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Tag: 2025

  • PRESS RELEASE : New rules to prioritise recruiting care workers in England [March 2025]

    PRESS RELEASE : New rules to prioritise recruiting care workers in England [March 2025]

    The press release issued by the Home Office on 12 March 2025.

    Employers will be required to prioritise recruiting international care workers already in England before recruiting from overseas.

    The new rules were laid in Parliament today (12 March).

    From 9 April, care providers who want to recruit a new worker from overseas will have to first prove that they have attempted to recruit a worker from within England who needs new sponsorship. This ensures that those who came to the UK to pursue a career in adult social care can do so and will help end the reliance on overseas recruitment as we restore order to our immigration system through our Plan for Change.

    Significant work has been ongoing across government, in collaboration with the care sector, to ensure high standards across the immigration system, and to support care workers into alternative jobs when their sponsor has had their licence removed. Under our Plan for Change, we will set out a comprehensive plan to restore order to our broken immigration system, linking immigration, skills and visa systems to grow our domestic skills, end reliance on overseas labour and boost economic growth.

    As well as continuing to tackle exploitation, the government is also continuing its clampdown on abuse in the immigration system with changes to the Short-Term Student route.

    The visa is designed for those studying an English language course in the UK for between 6 and 11 months, however, there are rising concerns that the route is being abused by those without a genuine intention to study or to leave the UK at the end of their course. In light of this troubling trend, tough new rules will give expanded powers for caseworkers to refuse visa applications which are suspected of being non-genuine.

    Seema Malhotra, Minister for Migration and Citizenship, said:

    Those who have come to the UK to support our adult care sector should have the opportunity to do so, free from abuse and exploitation.

    We have already taken action to ensure employers are not able to flout the rules with little consequence or exploit international workers for costs they were always supposed to pay.

    We are now going further, requiring employers in England to prioritise recruiting international care workers who are already here and seeking new sponsorship, before recruiting from overseas.

    The new requirements continue government action announced in November to crack down on employers who abuse the visa system; barring those who repeatedly break immigration or employment laws from hiring overseas workers and will help support those workers into new jobs.

    The changes announced last year also ban companies from charging workers for the cost of their sponsorship, which has never been intended and led to exploitation, unfair treatment of staff and unsustainable levels of debt in the care sector.

    Between July 2022 and December 2024, the government has revoked more than 470 sponsor licences in the care sector to clamp down on abuse and exploitation. More than 39,000 workers have been associated with these sponsors since October 2020.

    Changes announced today will also see the minimum salary thresholds updated to reflect the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This will ensure those working on the Skilled Worker visa, including care workers, are paid a minimum of £12.82 per hour.

    Health and education occupations, including doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and teachers, will also see their minimum rates increased to reflect the latest national pay scales.

    Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care, said:

    International care workers play a vital role in our social care workforce. We value their contribution and work supporting vulnerable people across the country every day.

    As we crack down on shameful rogue operators exploiting overseas workers here in the UK, we must do all we can to get the victims back into rewarding careers in adult social care.

    Prioritising care workers who are already in the UK will get people back to work reducing our reliance on international recruitment, and make sure our social care sector has the care professionals it needs.

    The rules come as the government continues implementation of a series of measures to reduce the potential for abuse on the Student and Graduate visa routes.

    Further details of the government’s plan to reduce the staggeringly high levels of legal migration seen in recent years will be set out in the government’s forthcoming Immigration White Paper.

  • PRESS RELEASE : Regulator axed as red tape is slashed to boost growth [March 2025]

    PRESS RELEASE : Regulator axed as red tape is slashed to boost growth [March 2025]

    The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 11 March 2025.

    Regulation will be cut back as the Prime Minister sets out his latest steps to drive economic growth that puts more money in working people’s pockets.

    • Unnecessary regulation will be cut to boost growth that puts more money in working people’s pockets
    • Payment Systems Regulator abolished as part of efficiency drive
    • PM to set out how the Government is securing our future through the Plan for Change

    Regulation will be cut back as the Prime Minister sets out his latest steps to drive economic growth that puts more money in working people’s pockets.

    The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) will be abolished as the latest step in reducing the burdens on business.

    The Government will set out further steps to reduce red tape in the coming days.

    A strong economy is at the heart of the Government’s plan to deliver security and renewal through the Plan for Change.

    The PSR – which looks after payment systems like Faster Payments and Mastercard – will mainly be consolidated into the Financial Conduct Authority, making it easier for firms to deal with one port of call.

    It follows complaints from businesses that the regulatory environment was too complex – with payment system firms having to engage with three different regulators, costing them time, money and resource.

    This has a greater impact on smaller businesses that are trying to scale and grow – as the costs are disproportionately higher for them.

    The Prime Minister wants to make regulation work for the UK – and this is the latest step in his drive to create an environment that will kickstart economic growth.

    It is only by creating growth that people will see a genuine increase in their living standards – with higher wages and more money in their pocket at the end of the month.

    Prime Minister, Keir Starmer said:

    For too long, the previous Government hid behind regulators – deferring decisions and allowing regulations to bloat and block meaningful growth in this country.

    And it has been working people who pay the price of this stagnation.

    This is the latest step in our efforts to kickstart economic growth, which is the only way we can fundamentally drive-up living standards and get more money in people’s pockets.

    That’s why it is the priority in the Plan for Change, and it’s why I’m not letting anything get in its way.

    Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said:

    The regulatory system has become burdensome to the point of choking off innovation, investment and growth. We will free businesses from that stranglehold, delivering on our Plan for Change to kickstart economic growth and put more money into working people’s pockets.

    This builds on the Government’s deregulatory agenda, which has already:

    • Lifted the onshore wind ban at the stroke of a pen
    • Introduced the Planning and Infrastructure Bill
    • Launched the root and branch review of the water sector
    • Set financial services regulators on a growth agenda
    • Set up a review of all environmental regulation

    Today’s announcement does not result in any immediate changes to the Payment Systems Regulator’s remit or ongoing programme of work. The regulator will continue to have access to its statutory powers until legislation is passed by Parliament to enact these changes.

    In the interim period, the Payment Systems Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority will work closely to deliver a smooth transition of responsibilities to ensure the market remains competitive.

    The entire regulatory landscape will continue to be reviewed and finessed as part of a wider Government effort to kickstart economic growth and make regulators work for the country, rather than block progress.

    This is the latest in a line of work to make regulators work for the country. It follows:

    • A speech from the Prime Minister at the International Investment Summit where he called on the regulatory regime to fit the modern age.
    • A letter from the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Business Secretary – calling on regulators to come up with at least five reforms each that will boost economic growth.
    • The Chancellor hauling in regulators in January to have these proposals scrutinised.
  • PRESS RELEASE : Cooperation between the EU and UN is more important now than ever – UK statement at the UN Security Council [March 2025]

    PRESS RELEASE : Cooperation between the EU and UN is more important now than ever – UK statement at the UN Security Council [March 2025]

    The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 11 March 2025.

    Statement by Ambassador James Kariuki, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, at the UN Security Council meeting on cooperation with the EU.

    The United Kingdom welcomes the EU’s ongoing commitment to championing multilateralism, tackling global challenges and assisting the Security Council’s work.

    With multiple global crises threatening the foundations of international peace and security, cooperation between the EU and UN is more important now than ever.

    Nowhere is this truer than in Ukraine.

    Three years on from Russia’s brutal invasion, the EU continues its critical role in supporting Ukraine and countering Russian aggression.

    This includes its enhanced level of economic, humanitarian and military support to Ukraine, and willingness to further contribute to security guarantees.

    The UK will continue to work closely with the EU to ensure a just and lasting peace in Ukraine that secures its sovereignty and security.

