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Category: Speeches

  • Karen Buck – 2023 Speech on the Health and Disability White Paper

    Karen Buck – 2023 Speech on the Health and Disability White Paper

    The speech made by Karen Buck, the Labour MP for Westminster North, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    No one will mourn the passing of the work capability assessment; Labour has been calling for reform of that for a long time. It needed to change, because people’s lives do not fit neatly into a binary system of work or no work. However, disabled people and those with serious health issues want and deserve support and reassurance in work and out of it, and what people fear, understandably, is that under the guise of reform their lives will be made harder and vital financial support might disappear.

    The devil is always in the detail, so I have a few questions for the Minister. The PIP assessment is designed for a totally different purpose from the WCA; how will he reconcile those completely different systems? What will happen in future to those people who do not currently receive PIP—those on the limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit, and particularly those with short-term and fluctuating conditions? Unless it is the Minister’s intention that some 750,000 people will lose £350 a year, an alternative needs to be in place; what will that alternative be?

    Do the Government believe that it is fair that the hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities that prevent them from even engaging in work-related activity should receive less financial support through UC than people who are entitled to PIP, and if so what is the basis for that justification? If the intention is to allow work coaches to use discretion in all such cases, how will we ensure consistent decision making and decision making that is based on a proper understanding of serious health conditions and their impact on daily life? What provision is made within the Department to ensure that capacity for that is in place?

    As transparency and openness are so essential in building confidence, will the Minister now publish the report on the operation and effectiveness of sanctions? By publishing the White Paper, the Government have started this debate; the minimum we need now is openness and clarity about how those ideas are intended to work in practice.

    Tom Pursglove

    May I first welcome what I think is a cautious welcome from the Opposition for the reforms that we are seeking to advance? I think it reflects some of the utterings that we have heard from Labour Members over recent weeks and months about the direction of travel they want, recognising that there will be people for whom work is not appropriate. I repeat the point that, where that is the case, we will not be expecting people to engage with this support, but it is right that that structural impediment to work is removed from the system, that those who want to work are supported in being able to do so, and that we make sure that we have a system that is responsive to that and that also has health as a focus. I hope we can move forward on a cross-party basis on those terms.

    On the specific point about PIP, again it is important to recognise that we will look very carefully at whether those individuals who are not currently in receipt of PIP meet the PIP criteria, and we will act accordingly. Also of course, anybody who thinks they may be eligible for PIP is able to apply for it. I would always encourage people who might be eligible for any given benefit to apply for it.

    On the point about the health top-up, I can confirm that the award rate for the new UC health element will be at the same level as is currently awarded to those who have LCWRA. I again make the point about the approach that we intend to take: the reform will be carried out on a staged geographical basis, beginning with new claims in 2026-27. Of course, legislative steps will need to be taken to bring this reform to fruition, but there is much to welcome and I hope we can come together. On the point about the legal case, as I said earlier, colleagues elsewhere in the Department are considering next steps and will come forward in due course.

  • Marsha De Cordova – 2023 Speech on the Health and Disability White Paper

    Marsha De Cordova – 2023 Speech on the Health and Disability White Paper

    The speech made by Marsha De Cordova, the Labour MP for Battersea, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.

    Although we know that most of the proposals set out in the White Paper will not be implemented until the next Parliament, a significant number of ill and disabled people will be impacted. We see the Government using a carrot-and-stick approach, which will leave many sick and disabled people with the stick and the real threat of the ramping up of sanctions, as indicated by the Chancellor during his Budget statement yesterday. Just this week the Information Commissioner’s Office ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions must release “sensitive” research into its sanctions regime following the Work and Pensions Committee report, which found that there is very little evidence that the sanctions work. Instead, it found that they have a significant impact on the health and finances of those who have been sanctioned. There are real consequences to some of the Government’s actions.

    Nobody is arguing that scrapping the work capability assessment is not welcome. However, relying solely on the PIP assessment is not the solution, given the current experiences of PIP assessments, which show that they are deeply flawed; the DWP is losing or conceding in four out of five appeals. Moreover, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said yesterday that up to 1 million people currently on incapacity benefits could lose out as a result of scrapping the work capability assessment and relying on using PIP only. Also under the new proposals disabled people will not automatically be in the “no work-related requirements” conditionality group and will now be subject to the decisions of a work coach.

    We also did not hear any additional investment in the Access to Work scheme, so can the Minister say how many people will be impacted and what the cost is of these new proposals? It is estimated that 1 million people will lose out. How are the Government intending to mitigate that? Will the PIP assessment framework change or stay as it currently is? Given the poor decision making on so many PIP assessments, what action is being taken to fix the flawed decision-making process and the assessment itself? How will the DWP ensure that the policy proposals do not remove vital protections against sanctions and risk pushing people further into poverty? Finally, when are the Government intending to publish the sensitive research into the sanctions regime?

    Tom Pursglove

    I am hugely appreciative of the hon. Lady, who always speaks with great passion on these issues. I welcome the cautious welcome from her about the broad thrust of the reform we are trying to deliver, which is to remove the structural disincentive to work. That manifests itself in the many conversations I have with disabled people and their representative groups, when they tell me that many disabled people would like to try to work, but fear doing so and then losing their entitlement if it does not work out. That is not an acceptable situation, and it is right that we change it. I hope that as a House, as we move forward with these reforms, we can come together and deliver something that achieves that objective, which is plainly the right thing to do.

    It was before my time in the House, but I well remember debates in previous years about the work capability assessment. It is welcome that we are scrapping the work capability assessment through these reforms. The reforms also offer an opportunity to focus on quality when it comes to the PIP assessment and on making sure that we get the right decisions first time. The hon. Lady will note, for example, that one of the commitments we have made in the White Paper is trying to match specialist assessors with people’s conditions. That is another thing people have regularly been asking for, and we are determined to test that and see what difference it can make. Again, this is all about being responsive to the feedback we have received.

    On the issue of sanctions that the hon. Lady mentioned, I know that the legal case she touched on is under consideration by Ministers elsewhere in the Department at the moment. No doubt we will come forward and say more about that in due course, but I want to be clear that it is not my intention or the Department’s intention to force anyone to do something that is not right for them. We are committed to personalised, tailored support that meets individual needs and aspirations. The Secretary of State will talk about that in more detail during the Budget debate later. A lot of that will be voluntary. I would hope that people will want to engage with universal support and will want to engage with Work Well, because this is about trying to help and support people. For people with health conditions, for example, this is a way in which we can work harder and tirelessly with them to help them get better. Work is of course an important determinant of better health outcomes. The White Paper is explicit in saying that we will move forward with this in a way that is appropriate for individuals. For those where work is not appropriate, they will not be expected to do it.

    It is also important to set out for the House that there will be transitional cash protection in place. No one who currently has limited capability for work or work-related activity will lose out as they move to the new system. We are specifically protecting those with pregnancy risk or who are undergoing cancer treatment, and we are also keeping a contributory health and disability benefit. Of course, what I really want to do—this is key to all of the work I do in this role—is to work constructively with the hon. Lady and with disabled people and their representative groups to make sure that we get this reform right. This is the biggest welfare reform for over a decade, and we have to get this absolutely right.

