Tag: Pat McFadden

  • Pat McFadden – 2026 Statement on Getting Britain Working Again

    Pat McFadden – 2026 Statement on Getting Britain Working Again

    The statement made by Pat McFadden, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 14 May 2026.

    It is a pleasure to open today’s King’s Speech debate on behalf of the Government. As His Majesty said yesterday, we are living in

    “an increasingly dangerous and volatile world”.

    This debate is about the labour market, so let us start with some facts. We have 332,000 more people in work than a year ago; the third highest employment rate in the G7; unemployment lower than most OECD countries and lower than the EU average; unemployment down in the three months to February; and economic inactivity down by over 350,000 since the election—it is lower today than in 13 of the 14 years of the previous Government. Since the general election, real wages are up by more than in the first 10 years of the last Government, and this morning’s growth figures were up by 0.6% in the first quarter of this year—services up by 0.8% and construction up by 0.4%. That is the fastest GDP per capita growth in four years and the highest GDP growth in the G7 reported this year. That is on top of GDP per capita growth last year, and on top of six interest rate cuts since the general election. Our economic management has put the UK in a stronger position, better placed to weather the storm of global shocks, and better placed to weather the volatility of which His Majesty spoke yesterday.

    The leadership task for the country now is to lead the country through the consequences of what is happening in the middle east, because there is no doubt that the shock from the Iran war and the continued closure of the strait of Hormuz is real. It will affect prices, it will affect jobs and it will affect growth. Our Prime Minister took the decision to keep us out of that war, but the UK, like most countries, will be affected by its consequences.

    However, none of those consequences were thought about by the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of Reform when they were urging us to get involved. What did the Leader of the Opposition say?

    Ben Obese-Jecty: The Secretary of State and many of his Front-Bench colleagues keep reiterating that point. He keeps saying that, but I do not believe it is true. Will he explain exactly what he thinks the Leader of the Opposition wanted to do in those circumstances?

    Pat McFadden: Let me read this out for the hon. Gentleman. The Leader of the Opposition said that the Government were

    “too scared to make foreign interventions”.

    She also said:

    “I say to Labour MPs that we are in this war whether they like it or not. What is the Prime Minister waiting for?”—[Official Report, 4 March 2026; Vol. 781, c. 803.]

    That is what she said.

    As for the leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), he said:

    “We should do all we can to support the operation. I make that perfectly, perfectly clear.”

    Instead of trying to douse the flames, they sought to pour as much petrol on them as possible. They would have jumped in with both feet, displaying not only a failure of judgment but a total disregard for the price that will be paid by British consumers in higher prices and higher interest rates. That is how much they cared about keeping Britain working when it came to the biggest judgment that this country has had to make for a long time.

    The Conservatives’ record when in office was: the lowest business investment in the G7; wages flatlining for their entire period in office; the worst Parliament on record for living standards; and the public finances trashed as debt soared. The reason I point that out is that month after month, and nowhere more than in the arena of welfare, the Conservative party finds things that it is outraged about in the system that it built, it designed and it created.

    Before I come to the system itself, let me state something that is obvious but too often left out of these debates: the welfare system is often the end of a process in people’s lives, not the beginning. I will tell the House what contributes to higher welfare bills and to people not working: hollowing out the NHS and leaving one person in seven on waiting lists, with a higher likelihood that they are unfit for work; increasing child poverty by 700,000, making it less likely that children will be ready for work when they leave school; explicitly rejecting the post-covid education recovery plan, and doing nothing about rocketing absenteeism from schools; neglecting our town centres and high streets, leaving too many places without hope or confidence in the future; and presiding over a 40% decline in youth apprenticeship starts, kicking away the first step in the career ladder for those who lose out. You cannot do all that and then stand at the Dispatch Box and credibly express outrage about the rise in benefit bills. It did not come from nowhere, and if we are going to tackle this area, we have to understand that.

    Harriet Cross: In that case, can the Secretary of State credibly stand at the Dispatch Box and talk about the impact of the rise in national insurance contributions and of the Employment Rights Act 2025 on employment? The Government are now paying companies to employ young people because of the mess they made.

    Pat McFadden: If it was down to those policies, we would not have seen a rise of a quarter of a million in the NEET—not in education, employment or training—numbers in the last three years of the hon. Lady’s party’s time in office. My point is that this did not come from nowhere, and we have to understand that. If we are to have a serious response, education, health treatment, youth apprenticeships and changes to the welfare system itself all have a part to play.

    On the health front, I have good news to report: waiting lists today are down by 110,000—the biggest monthly drop since 2008. Elective waiting time targets have been hit, and four-hour waiting time targets have been hit. This is how we get Britain working, whereas simply picking a number for benefit cuts, with nothing behind it, is not an answer; it is a press release. The Conservative party has shown no understanding of how people end up on benefits in the first place.

    Steve Darling: I would like to raise with the Minister the fact that we are looking at around 1,000 redundancies across the NHS in Devon, which is a significant employer. That is cutting the legs off employment in communities such as mine in Torbay.

    Pat McFadden: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the figures that I just read out. For the first time in many years, the NHS is heading in the right direction. That is good for people’s health, and it is also good for getting people back to work.

    As I said, the Conservatives show no understanding of how people end up on benefits in the first place. They are like a workman who wanders around someone’s house asking, “Who installed that?”, when the answer every time is that they installed it. The Conservatives say that the welfare bill is too high, but it went up by £100 billion when they were in power. They say that they want more face-to-face appointments, but they shut them down almost entirely, and then the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride), now the shadow Chancellor, signed off a bunch of contracts that allowed the assessors to work from home. The Conservatives say that there are too many people on health benefits, but they designed the system, they designed the gateways, and they designed the differences in income that have made that happen. We did not just inherit a mess; we inherited their mess.