    In the Western Balkans, the EU-facilitated Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue plays a vital role in normalising relations between Serbia and Kosovo, and EUFOR ALTHEA continues to help provide stability and security in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

    The UK continues to support the region’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations as a driver for reform and economic growth.

    Beyond Europe, the UK welcomes the EU’s commitment to stabilisation in the Middle East, including its efforts toward securing a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace.

    EUBAM Rafah is a vital third-party presence, allowing individuals to access urgent medical care.

    The EU is also helping support an inclusive political transition and economic recovery in Syria, and we welcome its recent sanctions suspensions to this end.

    The EU is a valued partner for UN efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. We are pleased it is among the co-hosts of April’s Foreign Minister-level discussions in London, which will foster consensus on ending the conflict and improving humanitarian access.

    We also welcome the EU’s commitment of €60 million in new humanitarian aid in response to the recent eruption of conflict in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

    President, the UK looks forward to continuing to build on the UN’s ambitious and cooperative relationship with the EU to promote responsible multilateralism and to act as a force for good in the world.

  • Torsten Bell – 2025 Speech at the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association Conference

    Torsten Bell – 2025 Speech at the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association Conference

    The speech made by Torsten Bell, the Minister for Pensions, in Edinburgh on 11 March 2025.

    Thank you to the PLSA for the invitation to speak…

    …and for bringing us all to Edinburgh…

    …the city my first boss in politics, Alistair Darling, represented and loved.

    It is always a pleasure to come…

    …well almost always.

    Because it can trigger traumatic flashbacks.

    One stands out.

    Of a pre-dawn drive across from Glasgow back in 2014…

    …to accompany Alistair to the Andrew Marr show on the Sunday just days before the referendum.

    It’s not a great distance, nor is the traffic bad at 5am…

    ….but it felt like an eternity given the weight of events.

    Events that could have had seismic repercussions for the whole UK…

    …and for this city’s pensions, and financial services, industry.

    Whenever I hear partisans of Manchester and Birmingham compete over which is the UK’s second city…

    …I gently remind them that, when it comes to productivity, there’s no contest: it’s Edinburgh.

    I was also here last August for a rather more light-hearted kind of trauma.

    I was due to speak at the brilliant book festival…

    …and had plenty of time spare ahead of a 7pm event.

    Or at least I would have done, if it actually had a 7pm start…

    I was ambling under the castle when my team rang.

    There had been a mix-up and the event started at 6.

    It was 5.45.

    This was an event on a big, serious, topic: the UK’s economic stagnation.

    But rather than pondering that I now had a rather more practical question…

    …how fast can a newly elected MP walk, or run, up the hills of this city while retaining a shred of dignity in transit and upon arrival.

    Quite fast it turns out is the answer…

    …although opinions differ on much dignity was retained.

    This is all a long way of saying particularly thank you to the PLSA for organising today…

    …and sparing us any short notice changes to the schedule.

    So we can give pensions the unflustered attention it deserves.

    Today I want to step back to focus on the big picture…

    …of where our priorities must be as our defined contribution saving landscape matures…

    …and defined benefit schemes see their funding positions changed materially.

    On the former my big argument is we have to pay more attention to returns for savers…

    …rather than just to costs, or savings rates – important as both those are.

    Celebrating the success of auto-enrolment can no longer be a substitute for answering the harder question:

    What does the best landscape for those savings to be managed in look like?

    Both to maximise returns for savers…

    …and to ensure those savers live in a country that is investing and growing again after a long decade of economic stagnation

    Now, our view is that scale does matter.

    We want fewer, bigger, better pension schemes.

    That is already the direction of travel – for a whole host of reasons.

    We are merely providing extra wind into the consolidation processes’ sails.

    Of course, some smaller schemes deliver great value for money.

    But for the market as a whole, and savers on average, consolidation is desirable.

    Larger schemes are better placed to invest in more productive asset classes.

    This is a diversification as important as that of geography, which rightly gets so much attention.

    Scale also helps reduce costs – and increases bargaining power.

    That both can help provide the headroom for building investment capability…

    …or just better returns for members.

    Around the world we also see that scale matters for the nature of ownership.

    Only large pension schemes can provide active, engaged ownership…

    … of the kind that presses management not just on short term returns today but on whether they can deliver over the long term.

    Now, scale of course is an enabler of change, and it is very far from a silver bullet.

    One part of interlocking reforms.

    Including reforms to focus more on value, and less narrowly on cost or price.

    I’m grateful for the support there has been for the proposed value for money framework.

    It will help focus minds.

    Employers including any in the room today will have no excuse for ignoring what matters most to their employees.

    But we also need to focus on value in debates and, to be frank, in sales pitches.

    Now why do I focus on enabling productive investment?

    Because we do so little of it.

    DC pension funds allocate 3% to infrastructure and 0.5% to private equity.

    That compares to an 11% infrastructure allocation in Canada, and 5% to private equity in Australia.

    Every percentage point counts, or part of a percentage point matter when this investment can deliver not only returns for savers…

    …but also contribute to economic growth.

    and if you want a simple summary of the government’s economic strategy this is it:

    It’s time for Britain to start investing in its future again.

    Again, this shift to investing in a wider range of assets is again one we are encouraging rather than instigating.

    Many of you have told me about changes you are already delivering…

    …building new capacities or partnering with others.

    I want to acknowledge the work going on across the industry to realise this shift.

    And from learning from parts of the industry that have been doing this for decades.

    I particularly want to welcome the ambition to go further through voluntary commitments.

    This work is ongoing, under the leadership of the PLSA, City of London and the ABI…

    I want to thank them all for it…

    … I look forward to seeing the results in the coming weeks…

    …and will weigh them heavily as we finalise the Investment Review that Zoe talked about.

    Now everyone in this room, given you’ve signed up and I suspect will be here for three days, loves talking about pensions.

    But we all know, higher investment is about far more than pension reform.

    That’s why we encourage you to focus on how the overall strategy, how the pensions reform sit within that wider argument.

    It also requires a supply of investable propositions, not just the existence of capital.

    Across the board we are working to grow that pipeline and to make it more visible.

    In June we will set out our 10-year infrastructure strategy.

    The British Growth Partnership is there to help bring VC investment opportunities to pension funds.

    Our work with local and regional government will highlight investable propositions right across geographies.

    Investment propositions will also need to be visible in another sense…

    …they actually need to get built.

    We have already got back in the habit of swiftly granting permissions for the likes of solar farms and reservoirs.

    Permissions which previously policy makers seem to have decided Britain could do without.

    And today we’ve introduced the Planning Bill to make sure we do get homes and infrastructure built.

    If we’re going to invest once again…

    …we have to make it possible to build it once again.

    Now in many ways, elements of our approach build on the success of the Local Government Pension Scheme.

    At £400bn it is not just one of the world’s largest schemes in the world…

    …but one of the fastest growing, projected to reach £1 trillion by 2040.

    Now given that, we must reflect on what is working well, and what more we can do.

    One clear objective is reducing fragmentation.

    Minimum standards for asset pooling are an important step…

    …and again there is lots of progress underway.

    Thank you to those who have prepared pool transition proposals, all of which we have now received.

    A great deal of time and energy has clearly gone into them.

    We put the onus on the LGPS to come forward with creative and collaborative plans.

    And we are now considering if the proposals have met that ask.

    You have all asked for clarity as quickly as possible and I’m delighted to be meeting each and every pool in the coming weeks.

    And because it is important that concrete progress is made…

    …I am today confirming that we will plan to stick to the timeline of March 2026.

    The pooling project began 10 years ago.

    By this time next year, our world class LGPS will be made up of large pools of professionally managed capital…

    …accountable to Authorities via robust governance structures…

    …and delivering for members and their communities.