  • Tom Pursglove – 2023 Statement on the Health and Disability White Paper

    Tom Pursglove – 2023 Statement on the Health and Disability White Paper

    The statement made by Tom Pursglove, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    Yesterday, the Secretary of State published “Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper”. This White Paper is a significant milestone, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to ensuring that disabled people and people with health conditions can lead independent lives and fulfil their potential. It sets out an ambitious policy reform package that will transform the health and disability benefits system, and help disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay in and succeed in work.

    We will deliver action in three ways. First, we will transform the future benefits system so that it focuses on what people can do, rather than on what they cannot, including by removing the work capability assessment. In our new system, there will be no need to be found to have limited capability for work or work-related activity in order to receive additional income-related support for a disability or health condition. We will introduce a new universal credit health element that people receiving both personal independence payment and universal credit will be entitled to, which will enable people to try work without the fear of losing their benefits. We will roll this out carefully from 2026-27, and we will ensure that no one currently on universal credit and with limited capability for work or work-related activity will lose out once they move on to the new system.

    Secondly, while de-risking work is one side of the coin in supporting disabled people and people with health conditions into work, we know that we also need to provide more employment and health support for this group. The White Paper sets out how we will introduce a new personalised approach to employment support and engagement, with the aim of helping people to reach their potential and live a more independent life. We are investing in additional work coach time and tailored support. The Chancellor also set out yesterday that we will introduce a new programme called universal support, which will provide wraparound support for individuals and employers, as well as additional money to provide more mental health and musculoskeletal treatment for this group.

    Finally, we will ensure that people can access the right support at the right time, and have a better overall experience, by testing new initiatives to make it easier to apply for and receive health and disability benefits. I am certain that our White Paper reforms will support more people to reach their full potential and reap the health and wellbeing advantages of work.

  • Rebecca Pow – 2023 Speech at the International Cooperation on Air Pollution

    Rebecca Pow – 2023 Speech at the International Cooperation on Air Pollution

    The speech made by Rebecca Pow, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Environmental Quality and Resilience), in Gothenburg, Sweden on 16 March 2023.

    It’s a real pleasure to be here today and an absolute honour to be asked to open this event, which is the first meeting of the Forum for International Cooperation on Air Pollution, here in Gothenburg.

    For those of you who do not know me, my name is Rebecca Pow. I’m a Minister of the UK Parliament – my actual constituency is in the west of England, called Taunton Deane. I am the Minister for Environmental Quality and Resilience. Under that – I say to people, I’ve got all the difficult stuff – everything to do with water and flooding, everything to do with waste and recycling. I’m really excited that here in Sweden, we’re going to go on to look at the deposit return scheme that they run for recycling here in Sweden. I’ve got my team up there – we’re going to go and have a look and see how you do it, because we’re probably going to copy it in some shape or form.

    I also have under my hat: chemicals and regulation, and of course air quality, which is a huge part of my portfolio. I would say it is a growing area because we’re more and more becoming aware of what we need to do on air. Action on all of the areas I’m responsible for – not just in the UK, but across the globe – are so important because we need to ensure the health of our people, the protection of the environment, and the sustainability of our economies. There is a big link between air pollution and our economies.

    This Forum for International Cooperation on Air Pollution – made up of officials, researchers, and international organisations from around the world – is charged with a very great challenge to make sure we get this right on air pollution.

    We do know that air pollution continues to be the biggest environmental risk to human health. I was talking to somebody just now; the tricky thing with air of course is you can’t see it. So, it makes it, I think, more difficult to get that message across to the public.

    We know that poor air quality disproportionately affects the vulnerable. We know that it causes a range of life-shortening diseases, drives down productivity, and harms the natural environment.

    And whilst a lot of actions are being taken to deal with this, we know there is a great deal more to do. Hence, this forum I believe will be so helpful. Through our collaboration and scientific innovation, we have achieved huge successes in driving down emissions over recent decades. But the action that has got us this far simply will not get us where we need to be now and in the future.

    If we are to go further, we really do need to be bold by sharing experience and expertise, supporting innovative policymaking, and by working alongside people and the private sector to drive behavioural change. This is how we will achieve what we know is necessary to protect our citizens and our environment from the harmful effects of pollution. We should not let the complexity of the challenge stop us from taking decisive action.

    Governments across the world are working hard to clean up the air, to tackle climate change, net zero and restore our biodiversity. The UK is no different. We have a clear commitment and we’re taking ambitious action on each of these global challenges. For instance, we were proud to host COP26 in Glasgow – I expect many of the people here today or joining us on video attended that. All 197 Parties agreed to the Glasgow Climate Pact.

    We recently led the way in securing an incredibly stretching package for protecting nature globally – which includes a new international fund to tackle the nature crisis; and an expectation that $30 billion a year of international nature finance will flow into developing countries by 2030.

    Our recently published Environmental Improvement Plan is the blueprint to maintain our trajectory and outlines a range of actions, including our two new legal targets for fine particulate matter concentrations. Also, by reducing emissions in our homes by managing domestic burning – so, that’s open fires and log burners. We know that we have got to control these emissions but that’s the difficult one because that’s the one that people are very closely associated with. And also, we’ve got actions supporting farmers to reduce the impact of ammonia emissions from agriculture.

    Building on the progress we made during our COP and G7 presidencies, we will continue to display strong global leadership on air quality, climate change and nature. To keep our promises, and deliver to the highest standards, we must work with our partners across the world to maintain momentum.

    International co-operation continues to be as important now as it was back in 1979 – you all look a bit young here but 1979, some people will remember that – when the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution was signed. This was following acid rain damage right here in Scandinavia during the 1970s and 1980s. I remember seeing those really devastating accounts of the effect of acid rain – and of course, that was air pollution. 32 countries came together then, and they’ve since gone on to achieve a remarkable decline in emissions across the region. It does show what can be done.

    This Convention is an example of what we can achieve through our cooperation. Air pollution – as we all know – knows no borders and it’s only by working together that we can address the interlinked threats of pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss. In that vein, it’s important we look beyond the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe region and continue to strengthen collaboration and cooperation with Parties right across the globe. It’s great to have our UN representative here today, who I met earlier.

    Our new Forum for International Cooperation on Air Pollution has an important role to play in continuing to support the emissions reductions we know are needed on a global scale.

    By exchanging information, mutual learning and enhancing cooperation, I know that we can improve the air we all breathe. This, of course, starts with learning lessons from the past. There is much we can learn from the Air Convention’s action to control and reduce transboundary air pollution over the last 44 years.

    This morning’s session on pathways to air pollution action will discuss the building blocks needed for regional cooperation, including some of the challenges and how the Convention overcame them.

    This afternoon’s session on ‘no regret’ actions will discuss different measures that countries can implement to improve air quality, even if they don’t necessarily have an expansive monitoring network. By sharing exactly this kind of science and policy expertise internationally, we can help more regions to take the necessary steps to tackle this pollution.