    In fact, the shadow Chancellor personally oversaw the biggest single increase in welfare spending on record during his time as Work and Pensions Secretary. Two weeks ago, the Leader of the Opposition railed against there being 1.5 million more people on universal credit. She was outraged by the figure, as she often is, but there was only one problem: around 80% of the increase was a legacy transfer from old benefits that was decided, organised and begun by the Conservative party. It is no wonder the chair of the UK Statistics Authority wrote to the Leader of the Opposition to correct her. Her letter said of the figures quoted:

    “A substantial proportion reflects the ongoing transfer of claimants from legacy benefits to Universal Credit. This process has been a longstanding policy and has been implemented at scale by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) since May 2022, predating the current administration.”

    When it comes to the Conservatives owning their record, they might as well be giving CV advice to the leader of the Green party.

    As the King’s Speech made clear yesterday, reform of the welfare system is under way and will continue. Support must always be there for those who need it, but circling the wagons around the status quo is not the right answer. Nor do I believe that the system can act as a fantasy cashpoint for every cause going; instead, I believe that our task is to recast

    this system to put work and opportunity at its heart.

    Sir Ashley Fox: Twelve months ago, the Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), attempted to cut the welfare bill and was sent packing by Labour Back Benchers. In the autumn, the Government had to get rid of the two-child benefit cap because of Labour Back Benchers. Is the truth not that the Secretary of State is incapable of reforming the welfare system because he does not have permission from his Back Benchers?

    Pat McFadden: I will outline the changes to the system that we are making. At the heart of it, we have to change the question that the system asks in order to have a system that is suited better to the conditions of today. We should ask people not just what benefit they are entitled to, but how we can help them change their lives, and we have begun that task.

    The change to universal credit that came into force last month narrowed the gap between the health element and the standard element. Crucially, it is matched by an increase in employment support. Another change is the provision of £3.8 billion to help people into work over the next few years, ensuring personalised help to maximise people’s chances of moving into a good, secure job. We have to change the old Tory habit of people being signed off and written off, and instead move to a system that more actively helps people into work. Nowhere is that more true than among the young, because the longer young people are left on benefits or out of work, the harder it is to come off and the worse the consequences are. The issue with the system is not just about monthly income; it is about the story of people’s lives and how we change it.

    Jim Shannon: I thank the Secretary of State for enabling me to ask a question, and for the positivity in his comments so far. Like him, I am incredibly worried about whether young people are getting job opportunities, and many in my constituency unfortunately have not been. May I ask a question about apprenticeships? We need to get people into the building and construction sector, for instance, where there are opportunities because house building is continuing to grow, as is the Government’s commitment. Will he outline some of the good things that have been done for young people in relation to apprenticeships?

    Pat McFadden: Apprenticeships are really valuable and important. I visited construction apprentices with the Prime Minister just a couple of days ago, so I heartily endorse what the hon. Gentleman says.

    The issue of youth employment is really important to us because of the long-term consequences of young people staying on benefits. Let me illustrate this for the House. A young person under the age of 25 who is on the health element of universal credit is now less likely to get a job than someone over 55 on the same benefit. A 20-year-old on incapacity benefit is more likely to turn 30 and still be claiming it than to have held a steady job for a year. Perhaps worst of all, a young unemployed person is over 70% more likely than their peers to die prematurely. Changing those stories has to be at the heart of what we are doing.

    There are practical ways of doing that. We know that many disabled people—young and old—and people with health conditions want to work, but have been held back by the fear of losing their benefits if things do not work out, so just last month we changed the law to bring in the right to try. Keeping people locked on benefits because they lack the confidence to work is in no one’s interests—not the individuals’ and not the state’s. The change means that entering employment will not automatically trigger a benefit reassessment. This is practical welfare reform and this is what getting Britain working looks like.

    We also know that disabled people and people with health conditions need localised support to get back into work. There is no greater fan than me of the wonderful work that our elected local mayors are doing, so we are putting £1 billion of funding into local areas to help 300,000 people into employment over the next few years. That is what practical welfare reform looks like.

    Today, the Department has published new figures on fraud and error. They show continued progress and a fall since the post-pandemic period, but this is an ongoing effort. There is always more to do because there are unscrupulous individuals who will try to game the system, but whether it is £5,000 or £5 million from an undisclosed source—possibly someone located abroad—people are expected to declare it. There cannot be one rule for some and another rule for everyone else.

    In the coming weeks, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability will set out our plans to deliver our manifesto commitment to tackle the Access to Work backlog. This important scheme provides grants to thousands of disabled people to help them get into and stay in work, through things like specialist equipment, assistive technology and adaptations. Members from across the House have raised with me the issue of backlogs and waiting times that grew under the Conservative Government. Well, under this Government, we are changing that to reduce the backlog and to help more disabled people into work. This is practical welfare reform and this is what getting Britain working looks like.

    We are restoring fairness in the system too. We are providing better value for money in the Motability scheme, with a target for half those cars to be made in Britain by 2035, so that this important scheme supports the British car industry too. We are stopping those who have not contributed from getting a British pension on the cheap. The work of reform will continue this year when, in the coming weeks, we receive interim reports from both the Milburn and Timms reviews, before they conclude later in the year. We will bring forward further proposals for reform, with work and opportunity at their heart, when those reviews have reported.