    On the Investment Review more generally, it will be finalised in the coming weeks.

    The final report will be all the better for the consultation responses we have received.

    It – and the wider changes promised in the Kings Speech – will form the basis of the Pensions Bill…

    …which I aim to introduce before the summer recess.

    That Bill brings me to the £1.2 trillion in DB schemes and the incredibly important role these schemes have to play.

    We know that the market is already innovating.

    Hence our commitment to legislate for a permanent regime for Superfunds.

    Today’s £160bn of surplus is a good ‘problem’ to have.

    Infinitely preferable to the previous problem: perma-deficits.

    Surplus flexibilities will allow more well-funded DB schemes to release resources back to business and scheme members.

    Where it is safe to do so.

    And where trustees agree.

    They are best placed to determine, in consultation with employers, the appropriate use of any surplus in their scheme.

    As an aside, some may want to examine the position of members with non-indexed pre-1997 accruals when considering the use of any surplus.

    I look forward to sharing more details with you in the response to our Options for DB schemes consultation this Spring.

    And we are considering proposals to allow the Pension Protection Fund greater flexibility to reduce the levy it collects from pension schemes, when it is not required.

    I recognise this can all sound like…. a lot.

    Especially given wider changes – dashboards and the rest.

    There are limits on any organisations ability to deliver.

    I take those constraints very seriously.

    Not everything that could be legislated for will be legislated for in the forthcoming Bill for exactly that reason.

    And we owe it to you to provide a clear roadmap of how these changes fit together.

    Now I want to end on the big picture, before my talk of capacity constraints exhausts your capacity to feign interest.

    It’s helpful to consider how “the pension problem” has changed.

    Not over recent months which is too often the focus but recent decades.

    Now here’s an overly simplistic view, but still a useful one, is as follows.

    The 1990s pension problem was this:

    How do we run pension schemes, and regulate them, to cope with the danger that some employers go bust – leaving employees without the pensions they were promised?

    That is a problem regulation, and more recently a good dose of luck, helped answer.

    The problem of the 2000s was different:

    How do we deal with the disaster that swathes of people no longer build up any pension savings, never mind any firm pension promises?

    Again, policy provided an answer in the form of automatic enrolment.

    In both cases solutions were found and that should give us confidence for our own challenges today.

    But in both cases we took too long to find them.

    Innovation in face of a chronic problem, rather than a crisis is not easy….

    …for policy makers, or anyone else working in this area

    What is today’s problem?

    The consensus is just to say adequacy, due to insufficient savings.

    I agree, the levels of contribution is an issue but I’d put the problem slightly differently.

    Today’s problem is how do we deliver higher returns for savers, so they can have a decent standard of living in retirement without asking any more than is necessary of their standard of living in the here and now.

    Or asking them to become a pensions expert – which is your job.

    Getting absolutely the best value for savers is the priority to any wider debate on savings levels.

    That’s why phase 1 of the pensions review on the landscape, and the pensions Bill that will help reduce costs in the system and put decumulation on a firmer footing, must come before phase 2 on adequacy.

    The damage done by poor returns – including during decumulation – maybe feels less binary and catastrophic than the risk of Maxwell style broken promises…

    …but it’s a mistake to underestimate its impact on savers, which can in some cases be just as great.

    So that is today’s exam question.

    We are making good progress.

    And I look forward to answering it…

    …with all of you over the months and years to come.

    Thank you very much.

  • Andrew George – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    Andrew George – 2025 Speech on Fishing Quota Negotiations

    The speech made by Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 26 March 2025.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered the impact of quota negotiations on the UK fishing fleet in 2025.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I come at this debate as someone who is not entirely new to fisheries debates, after having been involved in them in the early days of my parliamentary career in 1997 and on a number of occasions since. On how the fishing industry is perceived by the political process, I have always found that there seems to be an inverse relationship between politicians’ desire not to interfere with the fishing industry and the inevitability that politics has to interfere in order to help establish and sustain an industry that is so important to this country. Indeed, there is a further inverse relationship in the sense that the industries that work in and are exposed to the raw power of nature seem to have a higher degree of regulation and administrative burden that is disproportionate to their sense of freedom from office-based activity.

    It is interesting that the political parties that always seem keen to use the fishing industry as the poster boys for their campaigns and send flotillas up the Thames do not seem terribly interested in discussing the detail when it comes to the hard miles.

    Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)

    I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Although he did not name the individuals concerned, did he consider the fact that they might have other fish to fry?

    Andrew George

    We could spend all morning exchanging fishing industry puns, but I think it would be better to get back down to the nitty-gritty of trying to advance policy for the benefit of the fishing industry.

    The Minister will appreciate what goes on in my constituency, which he visited last summer when he came to Newlyn, Sennen and other areas around Cornwall to look at the activities within the industry. That was very much appreciated and he clearly has a very sincere interest in the industry. Although he is not personally responsible for what he has inherited, he has a significant task on his hands in helping the industry find a way forward. That is what I hope we can encourage him to do today, because the issue for us—I am speaking on behalf of the industry, which I have spoken to on numerous occasions—is how last year’s quota negotiations are impacting on the prospects for the industry this year.

    Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)

    I thank the hon. Member for introducing the debate in a light-hearted way—initially, at least—which is a contrast to some of the previous discussions. Is he concerned about reports that our French allies are seeking to link fishing quotas to other matters, such as access to the €150 billion defence budget? Does he agree that the Government should clarify their position on this, and will he perhaps ask the Minister to do so this morning?

    Andrew George

    I am sure that the Minister heard that intervention. It does trouble me. If we go back to 1974, when Edward Heath was involved in the negotiation of our entry into the EU, and to subsequent negotiations, the fishing industry has often been used as a pawn—a bargaining chip. It would be a great pity if that happened again. I know that fishing Ministers do not usually sit around the Cabinet table, but I hope the Minister will use his influence to make sure the message is heard loud and clear within the Cabinet and by the Prime Minister that the fishing industry is not a bargaining chip that can be handled in that manner.

    Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)

    My hon. Friend has spoken about political intervention. Fishery quota negotiations are difficult and nuanced at the best of times and understanding the granular detail of advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, for example, is never straightforward. It always goes badly wrong when we bring in other considerations. Does he agree that both our national security and our fishing industry deserve better treatment than the sort the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) just outlined, if indeed what is reported is true?

    Andrew George

    If we are to establish a sustainable fishing industry that is fair to UK fishermen, it is important that the industry is reviewed on its merits and on the basis of science, not on political horse-trading with other countries. I strongly accept that point.

    Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)

    Given the debate we are having and the risk that our fishing communities could be used as a bargaining chip, does the hon. Member agree that, as the Government have said, food security is national security, and we cannot have our fishing communities and fishing stocks traded against defence in any way?

    Andrew George

    These negotiations are difficult at the best of times. We need to make sure these decisions are made on the basis of merit. Of course, we wish to re-establish UK fishing entitlement out to the 12 mile limit and to ensure that foreign vessels are not able to use their historic entitlements to fish within the 6 to 12 mile zone. Relative stability within the common fisheries policy left the UK, particularly in the western approaches, with a significantly poorer deal in comparison with many European countries, and that is the basis of a great deal of disquiet within the industry.

    John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)

    The hon. Member is being generous with his time. I am fortunate to represent the fishing fleet off the Berwickshire coast, which is relatively small but very active, together with the fish processing industry. The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation produced a very helpful briefing note ahead of today’s debate. One of the points it makes is that, since the UK left the EU in 2020, the UK and Scotland’s opportunities have increased greatly, and those opportunities would not have been there had we remained in the EU. Does the hon. Member agree with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation?