    The United Kingdom are incredibly proud to be co-chair of this international forum with Sweden. I think it’s already showing that it’s going to be a great working partnership. I would really like to offer my thanks to our Swedish co-chairs who have been instrumental in the development, design, and delivery of this forum. Thank you very much for that.

    I would also like to thank the Task Force, whose engagement and contributions in Bristol in October 2022 helped shape the programme we have lined up today and will continue to play a central role in the forum going forward.

    And finally, I’m grateful to all of you for travelling from around the world to be here today but also all of those joining virtually. It’s great that if you can’t get here in person, that you can still be a part of it and I hope those people will still be engaging with the different events going on. It is only with the valued input of all of these people that we will be able to work together to find new solutions that can be implemented across the international community.

    With your commitment and engagement, this Forum for International Cooperation will serve to pull together representatives from a very wide and inclusive sphere from right around the world to tackle the challenges of air pollution – potentially on a holistic scale, because this links in to so many parts of our lives. I’m absolutely sure this forum will be a force for good. I can feel it already, so I’m expecting great things. I really look forward to having a report back from my team who are here about how this goes but also what’s going to happen next – because I think that’s the really important thing. So, let’s carry on and push this up the global agenda, together.

    Thank you.

  • Tim Farron – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    Tim Farron – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    The comments made by Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, on Facebook on 15 March 2023.

    It absolutely beggars belief that the Conservatives’ budget had next to nothing in it to address the NHS crisis in Cumbria and across the country.

    People are waiting for hours in A&E, weeks to see a GP, months for cancer treatment, and an eternity for mental health care.

    And what did the Chancellor announce to tackle this disastrous situation? Barely a word, barely a penny.

    Meanwhile the Conservatives have once again shown they don’t care about our rural communities. There was nothing to support us on the big issues we face whether it’s the crisis in farming or on the scandal of sewage being dumped in our lakes and rivers.

    Cumbrians are being taken for granted by this Conservative Government.

  • Richard Burgon – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    Richard Burgon – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    The comments made by Richard Burgon, the Labour MP for Leeds East, on Twitter on 15 March 2023.

    A year ago households had an energy bill price cap of £1,300.

    The Government is today bragging that it’s fixing the cap at £2,500 – nearly double what people paid a year ago.

    Once again the profits of greedy energy companies are being put before the needs of people. #Budget2023

  • Caroline Lucas – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    Caroline Lucas – 2023 Comments on the Spring Budget Speech

    The comments made by Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, on Twitter on 15 March 2023.

    Unbelievable listening to the chancellor claim the Govt are lifting children out of poverty – a government responsible for 3.9m children living in poverty in UK, that’s 27% of children. #SpringBudget #Budget2023

  • Jeremy Hunt – 2023 Spring Budget Speech

    Jeremy Hunt – 2023 Spring Budget Speech

    The speech made by Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 15 March 2023.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, in the face of enormous challenges I report today on a British economy which is proving the doubters wrong.

    In the autumn we took difficult decisions to deliver stability and sound money.

    Since mid-October, 10-year gilt rates have fallen, debt servicing costs are down, mortgage rates are lower and inflation has peaked.

    The International Monetary Fund says our approach means the UK economy is on the right track.

    But we remain vigilant, and will not hesitate to take whatever steps are necessary for economic stability.

    Today the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that because of changing international factors and the measures I take, the UK will not now enter a technical recession this year.

    They forecast we will meet the Prime Minister’s priorities to halve inflation, reduce debt and get the economy growing.

    We are following the plan and the plan is working.

    But that’s not all we’ve done.

    In the face of a cost-of-living crisis we have demonstrated our values by protecting struggling families with a £2,500 Energy Price Guarantee, one-off support and the uprating of benefits with inflation.

    Taken together, these measures are worth £94 bn over this year and next – one of the largest support packages in Europe.

    That averages over £3,300 of cost-of-living help for every household in the country.

    Today, we deliver the next part of our plan.

    A budget for growth.

    Not just the growth that comes when you emerge from a downturn.

    But long term, sustainable, healthy growth that pays for our NHS and schools, finds jobs for young people, and provides a safety net for older people all whilst making our country one of the most prosperous in the world.

    Prosperity with a purpose.

    That’s why growth is one of the Prime Minister’s five priorities for our country.

    I deliver that today …

    …by removing obstacles that stop businesses investing;

    …by tackling labour shortages that stop them recruiting;

    …by breaking down barriers that stop people working;

    …and by harnessing British ingenuity to make us a science and technology superpower.

    Meeting the Prime Minister’s priorities

    I start with the forecasts produced by Richard Hughes and his team at the independent Office for Budget Responsibility whom I thank for their diligent work.

    They have looked in detail at the Prime Minister’s economic priorities.

    Halving inflation

    The first of those is to halve inflation.

    Inflation destroys the value of hard-earned pay, deters investment and foments industrial strife.

    This government remains steadfast in its support for the independent Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England as it takes action to return inflation to the 2% target.

    Despite continuing global instability, the OBR report today that inflation in the UK will fall from 10.7% in the final quarter of last year to 2.9% by the end of 2023.

    That is more than halving inflation.

    High inflation is the root cause of the strikes we have seen in recent months.

    We will continue to work hard to settle these disputes but only in a way that does not fuel inflation.

    Part of the fall in inflation predicted by the OBR happens because of additional measures I take today.

    Firstly, I recognise that even though wholesale energy prices have been falling, there is still enormous pressure on family finances.

    Some people remain in real distress and we should always stand ready to help where we can.

    So after listening to representations from Martin Lewis and other experts, I today confirm that the Energy Price Guarantee will remain at £2,500 for the next three months.

    This means the £2,500 cap for the typical household will remain in place when energy prices remain high, ahead of an expected fall in prices from July.

    This measure will save the average family a further £160 on top of the energy support measures already announced.

    The second measure concerns over four million households on prepayment meters.

    They are often the poorest households, but they currently pay more than comparable customers on direct debit. Ofgem has already agreed with suppliers a temporary suspension to forced installations of prepayment meters.

    But today I go further, and confirm we will bring their charges in line with comparable direct debit charges. The energy premium paid by our poorest households is coming to an end.

    Next I have listened to representations from the hon members for East Devon, North Cornwall, Colne Valley and Central Suffolk and North Ipswich about the risk to community facilities, especially swimming pools, caused by high costs. When times are tough, such facilities matter even more.

    So today I am providing a £63m fund to keep our public leisure centres and pools afloat.

    I have also heard from my RHF the charities minister and his Secretary of State about the brilliant work third sector organisations are doing to help people struggling in tough times.

    They can often reach people in need that central or local government cannot, so I will give his department £100m to support thousands of local charities and community organisations do their fantastic work.

    I also note the personal courage of one of my predecessors, my RHF from Bromsgrove, in talking about the tragedy of suicide and the importance of preventing it.

    We already invest a lot in this area, but I will assign an extra £10m over the next two years to help the voluntary sector play an even bigger role in stopping more families experiencing such intolerable heartache.