    Bob Blackman: Reports suggest that unemployed people who are signing on are getting trained for jobs that do not exist, not for the jobs in the sectors where there are opportunities to work. Will the Secretary of State reform the system so that those who are unemployed and seeking a job are trained to do the jobs that are available?

    Pat McFadden: That is precisely what we are doing, including by providing apprenticeship courses that are shorter than the usual eight-month minimum, because employers have told us that such short courses are exactly what they need. I am all in favour of more flexibility in the apprenticeship system to suit what employers need.

    Getting Britain working is also about the levels of investment in the economy: it is about the roads and railways we build, the capital programmes in education and health, and the year-on-year modernisation of the country. Here too there is a contrast with what we inherited. Compared with the plans that we inherited, there will be £120 billion more public investment over the course of this Parliament. That is what getting Britain working looks like—building and modernising the country. Underpinning all of this are measures in the King’s Speech to raise living standards in every part of the country, to attract investment, to work in partnership with business, to take advantage of new trading opportunities, to reduce the burden of unnecessary regulations, to unlock airport expansion, to build the roads that need to be built and, finally, to deliver a fair deal for the north of England.

    At the heart of our reforms should be the young, for the simple and obvious reason that if we do not get the young into work, there can be lifelong effects. We have almost a million young people not in education, training or employment. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), in the last three years of the Conservative Government, that figure went up by a quarter of a million. Although the numbers have barely moved since the election, they are still far too high.

    Alison Griffiths: On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?

    Pat McFadden: I will proceed, if the hon. Lady does not mind.

    Unlike the Conservatives, who did nothing about the number of young people not in education, training or employment, we are doing something about it, because we will not leave a young generation behind. We will not give up on young people, and that is why our youth guarantee is so important. It will invest £2.5 billion in support for young people and employers over the next few years. From June, there will be hiring bonuses of £3,000 for employers who take on a young person who has been out of work for six months. For small businesses, there will be a hiring bonus of £2,000 to take on a young apprentice, and the Government will pay for all the training courses for young apprentices employed by small and medium-sized enterprises. [Interruption.] Youth hubs across the country will take support out of the jobcentre to where young people are, giving them access to community-based advice, skills training, mental health support, housing advice and careers guidance. In the spirit of generosity, I will give way to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths).

    Alison Griffiths: I thank the Secretary of State for giving way and for his astounding shopping list of action that he is taking, but the Conservatives can make life easy for him: if he had not put 2% on national insurance, increased the national minimum wage and used the Employment Rights Act 2025 to remove the option of zero-hours contracts, businesses in my constituency and across the country would not have been forced to remove jobs focused specifically on young people. It is this Government who are responsible for the increase in youth unemployment.

    Pat McFadden: I have to disappoint the hon. Lady. If this Government were responsible, it would not be case that youth employment never in a single year reached the pre-financial crash levels when her party was in power. If this Government were

    responsible, we would not have seen the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training rise by a quarter of a million.

    Beyond the hiring bonuses and the youth hubs, we are offering more work experience or workplace training with a guaranteed interview, designed in partnership with employers. For those who have been out of work for 18 months, we are offering a six-month paid job placement of 25 hours a week at national minimum wage rates. The reason we are doing all this is that we will not stand back and allow young people to graduate from school to a life on benefits. There has been too much of that in recent years, and to do that would be to accept the scarring effect for the rest of their lives and to accept the huge cost to the country and to businesses in lost talent.

    Changing this situation should be a cause for us all, and it should certainly be a Labour cause, to give hope to the country’s young people and to show that we believe in them, we back them and we want them to have a better future. This is a generational challenge. Of course it is an issue for young people, but it is also an issue for their parents and grandparents, because they all want a better future for young people, and so do we. There is an urgency about this issue. As the population ages and net migration falls, we need the young people of this country more than ever. They are our greatest resource and our greatest asset, and an investment in them is an investment in the future for all of us.

    In the volatile times that His Majesty spoke about, people look for security, and rightly so, but the future is not just about security; the future is about building opportunity too. It is about not accepting so many young people being written off and about giving them a chance to change the story of their lives. That is the message at the heart of the King’s Speech and that is what is at the heart of our youth guarantee. It is at the heart of all the changes in welfare reform that I have listed, and it will be at the heart of the changes to come, and I recommend them to the House.

  • Pat McFadden – 2025 Speech on “Cyber is a Poster Child for Growth”

    Pat McFadden – 2025 Speech on “Cyber is a Poster Child for Growth”

    The speech made by Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office Minister, on 7 May 2025.

    Introduction:

    Good morning everyone,

    It’s really great to be here with you in Manchester.

    This is one of Britain’s great cities.

    From music to sport to industry, Manchester has made its mark on the world in so many ways…

    And today I want to talk to you about an area where I believe Manchester, the North West, the whole country can grow in strength in the future.

    There might have been times when a government minister making a speech about cyber security was thought to be something routine.

    Ritual calls for preparedness, and it might not seem to have much connection to the real world.

    But not today. Not this time. Not this week. Not with what we have been seeing happening over the past few weeks.

    Great British businesses. Household names like M&S, the Co-op, Harrods, all the subject of serious cyber incidents.

    These cyber attacks are not a game. They’re not a clever exercise. They are serious organised crime.

    The purpose is to damage and extort good businesses. It’s the digital version of an old-fashioned shake down. Either straight theft or a protection racket where your business will be safe as long as you pay the gangsters.