    Andrew George

    No, I disagree. I think that overall, the impact on the fishing industry has been a net negative, certainly for people in my own region, who depend substantially on the export of fish to other European countries. In the past, the majority of the fish landed in Newlyn, which is a very substantial port in my constituency—at least 80%—went to France, Spain and other European countries. The impact that that and other things, including veterinary inspections, vivier export requirements and licences, have had on the industry has been significantly detrimental, so I do not accept that. That is a conversation that I would be very happy to have with the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, but by no means can one say that Brexit has been a great success, because that is certainly not the case.

    The fishermen in my area do not feel that they have been well treated as a result of those negotiations. As a passionate remainer, I was prepared to accept that on the face of it, there was a potential benefit. There should have been—fishing was the only industry in which it was possible to make an argument that there could be a potential benefit as a result of Brexit—but that has not happened, so I reject the basis of that intervention and the point made.

    I hope that in time, the Minister will look at the opportunities, rather than taking the sort of stop-start approach that I am going to refer to today—I will get to that point after all the interventions. I hope he will look instead at a medium and longer-term setting of quotas, with rolling multi-annual quotas, perhaps of up to five years. That should be the Government’s objective, and they should work with scientists so that the industry can see a way forward, rather than having to adjust its business plans at very short notice, which is the case at present.

    I will be adding a few small points about the small-scale, low-impact fishing industry; indeed, I come to this debate as someone with a limited amount of experience within the industry itself. When I was younger, our family had a boat at Mullion, in the south of the constituency, which used to supplement our income from the smallholding that we had. It was very low-impact, outboard motor and oar-based fishing activity that involved the setting of lobster and crab pots—very little of it was mechanised; it was all pulled by hand—and mackerel hand lining. It was low-impact fishing that we could only undertake during the summer months because of the storms that came into the coast in Mullion over the winter period. I have that experience, and many members of my family are engaged in the industry.

    The Cornish fishing fleet has a value to the Cornish economy of £174 million, and 8,000 people are employed in the industry, so I particularly wanted to address the impact of the 2025 quota settlement on choke species. It is going to have a detrimental impact on the significant amount of fishing that takes place around the western approaches. The headline impact is that on pollack, which is very much bycatch fishing only. Boats under 10 metres are allowed just 75 kg per month. We have to remember that this is an ultra-mixed fishery, so even though those fishermen target other species, such as hake, it is hard for them not to catch pollack. Because pollack is healthier than the science seems to indicate, fishermen end up catching a lot more of it and, under the regulations, are obliged to land it.

    When the long-term ban was announced last year, the previous Government provided financial support for only one year, and the Minister and the new Government have not announced any other compensation for those affected by the pollack ban. I would be interested to know whether the Minister has anything to say about that. The industry asked for management measures for the recreational industry. At present, there is no management in place for the recreation fleet. The Cornish Fish Producers Organisation estimates that up to 50% of the total pollack catch around our waters is taken by the recreational angling industry.

    The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea advice for pollack is currently being benchmarked, as the Minister knows, and that formal review of the available science will lead to new advice in June. The House and I would be interested to know what power and influence the Minister has in that regard before June and over any decisions taken after June when the benchmarking process has been completed. Will he commit to introducing new management of the pollack stock on or before the completion of the benchmarking process? The industry cannot wait until next January.

    There are similar problems with Dover sole. Our fleet is targeting megrims and monkfish, but Dover sole are known to be abundant in many areas. In areas VIIe, VIIf and VIIg, Dover sole are relatively abundant, and therefore the total allowable catch for those areas is relatively good, but data is lacking for areas VIIh, VIIj and VIIk, which has led to a much lower total allowable catch as a precaution. For example, each boat can catch 400 kg of Dover sole per month in area VIIe, but in VIIh it is limited to just 30 kg per month. Because of the catches that have been experienced, that is a significant diminution in the activity that the industry can pursue.

    In 2023-24, the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation fleet worked with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science to collect genetic samples of sole in VIIe and VIIh areas to provide evidence of the genetic links between the two stocks. Unsurprisingly, they saw that Dover sole swim between those areas. If that is proven and accepted, there will be greater confidence in setting fishing opportunities for the fleet to target monkfish and megrim in those other areas. I hope the Minister will prioritise the review of the scientific evidence at the UK-EU Specialised Committee on Fisheries, with a view to making a joint request to ICES to amend the total allowable catch for Dover sole in that area.

    Similarly, the industry is working with scientists, CEFAS and environmentalist non-governmental organisations to aid the recovery of the stock of spurdog—a slender shark found in our waters—by providing bycatch and discard data. The spurdog fishery reopened in 2023 with a 1 metre maximum landing size as a precautionary management measure. Spurdog is a non-target species in a mixed fishery, so its increasing abundance is leading to increased unavoidable bycatch, forcing vessels to discard fish over 1 metre in length. In December the written record agreed that that rule should be reviewed in 2024 and 2025, but so far no meaningful adjustment has been made. Will the Minister promise to follow through on the commitment to review the 1 metre rule and work with the industry to develop more sustainable management measures?

    There has been a dramatic recovery of bluefin tuna in our waters over recent decades. In the past, the Atlantic bluefin tuna saw drastic cuts in catch limits, and a crackdown on illegal and unreported catches across its whole range. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas has taken that action over the last 20 years to reach a tipping point. Over the last decade the recovery has benefited that fishery, and has reached the shores of Cornwall, where sightings of bluefin tuna have increased by a factor of 60 since just a decade ago. The total allowable catch set by the International Commission is over 40,000 tonnes, more than half of which is allocated to the EU. In 2021 the UK received 50 tonnes of quota, initially for bycatch. In 2025, the UK quota is 66 tonnes, with 45 tonnes for commercial hook-and-line vessels.

    Sixteen tonnes, almost a quarter of the entire quota, is set aside for accidental mortality from recreational catch-and-release permits. Tuna are vulnerable to unintended mortality due to the long fights they often endure with anglers, so mandatory training and strict handling procedures have been applied to some vessels, and 1,700 tuna have been released with minimal mortality. But in 2024 recreational catch-and-release permits were introduced, with a voluntary code of conduct and training. Will the Minister join a roundtable meeting of MPs, fishers and scientists to look at how the UK tuna industry can be managed more sustainably?

    I will not detain the House for much longer, but there are other issues that I know the Minister is aware of, and which I have spoken to him about—particularly the impact of regulations on the small-scale fishing industry: day boats, under 7 metres, that fish around our coast and take less than 1% of the annual catch. Last summer I met Jof Hicks on the island of St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly. Over the last five years, he has gone out of his way to develop a fishery that has the lowest possible impact because there is no plastic or fuel involved: he uses sail and oar, and he makes his own crab pots entirely from natural materials—growing his own withies and tamarisk to make the pots. He is sustaining a living from that. Admittedly, some of the restaurants on the Isles of Scilly are able to provide him with relatively healthy prices for his produce, but he is nevertheless demonstrating that it can work. However, he complained to me that all the same regulations that apply to supertrawlers apply to him with his home-made boat and locally made lobster and crab pots. I urge the Minister to have a close look at that, perhaps with me. I am not arguing that this is the future for the fishing industry, or that we can feed the nation by this method, but it can make a measurable difference and provide an alternative way of catching fish in areas such as mine, and no doubt in other places. We could forge a different approach. If we could take unnecessary burdens from the shoulders of people such as Jof Hicks, that would be enormously appreciated.

    I will bring my remarks to a close, because many others wish to speak. I hope that the Minister will respond to the questions raised. I believe that politicians and the fishing industry are all pushing in the same direction—towards a sustainable industry based on the best available science—but we need to ensure that the regulations that are informed by that science do not create unintended consequences that have a detrimental impact on fish stocks and the fishing industry.