    My penultimate cost of living measure concerns one of our other most treasured community institutions, the great British pub.

    In December, I extended the alcohol duty freeze until 1 August, after which duties will go up in line with inflation in the usual way.

    But today, I will do something that was not possible when we were in the EU and significantly increase the generosity of Draught Relief, so that from 1 August the duty on draught products in pubs will be up to 11p lower than the duty in supermarkets, a differential we will maintain as part of a new Brexit pubs guarantee.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, British ale may be warm, but the duty on a pint is frozen.

    And even better, thanks to the Windsor Framework negotiated by my RHF the Prime Minister, that change will now also apply to every pub in Northern Ireland.

    Finally, I have heard the representations from the Honourable Member from Stoke on Trent North, my Rt Hon Friend for Witham and my Rt Hon Friend from South Thanet and the Sun newspaper about the impact on motorists of the planned 11p rise in fuel duty.

    Because inflation remains high, I have decided now is not the right time to uprate fuel duty with inflation or increase the duty.

    So here’s what I am going to do: for a further 12 months I’m going to maintain the 5p cut … and I’m going to freeze fuel duty too.

    That saves the average driver £100 next year and around £200 since the 5p cut was introduced.

    Our Energy Price Guarantee, fuel duty and duty on a pint – all frozen in today’s budget.

    Something that doesn’t just help families, it helps the economy too because their combined impact reduces CPI inflation by nearly ¾% this year, lowering inflation when it is particularly high.

    Reducing debt

    I now turn to the Prime Minister’s second priority, which is to reduce debt.

    Here too our plan is on track.

    Underlying debt is forecast to be 92.4% of GDP next year, 93.7% in 2024-25; 94.6% in 2025-26, and 94.8% in 2026-27, before falling to 94.6% in 2027-28.

    We are meeting the debt priority.

    And with a buffer of £6.5bn, it means we are meeting our fiscal rule to have debt falling as a percentage of GDP by the fifth year of the forecast.

    As a proportion of GDP our debt remains lower than the USA, Canada, France, Italy and Japan.

    And because of the decisions I take today, and the improved outlook for the public finances, underlying debt in five years’ time is now forecast to be nearly three percentage points lower than it was in the Autumn.

    That means more money for our public services and a lower burden on future generations – deeply-held values which we put into practice today.

    At the Autumn Statement I also announced that public sector net borrowing must be below 3% of GDP over the same period.

    The OBR confirm today that we are meeting that rule with a buffer of £39.2 bn.

    In fact our deficit falls in every single year of the forecast, with borrowing falling from 5.1% of GDP in 2023-24, to 3.2% in 2024-25, 2.8% in 2025-26, 2.2% in 2026-27 and 1.7% in 2027-28.

    Even better in the final two years of the forecast our current budget is in surplus, meaning we only borrow for investment and not for day-to-day spending.

    Day to day departmental spending will grow at 1% a year on average in real terms after 2024-25 until the end of the forecast period, and capital plans are maintained at the same level set at Autumn Statement.

    We will uprate tobacco duty, and we will freeze the gross gaming duty yield bands. We are also maintaining the starting rate for savings and the ISA subscription limits, and we will bring forward a range of measures to tackle promoters of tax avoidance schemes.

    But Madam Deputy Speaker, taken together today’s measures lead to a slightly lower overall tax burden for the rest of the parliament compared to the OBR’s Autumn forecast.

    We are reducing borrowing and improving our public finances.

    By doing so we make sure we are on track to…

    … halve inflation

    … get debt falling

    …and grow our economy, which I turn to next.

    Growth

    Growth is the Prime Minister’s third priority and the focus of today’s budget.

    13 years ago, we inherited an economy that had crashed.

    But since 2010 we’ve grown more than major countries like France, Italy or Japan and about the same as Europe’s largest economy Germany.

    We’ve halved unemployment…

    … cut inequality

    …and reduced the number of workless households by one million.

    For the first time ever, because of the rises in tax thresholds made by successive Chancellors people in our country can earn £1,000 a month without paying a penny of tax or national insurance.

    Those tax reductions have helped lift 2 million people out of absolute poverty, after housing costs, including 400,000 pensioners and 500,000 children.

    That averages 80 pensioners and 100 children lifted out of poverty for every single day we’ve been in office.

    Today we face the future with extraordinary potential.

    The World Bank said that out of all big European countries, we are the best place to do business.

    Global chief executives say that apart from America and China, we are the best country to invest in.

    We became the second country in the world to have a stock of foreign direct investment worth 2 trillion dollars.

    And London has just pipped New York and 53 other global cities to be the best place in the world for female entrepreneurs.

    Declinists are wrong about our country for another reason, which is our newfound strength in the innovation industries that will shape this century.

    Over the last 13 years we have become the world’s third trillion-dollar tech economy after the US and China.

    We have built the largest life sciences sector in Europe, producing a Covid vaccine that saved six million lives and a treatment that saved a million more.

    Our film and TV industry has become Europe’s largest, with our creative industries growing at twice the rate of the economy.

    Our advanced manufacturing industries produce around half the world’s large civil aircraft wings.

    And thanks to a clean energy miracle we have become a world leader in offshore wind.

    Other parties talk about a green energy revolution, so I gently remind them that nearly 90% of our solar power was installed in the last 13 years – showing it’s this Government who fix the roof while the sun is shining.

    Let’s turn now to what the OBR say about our growth prospects.

    In November, they expected that the UK economy would enter recession in 2022 and contract by 1.4% in 2023.

    That left many families feeling concerned about the future.

    But today, the OBR forecast we will not enter a recession at all this year with a contraction of just 0.2%.

    And after this year the UK economy will grow in every single year of the forecast period: by 1.8% in 2024; 2.5% in 2025; 2.1% in 2026; and 1.9% in 2027.

    They also expect the unemployment rate to rise by less than one percentage point to 4.4%, with 170,000 fewer people out of work compared to their Autumn forecast.

    Defence

    Madam Deputy Speaker, that return to growth has direct consequences for our role on the global stage.

    I am proud we are giving the brave people of Ukraine more military support than anyone else in Europe.

    On Monday we were able to go further with my RHF the Prime Minister announcing a £5bn package of funding for the Ministry of Defence, an additional £2bn next year and £3bn the year after.

    Today, following representations from our persuasive Defence Secretary, I confirm that we will add a total of £11 bn to our defence budget over the next five years and it will be nearly 2.25% of GDP by 2025.

    We were the first large European country to commit to 2% of GDP for defence and will raise that to 2.5% as soon as fiscal and economic circumstances allow.

    Following representations from my RHF the Minister for Veterans Affairs, I am today also increasing support for our brave ex-servicemen and women.

    We will provide a package worth over £30m to increase the capacity of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, support veterans with injuries returning from their service and increase the availability of veteran housing.

    But to be Europe’s biggest defender of democracy, we must build Europe’s most dynamic economy.

    That means tackling our longstanding productivity issues including two in particular which I address today: lower business investment and higher economic inactivity than other similar countries.