    And what we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks should serve as a wake-up call for everyone – for government and the public sector, for businesses and organisations up and down the country, as if we needed one, that cybersecurity is not a luxury – it’s an absolute necessity.

    Whether it is a system failure or a deliberate attack, no organisation can afford to treat cyber security as an afterthought.

    So it’s not routine. It’s a good time to be gathering today, to discuss what we can do to make our defences as strong as possible.

    Now it’s one of the paradoxes of modern life: technology brings huge benefits, and there’s no going back – but it also brings risks.

    The internet is one of the greatest engines for creativity and innovation in modern history. It has transformed the way we live, work and learn.

    Just think of the applications. Busy parents who can save so much time by ordering goods online, students with an unfathomable range of knowledge at their fingertips, families all around the world able to share pictures of those precious moments – birthdays, christenings, weddings – just at the press of a screen. All of us benefit from this astounding level of connectedness.

    Yet the technology that underpins it can be weaponised by those who want to destabilise our infrastructure, our information systems, or our industrial base.

    The UK’s critical infrastructure is now more interconnected than ever. That is empowering…

    But it also carries risks, because there are vulnerabilities –  and more than we had years ago. Right down to the household level.

    As the cost of the tech has plummeted, and broadband speeds have risen, more and more devices are connected online. In 2020, it was thought to be about 50 billion. By 2030 – which isn’t that far away now – it will be 500 billion, according to projections.

    More connections, more interconnectedness.

    Technological leaps are rarely born in comfort; more often, they are forged during conflict, or competition or by sheer necessity. And history shows us that innovation always accelerates when the stakes are highest, from nuclear energy to the space race.

    The stakes are high right now. And we are in the middle of another huge technological leap – a “technology shock” if you like – with AI and other emerging technologies developing at breakneck speeds.

    It’s a duty for Government and all of us to keep up.

    Because in the modern world, where everything is connected, and so much of it’s online, it doesn’t take much if that is attacked to cause serious disruption.

    Just ask anyone in Spain or Portugal who went through the power outage last week. Passengers stuck in underground trains. Payment systems disabled and suddenly, for a day, cash is king again. And a host of other effects.

    I experienced last July, just a couple of weeks after the general election, the CrowdStrike incident. We worked closely with one of the sponsors of this conference, CrowdStrike, to manage the fallout of that.

    That wasn’t a cyber attack but it did cause ripples right across the country and the world.

    Flights grounded. Hospital appointments disrupted. Holidays cancelled. GP services cut off.

    We worked closely with the company to resolve it. But what did we learn?

    Lessons:

    First, you’ve got to bring people together and coordinate. We had the National Cyber Security Centre, the Cabinet Office – the department I lead – Microsoft and CrowdStrike, all the different parts of government to understand what the incident was.

    Secondly, Government cannot do it alone. You have to have good partnerships between the public and private sector.

    And thirdly, even though it exposed a responsibility, there is also a prize to be grasped here.

    Because if interconnectedness that I’ve spoken about requires greater protection and powers of recovery, then those countries that think about this, that invest in the cybersecurity services, will be able to offer those services to those that need them.

    Just think about previous waves of interconnectedness and how the UK led the way in protecting them. Think about how Lloyds of London, for example, insured shipping right across the globe, well so too can the UK play a major role in cyber security. A new kind of technological insurance.

    We are already the third largest exporter of these products and services in the world.

    And as the technology continues to develop, I believe that our cyber companies and start-ups can use that current competitive advantage as a launchpad for greater success – for the benefit of the entire UK economy.

    So my message this morning to you is that it’s not just about vulnerability and risk – it’s about economic growth too.

    Later this year, we’ll publish a new National Cyber Strategy that will set out how we want to approach these challenges and opportunities in the years to come.

    Today I want to touch on three aspects of that today: threats, security and growth.

    Threat landscape

    Scale of activity:

    The threat is growing.

    Last year the NCSC received almost 2,000 reports of cyber attacks – of which 90 were deemed significant, and 12 at the top end of severity.

    That is three times the number of severe attacks compared to the year before (2023).

    They’re targeted both Government and private systems.

    Combatting it is a constant challenge. I can’t stand here this morning and tell you that Government systems are bombproof. That is not the case.

    These are new systems, built on top of legacy systems, and we’re doing everything in our power to modernise the state, and to upgrade those core systems . But the Government, and the country as a whole, has to take this seriously if we’re going to do it securely in the future.

    Artificial Intelligence:

    It’s our strong conviction that Artificial Intelligence will bring huge opportunities to the UK. We want this country to be a good home both for investment and adoption in this field. But like all general purpose technologies, it can be used for good or ill.

    And just as people and businesses across the country are using AI in all sorts of applications, so too are our adversaries.

    Today, we are declassifying an intelligence assessment that shows AI is going to increase not only the frequency, but the intensity, of cyber attacks in the coming years.

    Our security systems will only remain secure if they keep pace with what our adversaries are doing.

    And that’s why it’s imperative to understand what they’re doing and why.

    State-actors:

    And today state-backed cyber hacking has become the new normal.

    Hostile states constantly working to degrade our military advantage. With cyber criminals who will routinely sell their services to other states. These cyber mercenaries can cause huge harm.

    Sometimes to steal money. For example, it is thought that North Korea stole $1.34bn through cryptocurrency theft last year, causing US officials to describe their hackers as the “world’s leading bank robbers”.

    The cyber activity we are seeing in countries like North Korea reflects that grey area that exists between some states and cyber criminals.