    Things have changed. The culture has changed, and the industry is much more engaged with a science-based approach than perhaps it was when I first engaged in these debates nearly 30 years ago. I hope that we will continue with openness and dialogue, and that we will push for efficiency in the way we update the regulations this year. The pressures on the fisheries I mentioned earlier, which are being affected by choke stocks such as pollack and Dover sole, need to be addressed before the end of the year.

  • PRESS RELEASE : UK and Nordic-Baltic Eight Ministerial Roundtable – Joint Statement [March 2025]

    PRESS RELEASE : UK and Nordic-Baltic Eight Ministerial Roundtable – Joint Statement [March 2025]

    The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 11 March 2025.

    On Tuesday 11 March, UK Minister for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories, Stephen Doughty, chaired a roundtable with Nordic and Baltic counterparts to discuss support for Ukraine, security in Northern Europe, and tackling hybrid threats.

    On Tuesday 11 March, Ministers, State Secretaries and senior representatives from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom met in the margins of the Aurora Forum at Goodwood House, Chichester.

    UK Minister for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories, Stephen Doughty, chaired a roundtable with Nordic Baltic counterparts to discuss support for Ukraine, security in Northern Europe, and tackling hybrid threats.

    Ministers agreed on the need to continue supporting Ukraine to achieve a just, comprehensive and lasting peace with credible security guarantees, and the importance of putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position. They agreed that this would be achieved by increasing military support to Ukraine and, as part of this effort, they will leverage their defence industries while also purchasing directly from Ukraine’s defence industry to meet urgent needs and strengthen cooperation between European and Ukrainian industries. They also discussed the need to encourage other countries to do more. Ministers underscored that maintaining Western unity is essential and that there can be no negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine.

    Ministers discussed the significant and direct threat from Russia against NATO, with emphasis on continuing efforts to contest and constrain Russian aggression and the Russian war economy, including ambitious sanctions and wider efforts to constrain Russia’s energy revenues. They praised the work of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) and NATO in monitoring suspected shadow vessels through, among others, Operation Nordic Warden. Ministers underlined the need to hold Russia accountable and advance our global outreach to continue its international isolation.

    Ministers discussed recent instances of subsea infrastructure damage in the Baltic Sea Region and welcomed NATO’s Baltic Sentry activity, providing reassurance to Baltic states. They also discussed hybrid incidents in the region, and welcomed work, including by NATO, to build resilience to deter and counter hybrid threats, including on cyber, and in addressing foreign information manipulation. Ministers also discussed external threats to the wider European region.

    The Aurora Forum is an independent annual forum established to bring together governments, businesses and civil society from the UK and Nordic-Baltic states. Today’s roundtable marks the first time Ministers, State Secretaries and senior representatives have gathered in this format to discuss shared priorities, including Northern European security, trade, technology and the energy transition.

  • Stephen Doughty – 2025 Speech at the Aurora Forum

    Stephen Doughty – 2025 Speech at the Aurora Forum

    The speech made by Stephen Doughty, the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, on 11 March 2025.

    Well thank you very much, David.

    In the genuine spirit of bipartisanship, David was an absolutely excellent Minister for Europe, albeit from a different political philosophy.

    And I certainly look to his example in trying to do this role today in very difficult and challenging times.

    And really it is genuinely an honour to host you all here in this beautiful venue.

    And thanks to Aurora Forum and Wilton Park and everybody else here at Goodwood who’s helped put this together.

    And all the sponsors, all the different governments who participate, and we come here very much as friends and likeminded counterparts in some very, very challenging times.

    And indeed Goodwood House itself has witnessed many centuries of history, and we’re obviously here at a pivotal moment not only for Ukraine but for the security of our Continent and indeed the whole world.

    I’ve just come from another conference down the road at Wilton Park with Ukrainian friends and colleagues, with Ministers, members of the Rada and others, talking about Ukraine’s economic resilience and economic recovery needs and all our shared commitments on that.

    But obviously to be able to move to that more hopeful future, we need to ensure Ukraine’s security and sovereignty now.

    And that is a moment in which we stand united in a desire for a strong, just and a lasting peace.

    Determined to contain Putin’s reckless actions and continue to put pressure on the Kremlin, while stepping up to ensure that Ukraine has the support, including the military support, that it needs.

    And I was in Kyiv just about ten days ago under yet another bombardment in the night of drones and missiles.

    I visited Bucha, which many of you will know saw some of the worst atrocities that we have seen in Europe in decades.

    And to see, yet again, drones having attacked that small town that’s endured so much suffering just hours before I arrived killing civilians, a journalist and others just shows us the stark reality of what Ukrainians are facing every single day.

    But their strength and resilience is absolute, as it has been throughout this conflict.

    We also have to be looking very closely at how we invest in our own defences – which is why the UK has announced our own biggest sustained increase in spending since the Cold War.

    And that we need to pull together as Europe to drive urgent action, but also working with the United States and our other partners across the Atlantic and Ukraine to make progress.

    We all know that that is vital for our Continent’s future security.

    On a more personal note, support for Ukraine is a cause that I care deeply about.

    It’s one that’s personal to me, there are many ties between Ukraine and my own home area of South Wales. My own city was twinned with Luhansk.

    It was a Welshman that helped found one of the cities in the Donbas, Donetsk, and we even of course have a Sebastopol in the South Wales valleys harking back to the Crimean war when Welsh troops fought in a different era.

    And it’s also one I have a personal connection to. In my own time I taught English in Lviv many years ago and I’ve had many friends and counterparts from Ukraine over the years.

    And each time I have been back since this barbaric, unprovoked conflict began, I have witnessed again that courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people.

    This morning before joining with all of you I spoke with the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Stefanishyna, and reiterated the United Kingdom’s unwavering support.

    And this afternoon, we are going to discuss our collective support in detail at our Ministerial roundtable, and it’s great to welcome fellow ministers, many of whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with over recent weeks and months, and I hope that  will become a regular feature of Aurora.

    Not that we’re just coming together, discussing very important issues, sharing perspectives but we’re also agreeing joint plans of action.

    And we all hope for positive steps forward at the talks in the next few days. We’re going to do all that we can to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for lasting peace, and the ability to deter and defend against future aggression.

    And in that endeavour, and indeed in the wider European security endeavour, it has never been more important for the UK and our Nordic-Baltic partners to work together.

    We have a lot of shared experience, a lot of likeminded approaches, and we act as a bedrock and a base for wider European security.

    It is a huge honour to be the UK minister responsible for relations with this part of the world, one I know well.

    I have many deep Nordic-Baltic connections in my own family and my own history. I’ve worked in Denmark, my brother studied in Norway, and I was taught Finnish folk music by one of our own participants here today when I was a 16-year-old in Canada which is a very unique and deep connection!

    I’ve had the pleasure to visit nearly every country in the Nordic-Baltic region before coming into office and since. I haven’t yet been to Latvia, the Faroes or Greenland but it won’t be long before I do, I’m sure.

    And you know, it is very clear, we see the reality, we see the threat from Russia, we see the threat to European security, we know the history.

    Putin’s war, his imperialist ambitions, are close at hand.

    We recognise that, we recognise the very serious threats to all of you, your border is our border, and your security is our security. And that’s why we stand with you as the United Kingdom.

    And I have seen for myself that new iron curtain between Lithuania and Belarus – and I’ve met the border force who are resolutely monitoring the security of our NATO border there.

    I’ve had the privilege to join British Royal Marines training with their Norwegian counterparts in Northern Norway.

    I’ve conducted a tour in NATO’s Northern flank with the Norwegian Coast Guard with Maria and her colleagues recently.

    And I also was, I think, the first British Minister in ten years to attend the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, where I thought it was very important to show our shared ambitions to work alongside you all in the Arctic region and indeed in the Polar regions more generally, not only for the science and peacefulness of those regions but also their security against hostile threats.

