply unacceptable. When will this deal be signed off in a form that this House will be able to debate properly and vote on?

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33. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Roger Gale

    Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

    I doubt whether there is a single Member of this House who does not wish to see the 58 remaining hostages returned to their families, whether dead or alive. I think that the Foreign Secretary was right to say that genocide and war crimes—my words, not his—are not the way to get the hostages released. There are parents and grandparents in this House who will stand up for children anywhere in the world—I am prepared to nail my colours to that mast. We have to take action; we cannot stand by and do nothing. A number of Privy Counsellors—all of us, I think—wrote to the Prime Minister relatively recently, calling for the two-state solution to be imposed immediately. Sadly, that private letter did not receive a response, which is why it was published. Foreign Secretary, please take that message back to the Prime Minister and act.

    Hansard source
34. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Mel Stride

    Business Costs: Impact of Autumn Budget

    Only last week the right hon. Lady was trumpeting that the economy had turned a corner, but, as she has just said, it is barely a month since her disastrous jobs tax started to bite. May I ask her precisely which business confidence survey—just one—she can point to which supports her assertion that everything is coming up roses?

    Hansard source
35. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Mel Stride

    Topical Questions

    Will the Chancellor explain what the Economic Secretary to the Treasury meant last week when she said that there will be no tax rises on individuals at the autumn Budget? Will the Chancellor similarly confirm that there will be no tax increases on businesses?

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36. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Mel Stride

    Topical Questions

    What many up and down the country are asking is why that manifesto pledge not to impose taxes on working people was broken. Last week the Pensions Minister confirmed to the House that the Government would never interfere with the fiduciary duty of pension trustees to get the best return for their members, but when the Chancellor was questioned on that topic by Bloomberg the very same day, she said: “I am never going to say never”. This is chaos. The Government cannot even speak with one voice. It is clear that the right hon. Lady and the Pensions Minister cannot both be right, so will she now put the record straight?

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37. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir Julian Lewis

    UK-EU Summit

    If the Prime Minister is right that our food standards are already in alignment with those of the EU, why could we not have negotiated the deal on the basis of mutual recognition of those standards, as other countries have done, rather than open ourselves up to having to alter our standards in line with whatever the EU may decide to change in the future?

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38. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    Is not the answer, in part at least, a national statutory inquiry into what occurred, not least because we do not actually know whether it is still going on? That inquiry would expose so much, which would allow all those right-thinking people to take the action necessary and protect so many of the people who might be at risk from further horrors.

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39. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    There is a third trauma when a sentence that emanates from the court is unduly lenient. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Attorney General has the power to review unduly lenient sentences, but only within 28 days of the date of a sentence. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in calling for the length of time to be extended, in the name of victims?

    Hansard source
40. 20 May 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Victims and Courts Bill

    At the risk of being repetitive, will the hon. Gentleman press, as I have done—I think the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) agreed with me—for lenient sentences to be dealt with more severely? That is, the Attorney General should have extra time to review those sentences. There is nothing worse for a victim than seeing the perpetrator of the crime given an unduly lenient sentence.

    Hansard source