    My colleagues at the Home Office, under the leadership of the Home Secretary and the Security Minister, are working hard to strengthen our overall response to cyber crime. They have been consulting on a number of ransomware proposals designed to thwart our enemies.

    Other state-backed hacking is done as part of a wider war – and we’ve seen that with Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

    How Ukraine is putting up an incredibly brave fight against cyberwarfare unleashed by the Russians, and we have vowed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine for as long as it takes to defend their sovereignty.

    And so we’re going to invest £8 million in the Ukraine Cyber Programme over the next year to counter the Kremlin’s cyber aggression.

    What Russia is doing doesn’t stop in Ukraine. There have been a number of other attacks and disinformation campaigns in other countries.

    For example, in Moldova’s presidential election last year. And we know that they will keep trying. So we will be investing £1 million in cyber capabilities in Moldova, to help give that country the tools to combat Russian cyber attacks and ensure their upcoming parliamentary election can be as democratic, fair and open as possible.

    Our country has always defended freedom.

    This is part of the defence of freedom and democracy that has been part of our country’s history.

    But defence today is not just about troops and missiles.

    It’s also about this cyber realm, too – and this Government is absolutely committed to making sure we and our allies are strong in this domain.

    China:

    And let me say a word about China.

    When we think about international activity in cyberspace, we need to be clear-eyed about the challenge posed by China.

    It is well on its way to becoming a cyber superpower. It has the sophistication. The scale. And the seriousness.

    It’s one of the world leaders in AI, as the world’s second largest economy it’s deeply embedded in global supply chains and markets.

    We need to view China’s approach to cyberspace with open eyes. Disengagement economically from China is not an option. Neither’s naivety.

    The job of a responsible Government is to protect our people and constructively engage with the world as it is.

    “Stop the world I want to get off” is not in the United Kingdom’s interests.

    Rather, our approach should be to engage constructively and consistently with China where it is in the UK’s economic interests, but also to be clear that we will robustly defend our own cyberspace.

    Bolstering our defences

    And I want to thank the organisations that do that. GCHQ, NCSC, the National Cyber Force – they keep watch, working tirelessly with our allies, with the Five Eyes alliance, to stay ahead of our competitors.

    Our intelligence agencies also play a key role in growing our overall cyber ecosystem – acting as a training bed for all kinds of experts who go on to be successful cyber entrepreneurs.

    LASR:

    And we’re investing in new capabilities in this regard.

    Last year, I launched a new public-private partnership to keep the UK on top of some of the risks emerging on how we harness AI.

    The idea behind the Laboratory for AI Security Research – or LASR, as we’ve come to call it – is simple: accelerate innovation and research into how AI can protect our national security.

    Since November, its funded 10 PhDs at Oxford University; funded an in-house team of 9 researchers at The Turing Institute; and its funded research at 8 other leading UK universities including Queen’s University Belfast and Lancaster University.

    And we are committing an extra £7million to LASR’s research over the next financial year.

    And I’m pleased to announce it has agreed a new partnership with one of the biggest tech companies in the world, Cisco.

    They are going to be collaborating with GCHQ and the NCSC, and other partners to expand the research and innovation capacity of the Lab.

    They will be running challenges across the UK, and build a demonstrator here in the North West to showcase how our scientists and entrepreneurs can work together to manage the risks, build the skills and grasp the opportunities of AI security.

    This is the first collaboration of its kind with LASR, and will be a trailblazer and it will help LASR drive cutting-edge research into the impact of AI on national security.

    Cyber Security and Resilience Bill:

    We’re also modernising the way the state approaches this, through the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill.

    That legislation will bolster our national defences. It will grant new powers to the Technology Secretary to direct regulated organisations to reinforce their defences.

    And as we begin scrutiny of that Bill in Parliament, we will be launching a new Software Security Code of Practice – to help all organisations take the measures they need to embed security and resilience.

    And the prize of all this is growth. Safe economic growth.

    Growth

    When we’re talking about cyber, it’s easy to focus on the risks and threats.

    But we also need to think about the reward. There is enormous potential for cyber security to be a driving force in our economy.

    We already have over 2,000 businesses across the UK. An estimated 67,000 jobs – with an increase of 6,000 in the last 12 months.

    Revenue of more than £13billion.

    And as I said, we’re exporting this across the world.
    But there is still potential on the table.
    So we’re supporting an independent report from Imperial College and Bristol University, who are going to apply their knowledge and expertise to help us establish which levers we need to pull, and how we do that.

    And ahead of the report, we are already making some big investments like the £1billion going into a new state-of-the-art Golden Valley campus near GCHQ’s Cheltenham office.

    That site alone is expected to create 12,000 jobs and be home to hospitality, retail businesses, as well as 3,700 new homes. It is all growth.

    Industrial Strategy:

    And that is why cyber is part of our Industrial Strategy too. It is a significant part of our economic future.

    Conclusion:

    So as I said at the start of my remarks, we are in a new world.

    In fact, it’s incredible to think it’s been only 36 years since Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web.

    I have teenage children and sometimes I try to explain to them the world before the internet. It’s not something they find easy to understand. The pace of change that we have seen during that time is unlikely to slow down.

    So we have got to take the long view: not just think about the technologies of today, but what it might look like in 10 or 20 years.

    Cyber attacks and cyber hacking are likely to be permanent features of this new global order – there is no point in pretending otherwise.

    But the opportunities are also huge, and I believe that this country, in its position of creativity and innovation, will be at the vanguard of cyberspace and cybersecurity for decades to come.