    Too often companies struggle to recruit and even when they do, output per employee is lower.

    So today I set out the four pillars of our industrial strategy to address these issues.

    Colleagues will know from my Bloomberg speech, they all start with the letter ‘E’: Enterprise, Employment, Education and Everywhere.

    I start with ‘Everywhere’, our measures to level up growth across the UK.

    Everywhere

    This government was elected on a mandate to level up.

    We have already allocated nearly £4bn in over 200 projects across the country through the first two rounds of the Levelling Up Fund. A third round will follow.

    Since we started focusing on levelling up, 70% of the growth in salaried jobs has come from outside London and the South-East.

    Today we take further steps.

    Investment Zones

    Canary Wharf and the Liverpool Docks were two outstanding regeneration projects.

    I pay tribute to Lord Heseltine for making them happen because they transformed the lives of thousands of people. They showed what’s possible when entrepreneurs, government and local communities come together.

    So today I announce that we will deliver 12 new Investment Zones, 12 potential Canary Wharfs.

    In England we have identified the following areas as having the potential to host one: West Midlands, Greater Manchester, the North-East, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, East Midlands, Teesside and, once again, Liverpool. There will also be at least one in each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    To be chosen, each area must identify a location where they can offer a bold and imaginative partnership between local government and a university or research institute in a way that catalyses new innovation clusters.

    If the application is successful, they will have access to £80m of support for a range of interventions including skills, infrastructure, tax reliefs and business rates retention.

    Local investment

    Working together with our formidable Levelling Up Secretary, I also want to give some further support to levelling up areas under the ‘E’ of everywhere.

    First, I will invest over £200m in high quality local regeneration projects across England including the regeneration of Tipton town centre and the Marsden New Mills Redevelopment Scheme.

    I am also announcing a further £161m for regeneration projects in Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Greater London Authority.

    And I will make over £400m available for new Levelling Up Partnerships in areas that include Redcar and Cleveland, Blackburn, Oldham, Rochdale, Mansfield, South Tyneside, and Bassetlaw.

    Having listened to the case for better local transport infrastructure from many hon members, I can announce a second round of the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements, allocating £8.8 billion over the next five-year funding period.

    And following a wet and then cold winter, I also received particularly strong representations from my hon friends from North Devon, South-West Devon and Newton Abbot as well as councillor Peter Martin from my own constituency about the curse of potholes.

    The Spending Review allocated £500m every year to the Potholes Fund but today I have decided to increase that fund by a further £200m next year to help local communities tackle this problem.

    For Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland this Budget delivers not only a new Investment Zone but an additional £320m for the Scottish Government, £180m for the Welsh Government and £130m for the Northern Ireland Executive as a result of Barnett consequentials.

    On top of which in Scotland, I can announce up to £8.6m of targeted funding for the Edinburgh Festivals as well as £1.5m funding to repair the Cloddach Bridge.

    I will provide £20m of funding for the Welsh Government to restore the Holyhead Breakwater and, in Northern Ireland, I am allocating up to £3m to extend the Tackling Paramilitarism Programme and up to £40m to extend further and higher education participation.

    Local leadership

    But Madam Deputy Speaker, for levelling up to truly succeed we need to unleash the civic entrepreneurship that is only possible when elected local leaders are able to fund and deliver solutions to their own challenges.

    That means giving them responsibility for local economic growth and the benefit from the upside when it happens.

    So the government will consult on transferring responsibilities for local economic development currently delivered by Local Enterprise Partnerships to support local economic development to local authorities from April 2024.

    I will also boost Mayors’ financial autonomy by agreeing multi-year single settlements for the West Midlands and the Greater Combined Manchester Authority at the next spending review, something I intend to roll out for all Mayoral areas over time.

    I have also agreed a new long-term commitment so that they can retain 100% of their business rates, something I also hope to expand to other areas over time.

    Investment zones, regeneration projects, levelling up partnerships, local transport infrastructure and business rates retention…more control for local communities over their economic destiny so we will level up wealth generation and opportunity everywhere.

    Enterprise

    Today’s budget is about the Prime Minister’s promise to grow the economy.

    We’ve talked about making that growth happen everywhere, so I now move on to my second ‘e’. Enterprise.

    We need to be Europe’s most dynamic enterprise economy.

    And under this government that is exactly what’s been happening.

    Since 2010 we have one million more businesses in the UK, a bigger increase than in Germany, France or Italy.

    But I want another million and another million after that.

    So today I bring forward enterprise measures in these threeareas: to lower business taxes, reduce energy costs and support our growth industries.

    Business taxes

    Let’s start with business taxation.

    We know the importance of a competitive tax regime. We already have lower levels of business taxation than France, Germany, Italy or Japan.

    But I want us to have the most pro-business pro-enterprise tax regime anywhere.

    Even after the corporation tax rise this April, we will have the lowest headline rate in the G7.

    Only 10% of companies will pay the full 25% rate.

    But even at 19% our corporation tax regime did not incentivise investment as effectively as countries with higher headline rates.

    The result is less capital investment and lower productivity than countries like France and Germany.

    We have already taken measures to address this.

    For larger businesses we have had the super deduction, introduced by my RHF the Prime Minister, which ends this month.

    For smaller businesses we have increased the Annual Investment Allowance to £1m, meaning 99% of all businesses can deduct the full value of all their investment from that year’s taxable profits.

    If the super deduction was allowed to end without a replacement, we would have fallen down the international league tables for tax competitiveness and damaged growth.

    I could not allow that to happen.

    So today, I can announce that we will introduce a new policy of “full expensing” for the next three years, with an intention to make it permanent as soon as we can responsibly do so.

    That means that every single pound a company invests in IT equipment, plant or machinery can be deducted in full and immediately from taxable profits.

    It is a corporation tax cut worth an average of £9 bn a year for every year it is in place.

    And its impact on our economy will be huge. The OBR says it will increase business investment by 3% for every year it is in place.

    This decision makes us the only major European country with full expensing…

    …and gives us the joint most generous capital allowance regime of any advanced economy.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I also want to make our taxes more competitive in our life science and creative industry sectors.

    In the Autumn, I said I would return with a more robust R & D tax credit scheme for smaller research-intensive companies.

    So today, I am introducing an enhanced credit which means that if a qualifying small or medium-sized business spends 40% or more of their total expenditure on R & D, they will be able to claim a credit worth £27 for every £100 they spend.

    That means an eligible cancer drug company spending £2 million on research and development will receive over £500,000 to help them develop breakthrough treatments.

    It is a £1.8 billion package of support helping 20,000 cutting edge companies who day by day are turning Britain into a science superpower.

    This government’s audio-visual tax reliefs have helped make our film and TV industry the biggest in Europe. Only last month, Pinewood announced an expansion which will bring another 8,000 jobs to the UK.

    To give even more momentum to this critical sector I will introduce an expenditure credit with a rate of 34% for film, high end television and video games and 39% for the animation and children’s TV sectors. I will maintain the qualifying threshold for high-end television at £1 million.