    And of course, my colleague the Foreign Secretary travelled to this region on his first trip in the job, to Sweden.

    We feel your sense of threat. We hear your concerns. And that’s why we’re stepping up our collective partnerships with all of you in this room, across Europe and beyond for the sake of our security, and to better face global challenges.

    That includes seeking an ambitious new security pact, a new partnership, with the EU to strengthen co-operation on defence, security, energy, climate and much more.

    But, of course, this goes far beyond the EU and encompasses our ironclad commitment to NATO and indeed the Joint Expeditionary Force, the JEF, which the UK is proud to lead.

    And the Prime Minister was glad to attend the JEF leaders’ summit in Tallinn a few months ago, discussing further measures to support Ukraine.

    He and the Defence Secretary have made a point of visiting and thanking British military personnel – indeed your military personnel – deployed in the region in recent months. Because together with our allies we stand ready to defend NATO’s eastern flank and to uphold European stability.

    And, as I speak, our JEF nations are working side-by-side to combat the risk of sabotage, of hybrid activity, in the Baltic and indeed to monitor the Russian shadow fleet, which we all know does so much damage.

    And we are working together to constrain the activities with not only economic implications but wider maritime security implications.

    We’re also intensifying our efforts together to counter Russian hybrid threats, including sabotage, cyber attacks, disinformation.

    And the Maritime Capability Coalition, led by the UK and Norway, is transforming the Ukrainian navy.

    Those are just a few short examples of the UK promise to step up and put our money, our boots and our actions where our mouths are on European security, and of course we will discuss that in more detail during this forum.

    But of course, there is much more to our relationships than security and defence, vital as those are.

    Our economic and trade ties and the strong links between our citizens and our cultures are all part of the rich mix that strengthens our bonds.

    It is the UK government’s number one mission to advance economic growth to build a more secure and prosperous future for citizens here.

    And in this, we hugely value our links with our Nordic-Baltic partners.

    Our trading relationships with the eight countries here today are worth more than 95 billion pounds a year and rising.

    And there is huge appetite to invest and work in mutual collaborations in each other’s economies.

    Take the UK’s ambitious new Green Industrial Partnership with Norway as just one example.

    By combining our world-leading capabilities on clean energy to drive economic growth we have the potential to create thousands of new skilled jobs in both of our countries.

    This is an important part of the UK’s plan to secure home-grown energy and put us on track to make Britain a green and clean energy superpower by 2030.

    And, of course, together our countries are also at the forefront of innovations – indeed, the UK and many of the countries in this room regularly feature on lists of the most innovative nations on earth. And we are particularly proud to co-host NATO’s Diana initiative with Estonia.

    Our collective experience in AI, quantum technologies, drone technology and innovation will be crucial in protecting our societies and developing new capabilities in the future.

    And the countries, businesses and academics in this room count themselves, rightly so, as world leaders. We’re delighted that you are all here.

    I could speak at length about wider partnerships on everything from climate finance to digital government. But I know we are all keen to get down to business, to get down to discussions, so I hope this forum will be an important moment to galvanise those efforts. At ministerial level, between those in think tanks, the academic space, between businesses and the other partners in this room.

    We’ve all got to continue to learn from each other, urgently, and to work together, urgently, as we write the next chapter in our partnerships as strong supporters of Ukraine, strong defenders of European security.

    Standing together to defend our security and values at this critical moment, and, fundamentally, to advance the causes of prosperity and peace.

    Thank you very much.

  • Daisy Cooper – 2025 Response to the Spring Statement

    Daisy Cooper – 2025 Response to the Spring Statement

    The speech made by Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on the Economy, in the House of Commons on 26 March 2025.

    The people of this country are crying out for change, but they feel they are just getting more of the same. Of course, it was the Conservative party that wrecked the public finances, but we are eight months into the new Government and people are left wondering, “Where is the change that was promised?” The Chancellor says that the world is changing, so why will she not change course with it? The Chancellor said she wanted a dash for growth, but with her national insurance jobs tax she shot herself in the foot before she even crossed the start line.

    After the Government’s disastrous Budget, the Government had the chance today to change direction, fix our finances, kick-start growth and deliver a small business Budget. The Government could have scrapped the jobs tax, which will hammer our high streets, and instead ask the big banks, social media giants and online gambling companies to pay their fair share instead. The Government could have changed their approach to trade, launching talks to boost growth through a new trading deal with our European neighbours. Instead, the Government have made the wrong decisions to cut public services, hit disabled people and inflict more pain on our small businesses and high streets. In doing so, they have delivered no change and almost no growth at all.

    After years of Conservative mismanagement, people can see just how broken our public services are. They cannot see a GP, they cannot see a dentist, they are fighting for an education plan and, they are picking up the pieces of a broken social care system. Everything is broken. Nothing works. That is why people are impatient for the change they were promised.

    We have to bring the welfare bill down and support more people into work. That is right for people and our economy, but cutting support for someone who needs help getting dressed and washed in the morning is not just wrong; it does absolutely nothing to support that person into work. If anything, it does the exact opposite. It will also have knock-on impacts for the entitlements of their family carers, too. Will the Chancellor come clean about this? If the Government are serious about cutting welfare spending, they must get serious about fixing health and social care. Will the Chancellor speed up the social care review and ensure that it concludes no later than the end of this year?

    In the Chancellor’s quest to slim down the civil service, I wonder why she has not looked at the mountain of red tape created by the previous Government’s terrible trade deal with Europe. A whopping 2 billion extra pieces of paper have had to be completed by businesses since Brexit, enough to wrap around the world 15 times. If we manage to cut the red tape, we can give British businesses a tailwind, deliver far more growth than is currently predicted, increase the fiscal headroom to deal with global headwinds, and free up precious time and money in our civil service. That would be real change.

    Business was promised change too. Today’s statement should have been a small business Budget. We Liberal Democrats have repeatedly raised the alarm about the impending damage of the national insurance jobs tax, bigger business rates bills and changes to reliefs for family farms and family businesses. Those changes will be a hammer blow to small and family businesses, leaving communities facing the prospect of an epidemic of boarded-up shopfronts. They will be a hammer blow to community health and care providers who stop our NHS from falling over. This is not the change that was promised. Instead, I say again that the Chancellor should look again at much fairer ways to raise the tax revenue our public services desperately need by reforming capital gains tax more fairly and asking the big banks, the social media giants and the online gambling companies to pay their fair share.

    I know the Chancellor must contend with President Trump’s trade war, which is causing global economic turmoil, but our response to Trump’s bullying cannot be to cower in the corner and just hope that he is nice to us. We cannot sit on our hands while British steel is hit with Trump’s tariffs. We Liberal Democrats warmly welcome the Chancellor’s move to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, but instead of cutting the aid budget, which abandons the world’s poor and damages our soft power, she should be covering the cost by raising the digital services tax, handing the tab to Elon Musk and Trump’s other billionaire backers. At the very least, can the Chancellor categorically rule out any reduction in the tech tax in an attempt to appease the White House, especially when disabled people in Britain face eye-watering cuts?

    To conclude, I have a series of questions. Will the Chancellor recognise that cutting public services that are already stretched is a false economy? Will she accept that trying to bring down the welfare bill without fixing health and social care is a road to nowhere? Will she listen to the warnings of small and family businesses that her jobs tax will do more harm than good? Will she look at the fairer ways of raising revenue that we Liberal Democrats have put forward? And will she take the bold action we need to grow our economy by rebuilding our broken trading relationship with Europe? The public were promised change. Where on earth is it?