    Seizing the opportunities to grow the sector, protecting and defending other parts of the economy.

    Standing by our allies in an ever changing world, and defending democracy right across the world.

    It is at once one of the challenges and opportunities of our time, and we have to work together to meet it.

  • Pat McFadden – 2024 Statement on the Covid-19 Inquiry

    Pat McFadden – 2024 Statement on the Covid-19 Inquiry

    The statement made by Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the House of Commons on 19 July 2024.

    With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the covid-19 inquiry. Yesterday, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the UK covid-19 inquiry, which examines the resilience and preparedness of the United Kingdom between 2009 and early 2020.

    My thoughts, and I am sure the thoughts of the whole House, are with the families of those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Their grief and the nature of their loss is harrowing, with so many loved ones lost before their time; so many heartbreaking last goodbyes said over a phone or iPad; and in some cases there was not even the chance to say goodbye at all. So many friends and family members were denied even the chance to go to a funeral, and many others found their lives changed by covid forever. We can only begin to imagine the anguish and anger that people feel, because this report confirms what many have always believed: that the country was not as prepared as it should have been, and that more could and should have been done.

    Baroness Hallett is unequivocal:

    “The UK was ill prepared for dealing with a catastrophic emergency, let alone the coronavirus…pandemic”.

    She finds that “processes, planning and policy” across all four nations failed our citizens. There were fundamental failures of state, with poorly performing public services, as well as health and social inequalities contributing to our vulnerability.

    The inquiry finds that

    “the UK prepared for the wrong pandemic”,

    with a focus on influenza to the effective exclusion of other potential pathogens. There was a lack of leadership, a lack of appropriate challenge and oversight from Ministers and officials, which allowed major gaps to open up in the UK’s resilience in the period leading up to the pandemic.

    Baroness Hallett finds

    “fatal strategic flaws underpinning the assessment of the risks”

    and

    “a failure to learn sufficiently from past civil emergency exercises and outbreaks of disease.”

    Ministers and officials took false comfort from a positive analysis of the UK’s preparedness. Not enough thought was given to how we might seek to prevent the worst effects of a pandemic, such as with a system of test and trace, rather than accepting the consequence of spread as inevitable.

    In this emergency, the cracks in our society were exposed. The inequalities were glaring, and that weakened the response. That is why the report’s findings on the most vulnerable are so important: what it says about the elderly, ethnic minorities and those already subject to existing health inequalities, particularly in the early months of the pandemic; those with higher risk of serious illness who were asked to shield for extended periods; those living in overcrowded houses, working in the gig economy or on low incomes; those who suffered as a result of the appalling increase in domestic abuse during the lockdowns; and, of course, disruption to education and the inequalities of vastly different access to online learning and IT equipment. Resilience has to be for all of us, not just some of us.

    The underlying picture that this report sets out is stark. Before the pandemic began, our public services were already stretched to their limit, during what should have been normal times. This was especially true of the NHS, overstretched even before the pandemic hit, and key workers in other services, overburdened in normal times and then asked to go above and beyond. A nation can only be as resilient as the foundational strength of its infrastructure and public services.

    As I stand here today with 8 million people on NHS waiting lists, prisons overflowing, councils pushed to the brink and public services in a worse position than they were even in 2020, we must ensure that we are prepared. Baroness Hallett says that it is not a question of if another pandemic will strike, but when. Resilience is not just about another pandemic, but about the full range of risk that we face. We are reminded of that this morning as reports come in about a global IT outage affecting airlines, GP surgeries, banks, media and other organisations. It is not easy to know what the future holds. We cannot plan fully for every possible risk, but we must do what we can to learn the lessons of this period.

    The Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. That is a top priority of this Government. With a long-term approach to strengthening our national resilience, I shall lead a review of our national resilience against the range of risks that the UK faces. I shall chair a dedicated Cabinet Committee on resilience to oversee that work. Of course, it is not just about central Government, so we will work with the devolved Governments, regional mayors and local leaders as we consider the report’s recommendations. When we have an emergency, we should do everything we can to work together locally and nationally. The Prime Minister has already started to reset relationships with critical partners, because resilience is too important for division to get in the way. Instead, it has to be about co-operative strength.

    Some improvements to our operational effectiveness have already been made. The previous Administration did make efforts to improve preparedness. These include changes in the way that the Government access, analyse and share data, including with the public. They also changed the risk assessment processes and the way in which the centre of Government works to prepare for and respond to crises. As an incoming Government, in office for just two weeks, we will look at those efforts in the coming months as we develop our own approach. Where things are good, they should be kept; where they are not good enough, they should be changed.

    The inquiry’s report recommends improvements in the way whole-system risks are assessed and managed across the UK Government and the devolved Governments, and improvements to the leadership and oversight provided by Ministers. The Government will carefully consider all the findings and recommendations, including any from the Grenfell inquiry that also have a bearing on resilience planning. We will respond in full within six months.

    We will also play our full part in international efforts to improve global health and pandemic preparedness, from disease surveillance and vaccine development to strengthening health systems in the global south and building even greater international co-operation. The United Kingdom has a huge amount to offer and it is in our national interest to do so, because, as we have seen so powerfully, pandemics do not respect international borders, so global health security is an essential element of national security.