    And because our theatres, orchestras and museums do such a brilliant job at attracting tourists to London and the UK, I will also extend for another two years their current 45% and 50% reliefs.

    Energy

    Madam Deputy Speaker, an enterprise economy needs low taxes. But it also needs cheap and reliable energy.

    We have already announced billions of support to help businesses reduce their energy bills through the Energy Bills Relief Scheme and the Energy Bills Discount Scheme.

    We have appointed Dame Alison Rose, Chief Executive of NatWest, to co-Chair our national energy efficiency taskforce and help deliver our national ambition to reduce energy use by 15%.

    To support her efforts, I will extend the Climate Change Agreement scheme for two years to allow eligible businesses £600 million of tax relief on energy efficiency measures.

    But the long-term solution is not subsidy but security.

    That means investing in domestic sources of energy that fall outside Putin or any autocrat’s control.

    We are world leaders in renewable energy so today I want to develop another plank of our green economy, Carbon Capture Usage and Storage.

    I am allocating up to £20 billion of support for the early development of CCUS, starting with projects from our East Coast to Merseyside to North Wales – paving the way for CCUS everywhere across the UK as we approach 2050.

    This will support up to 50,000 jobs, attract private sector investment and help capture 20-30 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030.

    We have increased the proportion of electricity generated from renewables from under 10% to nearly 40%.

    But because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, we will need another critical source of cheap and reliable energy.

    And that is nuclear.

    There have been no more powerful advocates for this than the hon members for Ynys Mon, Copeland, Hartlepool and Workington.

    They rightly say that increasing nuclear capacity is vital to meet our Net Zero obligations.

    So to encourage the private sector investment into our nuclear programme, I today confirm that subject to consultation nuclear power will be classed as “environmentally sustainable” in our green taxonomy, giving it access to the same investment incentives as renewable energy.

    Alongside that will come more public investment.

    In the Autumn Statement, I announced the first state-financed investment in nuclear for a generation, a £700 million investment in Sizewell C.

    Today I can announce two further commitments to deliver our nuclear ambitions.

    Firstly, following representations from our energetic Energy Security Secretary I am announcing the launch of Great British Nuclear which will bring down costs and provide opportunities across the nuclear supply chain to help provide up to one quarter of our electricity by 2050.

    And secondly, I am launching the first competition for Small Modular Reactors. It will be completed by the end of this year and if demonstrated as viable we will co-fund this exciting new technology.

    Boosting innovation

    Finally under the ‘e’ of Enterprise I come to our innovation economy, a central area of national competitive advantage for the United Kingdom.

    Over the weekend, I worked night and day with the Prime Minister and the Governor of the Bank of England to protect the deposits of thousands of our most cutting-edge companies.

    We successfully secured the sale of the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank to HSBC, so the future of those companies is now safe in the hands of one of Europe’s biggest and most creditworthy banks.

    But those events show that we need to build a larger, more diverse financing system, where the benefits of investment in high growth firms are available to more investors.

    So I will return in the Autumn Statement with a plan to deliver that. It will include measures to unlock productive investment from defined contribution pension funds and other sources, make the London Stock Exchange a more attractive place to list, and complete our response to the challenges created by the US Inflation Reduction Act.

    However when it comes to our innovation industries, there are two areas I want to make progress on today.

    Nigel Lawson made the City of London one of the world’s top financial centres by competitive deregulation.

    With our Brexit autonomy, we can do the same for our high growth sectors.

    So today I want to reform the regulations around medicines and medical technologies.

    We are lucky with the MHRA to have one of the most respected drugs regulators in the world, indeed the very first to licence a Covid vaccine.

    From 2024, they will move to a different model which will allow rapid, often near automatic sign-off for medicines and technologies already approved by trusted regulators in other parts of the world such as the United States, Europe or Japan.

    At the same time from next year they will set up a swift new approval process for the most cutting-edge medicines and devices to ensure the UK becomes a global centre for their development.

    And with an extra £10m of funding over the next two years they will put in place the quickest, simplest, regulatory approval in the world for companies seeking rapid market access.

    We are proud of our life sciences sector which received more inward investment than any in Europe last year.

    Today’s change will make the UK an even more exciting place to invest – as well as speeding up access for NHS patients to the very newest drugs.

    Today together with our talented Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary, I also take measures to strengthen our position in artificial intelligence, where the UK hosts one third of all European companies.

    I am accepting all nine of the digital technology recommendations made by Sir Patrick Vallance in the review I asked him to do in the Autumn Statement.

    That means I can report to the House that we will:

    …launch an AI sandbox to trial new, faster approaches to help innovators get cutting edge products to market;

    …work at pace with the Intellectual Property Office to provide clarity on IP rules so Generative AI companies can access the material they need;

    ……and ask Sir Patrick’s successor, Dame Professor Angela McLean, to report before the summer on options around the Growth Duty for regulators.

    Because AI needs computing horsepower, I today commit around £900m of funding to implement the recommendations in the independent Future of Compute Review for an Exascale supercomputer.

    The power that AI’s complex algorithms need can also be provided by quantum computing.

    So today we publish a quantum strategy which will set our vision to be a world leading quantum enabled economy by 2033 with a research and innovation programme totalling £2.5 billion.

    I also want to encourage the best AI research to happen in the UK so will award a prize of £1m every year, for the next ten years, to the person or team that does the most ground-breaking British AI research.

    The world’s first stored-programme computer was built at the University of Manchester in 1948, and was known as the “Manchester baby”.

    75 years on, the baby has grown up, so I will call this new national AI award “the Manchester Prize” in its honour.

    Madam Deputy Speaker we want the UK to be the best place in Europe for companies to locate, invest and grow so today’s enterprise measures strengthen our technology and life science sectors, invest in energy security and for three years – but I hope permanently – cut corporation tax by £9 bn a year to give us the best investment incentives of any advanced economy.

    Employment

    An enterprise economy can only grow if it can hire the people it needs, which brings me to my third pillar after ‘Everywhere’ and ‘Enterprise’, the ‘E’ of Employment.

    Brexit was a decision by the British people to change our economic model.

    In that historic vote, our country decided to move from a model based on unlimited low skill migration to one based on high wages and high skills.

    Today we show how we will deliver that with a major set of reforms. The OBR say it is the biggest positive supply side intervention they have ever recognised in their forecast.

    We have around one million vacancies in the economy…

    … but excluding students there are over seven million adults of working age who are not in work.

    That is a potential pool of seven people for every vacancy. We believe work is a virtue.

    We agree with the road haulage king Eddie Stobart who said: ‘the only place success comes before work is the dictionary.’

    So today, I bring forward reforms to remove the barriers that stop people who want to from working. I start with over 2 million people who are inactive due to a disability or long-term sickness.

    Long term sick and disabled

    Thanks to the reforms courageously introduced by the Rt Hon Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, the number of disabled people in work has risen by two million since 2013.

    But even after that we could fill half the vacancies in the economy with people who say they would like to work despite being inactive due to sickness or disability.

    With Zoom, Teams and new working models that make it easier to work from home this is more possible than ever before.