    Rachel Reeves

    The hon. Lady says, “Where is the change?” Let me tell her: more money into our NHS, with 2 million additional appointments and waiting lists falling five months in a row; rolling out breakfast clubs in primary schools from April this year; increasing defence spending to protect us in a more uncertain world; additional support for carers, the living wage up, the Employment Rights Bill and so much more. That is the difference we have made in nine months, and we have only just got started.

    The hon. Lady talks about trade. We believe in free trade. We are an open trading economy and we benefit from trade links around the world, including with our single biggest trading partner, the United States of America. It is right that we work with our allies in the United States to ensure that that free and open trade continues. That is in our national interest and this Government will always act in our national interest. At the same time, there will, as the hon. Lady knows, be a summit between the UK and the EU in May, where we will look to re-set our relationship, so we can see more free trade and the better flow of trade, especially for our smaller businesses to be able to export around Europe.

    The hon. Lady talks about welfare. She has not admitted that there is a single problem in the welfare system as it exists today. I am not willing, and this party is not willing, to write off one in eight young people who are not in education, employment or training. It is why, for example, we announced this week, with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education, an additional 60,000 training places to train people up in the construction industries of the future, and a £1 billion package of personalised targeted support because there are many disabled people—the hon. Lady knows this—who are desperate to work but are not getting the support and were denied support by the previous Government. That is why we have said there will be additional support for the most sick and disabled, and that personal support for getting people back into work. That is the right approach, so that we have protections for those who need it, work for those who can, and a sustainable system that is here for generations into the future.

    I want to take on the hon. Lady’s main point. She wants all the money for public services, but she does not want to raise the taxes to pay for them. At the moment, we spend £105 billion a year in interest on Government debt. It seems that she would just like more of that debt. She says that people cannot see a GP or a dentist. How does she and the Opposition parties think that we pay for those things? They cannot object to the tax increases and support the money we have invested in our public services. To say otherwise, I am afraid, is fairytales and the magic money tree—it just does not add up. The difference on the Labour Benches is that we will put money into our public services, explain where it comes from, and ensure that the public finances are on a firm footing. That is the difference between our party and the Opposition parties.

  • Meg Hillier – 2025 Response to the Spring Statement

    Meg Hillier – 2025 Response to the Spring Statement

    The response made by Meg Hillier, the Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, in the House of Commons on 26 March 2025.

    My right hon. Friend inherited a very difficult challenge when she became Chancellor of the Exchequer last July, and she is absolutely right that the books need to balance. This is not other people’s money we are spending, but taxpayers’ money—our constituents’ hard-earned money—and she is right to be tough as Chancellor. We look forward to quizzing her at the Treasury Committee next week, and I am sure she is looking forward to it just as much.

    The Chancellor announced an extra £2 billion a year in capital spending, and she talked about extra defence spending. Could she give some more detail about where she hopes that extra £2 billion a year will go?

    Rachel Reeves

    I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I do indeed look forward to attending the Treasury Committee next week. I was pleased to serve on the Treasury Committee in the past, and it is a pleasure to give evidence to it.

    We will set out in the spending review—my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will set out in the spending review—the allocation of the additional capital money. However, I was able to announce today the £2.2 billion for defence from next year, as well as the £2 billion as a downpayment to build the affordable and social housing that we need. Those are two examples of the priorities of this Government to get Britain building and to secure our national security.

  • Mel Stride – 2025 Response to the Spring Statement

    Mel Stride – 2025 Response to the Spring Statement

    The statement made by Mel Stride, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 26 March 2025.

    At the last Budget, the right hon. Lady said that she would bring stability to the public finances, but this statement, more appropriately referred to as an emergency Budget, has brought her to a cold—[Interruption.]

    Mr Speaker

    Order. Rightly, I wanted to hear the Chancellor, and I now want to hear the shadow Chancellor. [Interruption.] I do not need any help.

    Mel Stride

    This emergency Budget has brought the right hon. Lady to a cold hard reckoning. She has become fond recently of talking about the world having changed, and indeed it has. This country was growing at the fastest rate in the G7 only about a year ago. Just as the OECD, the Bank of England and other forecasters—including, we learn today, the OBR—have stated, growth has been halved for this year. It has been cut in two as a consequence of the decisions and the choices that the right hon. Lady has made on her watch. Inflation was down to 2%—bang on target—under a Conservative Government on the very day of the last general election. We are now told that this year we will be running at twice the level as was forecast under us in 2024. That will mean prices bearing down on households and on businesses right across the country, because of her choices.

    The OBR also says that unemployment will be rising this year, next year and the year after. In fact, across the forecast period it will not decline at all. So much for the right hon. Lady’s back to work plans. We have already seen what it means when it comes to controlling borrowing under this Chancellor. She has come forward now with a plan to squeeze spending later on in the forecast period, and she has of course told the OBR that these are the elements of spending restraint to which she will stick, but what do the markets think? Given her track record, and the fact that she has failed to control spending and borrowing to date, what does the right hon. Lady think the markets will make of her latest promises?

    Of course, the right hon. Lady says that none of this is her fault. It is the war in Ukraine, it is President Trump; it is tariffs; it is President Putin; it is the Conservatives; it is her legacy; it is anyone but her. What the British people know, however, is that this is a consequence of her choices. She is the architect of her own misfortune. It was the right hon. Lady who talked down the economy so that business surveys and confidence crashed through the floor. It was the right hon. Lady who confected the £22 billion black hole, a smokescreen that was only ever there to cover up for the fact that she and the Prime Minister reneged on their promises to the British people during the last general election, and a black hole that the Office for Budget Responsibility itself—ironically, at the Government’s behest—has said it will not legitimise. She chose to be reckless with a sliver of headroom against her fiddled targets. She borrowed and spent and taxed as if it were the 1970s. Little wonder that the Chancellor has tanked the economy, little wonder that we have an emergency Budget, all because of her choices.

    The Chancellor likes to tour the television studios and tell everyone that they should be thankful that she will not be ramping up taxes in this emergency Budget as she did before, but that will be cold comfort to the millions up and down the country who are waiting in fear and trepidation for the start of the new tax year, buckling under the burden of tax that will rise to the highest tax burden—on her watch—in the history of our country. May I ask the right hon. Lady whether, when she replies, she will give that much-needed reassurance, particularly to businesses, that she will not be ramping up taxes still further in the autumn? Even a basic economist knows that if you tax something, you get less of it. You do not need to have worked at the Bank of England for 10 years to know that.

    So what did the Chancellor tax? She taxed jobs and wealth creation. She has destroyed livelihoods. Businesses have been clobbered, big and small—small companies, the backbone of our economy—and enterprise has been crushed on the altar of her ineptitude. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has told us that a third of the businesses affected will shed labour, with Morrisons losing 200 jobs, Tesco 400, and Sainsbury’s 3,000. No wonder the Federation of Small Businesses has said that outside the pandemic, business confidence has been left at its lowest level on record. However, it is not just businesses. It is charities, it is GPs, it is pharmacies, it is those who transport children with special educational needs, and it is hospices caring for the sick and the dying. In this House, the Labour party had the opportunity, yesterday and last week, to stop that, but they voted our amendments down, and we will never let their constituents forget it.

    If you ramp up taxes, Mr Speaker, and if you ramp up borrowing and spending without any commensurate improvement in productivity, it leads to growing inflation, and inflation has been increasing on this Government’s watch. It means that interest rates stay higher for longer. The Chancellor has just trumpeted the fact that there have been three interest rate cuts since the Labour party came to office. She knows full well that there would have been more than that had she managed—[Interruption.] She knows full well that interest rates are higher for longer because of the choices that she made. This has led to servicing costs for our national debt running at twice the defence budget, and today we have learnt from the OBR that debt interest is to increase still further—and none of this money will be spent on public services. It will be going down the drain.