    I wish to thank Baroness Hallett and her team for all their work so far and for putting the voices of the bereaved at the heart of the inquiry. Amid the tragedy of the pandemic, the British people came together in the most extraordinary ways—from the incredible service and sacrifice of our frontline workers, not least in the NHS, to the generosity of volunteers across our communities supporting one another with acts of kindness. It was a story of service that showed the very best of our country. This Government of service are determined to learn the lessons from this inquiry and to prepare as best we can for the future. That is the duty that we have to the people we serve, and indeed to the memory of those we lost. It is in that spirit that I commend this statement to the House.

  • Pat McFadden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Pat McFadden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Pat McFadden on 2016-09-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of children receiving free school meals obtained five GCSEs, including English and mathematics in each local authority area in England in the latest year for which figures are available.

    Edward Timpson

    The percentage of pupils who are eligible for free school meals and obtained five GCSEs, including English and mathematics, in each local authority area in England is published in table LA8 as part of the “GCSE and equivalent attainment by pupil characteristics 2015” statistical first release (SFR)[1].

    [1] KS4 SFR 2014/15: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493475/SFR01_2016_LA_Tables.xlsx (Table LA8)

    “

  • Pat McFadden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Pat McFadden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Pat McFadden on 2016-09-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what percentage of children from each local authority area in England go to university in the most recent year for which figures are available.

    Joseph Johnson

    Information on the percentage of pupils from state-funded schools aged 15 in 2009/10 who entered higher education in 2012/13 at age 18, or in 2013/14 at age 19, by local authority, is available in Table 2 of the Statistical First Release ‘Widening Participation in Higher Education, England, 2013/14 age cohort’. The publication is available at the following weblink:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/543126/SFR37-2016_-_WPHE2016_01.08.2016.pdf

    “

  • Pat McFadden – 2022 Comments on UK Companies Involved in Russia

    Pat McFadden – 2022 Comments on UK Companies Involved in Russia

    The comments made by Pat McFadden, the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, in the House of Commons on 7 December 2022.

    I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for tabling this urgent question.

    Right now in Kyiv, the temperature is around freezing. Putin aims to weaken the resolve of the Ukrainian people by freezing them over this winter. But with every Russian missile that falls on energy infrastructure, he does not weaken the resolve of the Ukrainian people—he strengthens it. The resounding answer to the question posed by President Zelensky—without electricity or without you?—should be heard loudly and clearly in Moscow.

    To support the efforts of the Ukrainian people, many British companies have ceased their Russian operations and divested themselves of their interests. Those decisions have cost businesses money, orders and jobs, but they have made them because they want to do the right thing. And other businesses are paying higher energy costs as a result of the war. But some companies either continue to operate or have not fully divested themselves of their interests.

    The excess profits made by energy companies have rightly been called the windfalls of war. Energy is the central pillar of the Russian economy and the profits from it fuel the Russian war effort. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking has told the House today that the dividend due to BP as a result of its stake in Rosneft is worth about £580 million. Those funds may be frozen at the moment, but what do the Government believe should happen to those funds when they are eventually released? Do the Government believe that those funds should be used for the welfare and benefit of the people of Ukraine, whose country is being devastated by Russian aggression? How many other British companies are still operating in Russia and why are they still operating? What is the Government’s position on money they could be making there, which could also be described as the windfalls of war?

    We are united across this House in our support for Ukraine and for the incredible bravery shown by both its armed forces and its people. The question the House poses today is how will the Government make sure that British companies are not profiting from the appalling Russian aggression we have seen in Ukraine?

    James Cartlidge

    The right hon. Gentleman poses a number of very important questions. On a general point, he talks about strengthening the resolve of the people of Ukraine. This country can be rightly proud of every step it has taken to strengthen that resolve, and, I must say on record, of the leadership of two former Prime Ministers, as well as the current Prime Minister. They have shown extraordinary leadership appearing in Kyiv under huge pressure and supporting President Zelensky, alongside the support we have given to the Ukrainian armed forces and our massive humanitarian aid. I know there is consensus on that, but we should not in any way be defensive about the steps we have taken to support the Ukrainian people.

    The right hon. Gentleman talks about companies doing the right thing. He is absolutely right that companies are divesting and exiting from Russia. We welcome that. I explained about the statement made by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor back in March, which is obviously something we welcome. I think there are some complexities in that process and I will not be drawn on individual firms. That is long-standing Treasury policy for very good reason.

    The right hon. Gentleman mentions the windfall tax. We have a windfall on North sea oil and gas which will raise £41.6 billion—an enormous sum of money. Why are we raising that money? It is in part precisely to fund the extraordinary support we are putting in place to help British people and British businesses through this winter. He talked about the impact on companies of Putin’s war and the impact on people. Yes, of course, the harshest impact is on the people of Ukraine, not least the bereaved families, but there is an impact on our people with higher prices, including energy prices, here and throughout Europe and the world. Our windfall tax funds that support so that this winter we are doing everything possible to support our businesses and our people, alongside massive support for the people of Ukraine.

  • Pat McFadden – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Pat McFadden – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Pat McFadden on 2014-04-03.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish estimates produced by the Government Actuary’s Department for his Department of any additional monies received from extra contributions to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme before 19 March 2014.

    Danny Alexander

    The Government Actuary’s Department did not produce estimates for HM Treasury of additional monies received from extra contributions to the Teachers’ Pension scheme before 19 March 2014.

  • Pat McFadden – 2022 Speech on the Government’s “Plan for Growth”

    Pat McFadden – 2022 Speech on the Government’s “Plan for Growth”

    The speech made by Pat McFadden, the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, in the House of Commons on 19 October 2022.