    So for that reason, the ever-diligent Work and Pensions Secretary, today takes the next step in his ground-breaking work on tackling economic inactivity.

    I thank him for that, and today we publish a White Paper on disability benefits reform.

    It is the biggest change to our welfare system in a decade.

    His plans will abolish the Work Capability Assessment in Great Britain and separate benefit entitlement from an individual’s ability to work. As a result, disabled benefit claimants will always be able to seek work without fear of losing financial support.

    Today I am going further by announcing that in England and Wales, after listening to representations from the Centre for Social Justice and others, we will fund a new programme called Universal Support.

    This is a new, voluntary employment scheme for disabled people where the government will spend up to £4,000 per person to help them find appropriate jobs and put in place the support they need. It will fund 50,000 places every single year.

    We also want to help those who are forced to leave work because of a health condition such as back pain or a mental health issue.

    We should give them support before they end up leaving their job, so I am also announcing a £400m plan to increase the availability of mental health and musculoskeletal resources and expand the Individual Placement and Support scheme.

    And because occupational health provided by employers has a key role to play, I will also bring forward two new consultations on how to improve its availability and double the funding for the small company subsidy pilot.

    Young people in care

    There is another group that deserves particular attention, which is children in care. They too should be given all possible help to make a normal working life possible when they reach adulthood.

    Often, they depend on foster families who do a brilliant job, so I am today nearly doubling the Qualifying Care Relief threshold to £18,140 which will give a tax cut to a qualifying carer worth an average of £450 a year.

    I will also increase the funding we provide to the Staying Close programme by 50% to help more care leavers into employment.

    And I will support young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities with a £3m pilot expansion of the Department for Education’s Supported Internship programme to help them transition from education into the workplace.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, no civilised society can ignore the contribution that can be made by those with challenging family circumstances, a long-term illness or a disability.

    So today we remove the barriers we can with reforms that strengthen our society as well as strengthening our economy.

    Welfare recipients

    The next set of employment reforms affects those on Universal Credit without a health condition who are looking for work or on low earnings.

    There are more than 2 million jobseekers in this group, more than enough to fill every single vacancy in the economy.

    Independence is always better than dependence, which is why we believe those who can work, should.

    So sanctions will be applied more rigorously to those who fail to meet strict work-search requirements or choose not to take up a reasonable job offer.

    And for those working low hours, we will increase the Administrative Earnings Threshold from the equivalent of 15 hours to 18 hours at National Living Wage for an individual claimant, meaning that anyone working below this level will receive more work coach support alongside a more intensive conditionality regime.

    Older workers including doctors

    The next group of workers I want to support are those aged over 50.

    My younger officials have termed these people “older workers”, although as a 56-year-old myself I prefer the term “experienced.”

    Fully 3.5 million of pre-retirement age over 50 are not part of the labour force, an increase of 320,000 since before the pandemic.

    We now have the 23rd highest inactivity rate for over 55s in the OECD.

    If we matched the rate of Sweden, we would add more than one million people to our national labour force.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I say this not to flatter you, but older people are the most skilled and experienced people we have.

    No country can thrive if it turns its back on such a wealth of talent and ability.

    But for too many, turning 50 is a moment of anxiety about the cliff edge of retirement rather than a moment of anticipation about another two decades of fulfilment.

    I know this myself from personal experience. After I turned 50, I was relegated to the backbenches and planned for a quiet life. But instead I decided to set an example by embarking on a new career in finance.

    So today I take three steps to make it easier for those who wish to work longer to do so.

    First, we will increase the number of people who get the best possible financial, health and career guidance ahead of retirement by enhancing the DWP’s excellent “Mid-life MOT” Strategy.

    They will also increase by fivefold the number of 50+ Universal Credit claimants who receive mid-life MOTs from 8,000 to 40,000 a year.

    Second with my RHF the Education Secretary, we will introduce a new kind of apprenticeship targeted at the over 50s who want to return to work.

    They will be called Returnerships, and operate alongside skills boot camps and sector-based work academies.

    They will bring together our existing skills programmes to make them more appealing for older workers, focussing on flexibility and previous experience to reduce training length.

    Finally, I have listened to the concerns of many senior NHS clinicians who say unpredictable pension tax charges are making them leave the NHS just when they are needed most.

    The NHS is our biggest employer, and we will shortly publish the long-term workforce plan I promised in the Autumn Statement.

    But ahead of that I do not want any doctor to retire early because of the way pension taxes work.

    As Chancellor I have realised the issue goes wider than doctors.

    No one should be pushed out of the workforce for tax reasons.

    So today I will increase the pensions annual tax-free allowance by 50% from £40,000 to £60,000.

    Some have also asked me to increase the Lifetime Allowance from its £1 million limit.

    But I have decided not to do that.

    Instead I will go further and abolish the Lifetime Allowance altogether.

    It’s a pension tax reform that will…

    … stop over 80% of NHS doctors from receiving a tax charge.

    … incentivise our most experienced and productive workers to stay in work for longer.

    … and simplify our tax system, taking thousands of people out of the complexity of pension tax.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, a comprehensive plan to remove the barriers to work facing those on benefits, those with health conditions and older workers. That is the ‘e’ of the employment pillar of today’s growth budget.

    Education

    Which brings me to the final pillar of our growth plan. After Employment, Enterprise and Everywhere I turn to the ‘e’ of Education.

    Over more than a decade, this government has driven improvement in our education system.

    We have risen by nearly 10 places in the international league tables for English and maths since 2015 alone.

    In the Autumn Statement, I built on this progress with an extra £2.3bn annual investment to our schools.

    We are reviewing our approach to skills with Sir Michael Barber.

    We have set out our plans to transform lifelong learning with a new Lifelong Loan Entitlement…

    …and My RHF the PM announced plans to make maths compulsory till 18.

    But today I want to address an issue in our education system that is bad for children and damaging for the economy.

    It’s an issue that starts even before a child enters the gates of a school.

    Today I want to reform our childcare system.

    We have the one of the most expensive systems in the world.

    Almost half of non-working mothers said they would prefer to work if they could arrange suitable childcare.

    For many women, a career break becomes a career end.

    Our female participation rate is higher than average for OECD economies, but we trail top performers like Denmark and the Netherlands.

    If we matched Dutch levels of participation, there would be more than one million additional women working.

    So today I announce a series of reforms to start that journey.

    Supply

    I begin with the supply of childcare. We have seen a significant decline in childminders over recent years – down 9% in England in just one year.

    But childminders are a vital way to deliver affordable and flexible care and we need more of them.

    I have listened to representations from my hon friend from Stroud and decided to address this by piloting incentive payments of £600 for childminders who sign up to the profession, rising to £1,200 for those who join through an agency.

    I have also heard many concerns about cost pressures facing the sector.

    We know this is making it hard to hire staff and raising prices for parents, with around two thirds of childcare providers increasing fees last year alone.

    So we will increase the funding paid to nurseries providing free childcare under the hours offer by £204m from this September rising to £288m next year.