    The real black hole is not the one that the Chancellor invented; it is the one that the Chancellor created. Is not the central problem that this Chancellor is a gambler? Even with her fiddled fiscal targets, she left way too little headroom. Is not the truth that while the right hon. Lady said of the last Budget that it was a

    “once-in-a-parliament reset”,

    she rolled the dice on a wafer-thin margin, and she lost? Reckless, with her fingers crossed, she fiddled the targets and she missed them. [Interruption.]

    Mr Speaker

    Order. I am not sure about the language being used. I think there are better and more constructive words that the shadow Chancellor would prefer to use in future.

    Mel Stride

    May I just point out that all the Chancellor’s fiscal headroom disappeared, not just some of it? In fact, she went underwater to the tune of £4.1 billion. Reeling from one fiscal event to the next is not a way to run the public finances, and breaking your fiscal rules to the extent that the right hon. Lady has in just six months is a public humiliation.

    May I now focus briefly on defence spending? We on this side of the House welcome the fact that the Government will reach 2.5% of GDP by 2027, as we pressed them to do, and we note the stepping stone along the way that the right hon. Lady has just announced, but we should go further than that. The 3% target should be brought forward to this Parliament. So may I ask the right hon. Lady: given the geopolitical tensions that she has raised, what provision she has made in her headroom, in her fiscal plans, for increasing defence spending more quickly in this Parliament, if that proves necessary? May I also ask her this: would she scrap the absurd Chagos deal, and put that money behind our armed forces?

    The economy is in a perilous state, but there was a different way. There were different choices on taxing and spending and borrowing, and on productivity, and on welfare. Let me just say a few words about welfare. It was the privilege of my life to serve as the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and when it came to welfare reform, with that privilege came a deep responsibility: the responsibility for welfare reform to be properly thought through, with a very clear plan—[Interruption]—I know that Labour Members do not like it, because it is an alien idea to their party—so that we could be fair to the taxpayer, but equally fair to the many people up and down the country, some of whom are highly vulnerable. That was an approach, on our watch, that led to £5 million of savings across the forecast period, and 450,000 fewer people going on to long-term sickness and disability benefits as a direct consequence.

    We would have gone further—much further—and we set out a clear plan in our manifesto to do exactly that, but those in the party opposite rushed their changes. They had no plan. There was not a single mention of the personal independence payment in the Labour party manifesto, and when they got into office, the Labour Government pussyfooted around and dithered. Why? Because it is deeply divisive within their rank and file. Then suddenly, when the Chancellor decided that she had run out of money, out went the word to find some savings in welfare, to scrabble around, to yank every lever possible.

    Then there was the spectacle, frankly, of what the OBR has said about the simply shambolic changes that were announced only last week by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. We have gone from incompetence to chaos. There have been more changes to this policy than there were at the last minute to the right hon. Lady’s LinkedIn profile. The result is the worst of all worlds: a wholly inadequate level of savings on welfare, with welfare costs spiralling ever higher, and changes that are likely to harm many vulnerable people. May I ask the right hon. Lady: when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions came to the House last week with these changes, she did not provide an impact assessment, but was this because the OBR had not signed off the numbers, was it because the Department did not have enough time to produce one, or was it only provided today, as many of us suspect, because this was thought to be a good time to bury bad news?

    The forecast for growth is down, the forecasts for borrowing costs and inflation are up, and business confidence has been smashed into a million pieces. This Chancellor is constantly trying to blame forces beyond her control. The right response is not to duck responsibility, but to build a resilient economy. The right hon. Lady would have us believe that that is what she is doing, but how can we believe this Chancellor? How can we trust this Chancellor? She is the Chancellor who said she would not increase borrowing, but she did. She said she would not change her fiscal rules, but she did. She said she would not put up national insurance, but she did. She said she would not cut the winter fuel payment, but she did. She said she would not tax farmers, but she did, and she said she would not move to more than one fiscal event a year, and she just has. Now we are all paying the price of her broken promises. Today’s numbers confirm it. We are poorer and we are weaker. To govern is to choose, and this Chancellor has made all the wrong choices.

    Rachel Reeves

    I know that the shadow Chancellor has not been in his role for very long, but at least he is not misquoting Shakespeare today. If this was a Budget, it would be the Leader of the Opposition responding. I am glad that she is still in her place, but I know she will want to get back to her office for a lunchtime steak soon.

    The right hon. Gentleman talks about Budgets. Let me remind the Conservative party that the only emergency Budget we have seen in recent years was in response to their party’s disastrous mini-Budget—a mini-Budget that crashed the economy, sent mortgage bills spiralling and left a £22 billion black hole in our nation’s finances. Conservative Members may have forgotten about the damage that they did to our country, but the British people never will.

    As always, the shadow Chancellor talked a lot, but he did not offer a single alternative. He says he opposes our tax rises, but he cannot tell us whether he would cut the NHS to reverse them. He says he wants economic growth, but Conservative Members abstained on the very planning reforms that the OBR has said will kick-start growth. Mr Speaker, you do not change the country by abstaining or by sitting on the fence; you change the country by leading and by taking action, and that is what this Government are doing. The shadow Chancellor says he wants businesses to trade, but he does not want us to talk to the second largest economy in the world or, indeed, our biggest trading partners in the European Union. He simply is not serious. Four months into the job, and he has got no clue.

    The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about growth, but he does not say anything about the fact that the OBR has upgraded growth next year and every single year after. He talks about pensioners, but he forgets that it is his party’s policy to scrap the triple lock, which we are protecting and which will mean the state pension rising next month by over £400. He talks about wages, but he forgets the fact that we are boosting wages by boosting the national living wage from next month. The shadow Chancellor says nothing about living standards or this morning’s fall in inflation, because the last Parliament was the worst on record, and the OBR has today revised up its forecast for family finances. Working people are always better off with Labour.

    The right hon. Gentleman is learning something, because at least this time he has asked a couple of questions, so let me respond to them. He asked what the markets should make of this. What the markets should see is that, when I have been tested with a deterioration in the headroom, we have restored that headroom in full. That is one of the choices that I made. He says that it is a sliver of a headroom. Well, it is 50% more headroom than I inherited from the Conservative party. When I was left with a sliver of headroom, I rebuilt it after the last Government eroded it. That is the difference that we have made. While they left the public finances and the public services in a mess, we wiped the slate clean, which means that we have the flexibility now to increase defence spending, as the leader of the Labour party has done. The Conservatives had 14 years to increase defence spending, and now they lately come to the party.

    The shadow Chancellor mentions welfare reform and his time at the Department for Work and Pensions. What a legacy: one in eight young people not in education, employment or training, and 1,000 people a day going on to personal independence payments. The OBR says today that welfare spending as a share of GDP will now start falling—a far cry from what we had under the Conservative party. The shadow Chancellor speaks about employment. The OBR says that employment will increase, that wages will increase and that living standards will increase. What a change, after 14 years of the Conservative party.

    The world is changing, and no one can be in any doubt about it, but the Conservative party is stuck in the past—divided, out of touch and carping from the sidelines. Conservative Members have no plan: no plan to kick-start growth, no plan to fix our public services and no plan to keep our country safe. The only plan for change they are working on is a plan to change their party leader, and we cannot blame them for that.

    If the Opposition have no plan, let me remind them about ours. The minimum wage up, real wages up, house building up, NHS investment up, investment in our schools up, investment in our roads up, defence spending up—and every single one of those policies is opposed by the party opposite. They are opposed by the Conservatives, opposed by Reform, opposed by the SNP, opposed by the Liberal Democrats and opposed by the Greens. It is the anti-growth coalition in action. They are the blockers. We are the builders—securing Britain’s future, protecting working people and delivering change.