    This is an average of a 30% increase in the two-year-old rate this year, just as the sector has requested.

    I will also offer providers more flexibility in how they operate in line with other parts of the UK. So alongside that additional funding, we will change minimum staff-to-child ratios from 1:4 to 1:5 for two-year-olds in England as happens in Scotland, although the new ratios will remain optional with no obligation on either childminders or parents to adopt them.

    UC claimants

    I want to help the 700,000 parents on universal credit who, until the reforms I announced today had limited requirements to look for work. Many remain out of work because they cannot afford the upfront payment necessary to access subsidised childcare.

    So for any parents who are moving into work or wants to increase their hours, we will pay their childcare costs upfront.

    And we will increase the maximum they can claim to £951 for one child and £1,630 for two children, an increase of almost 50%.

    School age children

    I turn now to parents of school age children, who often face barriers to working because of the limited availability of wraparound care.

    One third of primary schools do not offer childcare at both ends of the school day, even though for many people a job requires availability throughout the working day.

    To address this, we will fund schools and local authorities to increase supply of wraparound care so all school-age parents can drop their children off between 8 am and 6 pm.

    Our ambition is that all schools will start to offer a wraparound offer, either on their own or in partnership with other schools, by September 2026.

    Pre-school children

    Madam Deputy Speaker, today’s childcare reforms will increase the availability of childcare, reduce costs and increase the number of parents able to use it.

    Taken together with earlier reforms, they amount to the most significant improvements to childcare provision in a decade.

    But if we really want to remove the barriers to work we need to go further for parents who have a child under 3.

    For them childcare remains just too expensive.

    In 2010 there was barely any free childcare for under 5s.

    The government changed that with free childcare for 3- and 4-year-olds in England.

    It was a landmark reform.

    But not a complete one.

    I don’t want any parent with a child under 5 to be prevented from working, if they want to, because it is damaging to our economy and unfair, mainly to women.

    So today I announce that in eligible households where all adults are working at least 16 hours, we will introduce 30 hours of free childcare not just for 3-and-4 year-olds, but for every single child over the age of 9 months.

    The 30 hours offer will now start from the moment maternity or paternity leave ends.

    It’s a package worth on average £6,500 every year for a family with a two-year-old child using 35 hours of childcare every week…

    … and reduces their childcare costs by nearly 60%.

    Because it is such a large reform, we will introduce it in stages to ensure there is enough supply in the market.

    Working parents of two-year-olds will be able to access 15 hours of free care from April 2024, helping around half a million parents.

    From September 2024, that 15 hours will be extended to all children from 9 months up, meaning a total of nearly one million parents will be eligible.

    And from September 2025 every single working parent of under 5s will have access to 30 hours free childcare per week.

    Today we complete a landmark reform…

    …we help the economy

    …transform the lives of thousands of women

    …and build a childcare system comparable to the best.

    A major early years reform for our education system, the ‘E’ of education alongside the three other pillars of our growth plan, enterprise, employment and everywhere.

    Madam Deputy Speaker in November we delivered stability.

    Today it’s growth.

    We tackle the two biggest barriers that stop businesses growing – investment incentives and labour supply.

    The best investment incentives in Europe.

    The biggest ever employment package.

    For disabled people, more help.

    For older people, barriers removed.

    For families feeling the pinch…

    …fuel duty frozen.

    …beer duty cut.

    …energy bills capped.

    And for parents, 30 hours of free childcare for all under 5s.

    Today we build for the future with…

    …inflation down

    …debt falling

    …and growth up.

    The declinists are wrong, and the optimists are right.

    We stick to the plan because the plan is working.

    And I commend this statement to the House.

  • Tom Hunt – 2023 Comments on Building Safety and Cardinal Lofts

    Tom Hunt – 2023 Comments on Building Safety and Cardinal Lofts

    The comments made by Tom Hunt, the Conservative MP for Ipswich, in the House of Commons on 14 March 2023.

    Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)

    The Secretary of State is well aware of the situation with Cardinal Lofts. Today at 10 minutes past two, a formal prohibition notice was served, so any remaining constituents of mine in that building will be obliged to leave. One of the worst things is the lack of timescale for how long my constituents will be in limbo. They cannot plan their lives—their lives are on hold. Will the Secretary of State work with me to try to get that certainty as soon as possible and look into compensation that goes beyond covering temporary accommodation? The extent to which their lives has been affected is unacceptable. He will also know that Railpen was aware of these issues for two years before it decided to take any action at all.

    Michael Gove

    My hon. Friend is right, and he has been a fantastic champion for the residents of Cardinal Lofts and other people affected by this. I think I am right in saying that Railpen is the ultimate owner of the freehold for this building. It is the pension fund for those who work in the rail sector. There are good trade unionists on the board of that pension fund to whom I appeal to show the same degree of energy in helping working people as my hon. Friend. While pension funds of course have fiduciary responsibilities and all the rest of it, it is vital that we do right by the residents of this building. I hope I will have the chance to visit Ipswich soon, to make good on that commitment.

  • Clive Betts – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    Clive Betts – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    The speech made by Clive Betts, the Labour MP for Sheffield South East, in the House of Commons on 14 March 2023.

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.

    Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)

    I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Clearly, any progress in this matter is welcome for the leaseholders who are still sat there, wondering when something is going to happen to their unsafe homes. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), is coming to the Select Committee next Monday. I apologise in advance that, for personal reasons, I cannot be there, but I am sure the scrutiny will be just as effective under the oversight of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).

    A number of issues have been raised with the Select Committee. First, in terms of the agreement that developers are signing, it was said to us that the remediation standards developers will have to work to will not be as strict as those under the Building Safety Act. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether that is true? Secondly, the Committee spoke to product manufacturers the other week, who said that they had had no contact with the Department for the last 12 months. Is that true, and if so, when will that contact be renewed, so that they can be held to account?

    Finally, the Minister says, “I’m going to look at this” every time I ask him. Kate Henderson of the National Housing Federation told the Committee on Monday that the cost of remediating these matters will be £6 billion for social housing providers. They have only had a tiny bit of money under the ACM cladding measures. Will the Secretary of State look at that again? Otherwise, there will be cutbacks to the house building programme that they all want to engage in.

    Michael Gove

    I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for his questions. I note his apology for not being able to be there to cross examine my hon. Friend the Minister for local government and building safety next Monday. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) will do a brilliant job. They are the Morse and Lewis of—

    Mr Betts

    Which one’s which?

    Michael Gove

    Well, quite. I know that they will show endeavour in asking the right questions.

    On remediation standards, I do not believe it is the case that the developers are being held to any less high a standard than that which exists in the Building Safety Act, but I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman and others to identify any gap between what the Act makes provision for and anything that developers have committed to do.

    It is the case that I have not been in touch with the Construction Products Association as a corporate body for a while. We have been pursuing individual construction product companies, but of course, our actions have to take account of the actions of others who may be pursuing them for criminal activity and liability.

    On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the National Housing Federation, I have been in conversations with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about what more we can do to support the social housing sector. How richly those conversations bear fruit, we will have to see.