    I am pleased to conclude the debate on behalf of the Opposition. I welcome the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury to his position. His colleague the Exchequer Secretary is an old-timer: she has been in post for six weeks. No doubt she is sitting at the Treasury talking about the old times back in September.

    I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. We have heard many powerful speeches about the impact of inflation and rising energy costs, the pressures on business, the UK’s international reputation and the impact of rising mortgage rates. If you will forgive me, however, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to single out the speech of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), who not only spoke about his own health issues, but added his voice to those of Conservative Members calling for the Prime Minister to go.

    This country has been through very significant economic damage in recent weeks: a run on the pound, a spike in gilt yields that has increased the cost of Government borrowing, emergency interventions from the Bank of England to prop up the country’s pension system, and a spike in mortgage rates that will add to the household costs of millions of people to years to come. All of it has been self-inflicted—not an act of God, not the result of global conditions, but the result of using the country for an ideological experiment. To deal with the argument that the Financial Secretary made at the beginning of the debate—essentially, that this is all global—I will quote from a letter from the Bank of England to the Treasury Committee. If any Conservative Member wants to intervene to say that any of it is wrong, they can be my guest.

    Immediately after the mini-Budget, there were two days with the biggest daily rises in gilt yields in 20 years. Over four days, the rise was twice as large as the biggest rise since 2000. The Bank of England says that

    “the scale and speed of repricing…far exceeded historical moves”.

    Following the mini-Budget, gilts moved more in one day than in 23 of the past 27 years. No such moves happened in gilts in dollars, euros or other major currencies. There were global factors before the mini-Budget, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) said, the global context was a reason not to act in such a rash manner, not a reason to behave with all the restraint of a couple of trigger-happy pyromaniacs.

    This crisis was not born of global conditions, but made in Downing Street. It has destroyed the Conservative party’s claims to be the party of economic competence and of sound money. The real-life impact of what the Government have done has been to place a Tory risk premium on the country’s borrowing costs and a Tory premium on people’s mortgage rates.

    James Cartlidge

    I asked the shadow Chancellor earlier whether it was correct that Labour’s intervention in energy support would be almost primarily funded by borrowing despite its pledges on the windfall tax. Is that correct?

    Mr McFadden

    We have never argued that there was no need for borrowing. The point we made was that much more of this could be funded by a windfall tax. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is some sort of revelation, I can only ask him where he has been living for the last few months.

    The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of September behaved like student pamphleteers. When the Prime Minister stood up at her conference and attacked

    “vested interests dressed up as think tanks”,

    it was an announcement worthy of the gold medal for lack of self-awareness, for never has there been a Government more symbolic of the failure of think-tanks on influential thinking than the one that she leads.

    The Prime Minister and her ideological soulmate got the keys to the Treasury Ferrari, took it for a joyride and then crashed it into a ditch. Now, belatedly, by commissioning the OBR report and singing the praises of an independent Bank of England after spending all the summer undermining it, they have signed themselves up for the speed awareness course; but it is too late, because people will continue to pay the price of what they have done.

    We have now had two fiscal events with no report from the OBR. This was not just about what was done, but about how it was done. The whole country is paying a price for the Conservative party’s contempt for the institutions that safeguard our economic credibility. And where does it all leave the Prime Minister? The mini-Budget was not a surprise to her; it was not imposed on her; she was 100% its co-author. It embodied her beliefs, her world view, the central core of the campaign on which she fought and won the leadership contest. Now everything she believes in has had to be burned in front of her to try to keep this zombie Government carrying on. This is not a case of “too far, too fast”, as she has claimed, or of a minor policy U-turn. It is a repudiation of everything that she stands for. It is a total and utter reversal.

    The one surviving policy that the Prime Minister keeps praying in aid, the energy price guarantee, is the one policy that she campaigned against throughout her leadership campaign, saying that she was opposed to handouts. The question now is, what is her premiership for? Is it for the policies that she really believes in—those in the mini-Budget, now rejected and lying in ashes—or is it for the revenge of the orthodoxy that she so disdains? Each dose of the medicine she takes entails embracing that which she has so publicly rejected. Her argument, in effect, is “Please keep me here so that I can be what I am not.”

    Mr Perkins

    Is not the truth that what the Prime Minister’s leadership is for is for the moment? She is here for a very short period, until the Tories can find an excuse to get rid of her.

    Mr McFadden

    My hon. Friend is right. In fact, the only discussion on the Conservative Benches is about how to do precisely that.

    We cannot believe anything the Prime Minister says. Only seven days ago, she stood at that Dispatch Box and promised there would be “absolutely” no spending cuts.

    Five days later, the new Chancellor—October’s Chancellor—told us that the cuts had to be eye-watering. Conservative Members know that this is an impossible basis for leadership, and that it leaves the Prime Minister in an untenable position. They are remembering the words of the song that was played at their party conference as she came on to the stage:

    “You’ve done me wrong, your time is up…there’s no way back…you’re movin’ on out”.

    Three cheers for M People: not just a great band, but one with the political foresight of Nostradamus.

    Now the new Chancellor has been sent down from the mountain, come among us, as he says, to restore confidence and stability—but who destroyed confidence in the UK? Who created the instability? Who fashioned the Tory risk premium?

    I am too polite to call it what they are calling it in the City, which is “the moron premium”. It was the new Chancellor’s own Government.

    Let us be clear: no one was talking about spending cuts before the mini-Budget of 23 September, so the cuts are a result of what the Government have done. There has been no emergency central bank intervention to rescue pensions in the United States, Germany or France. The global circumstances that the Government refer to were the reason not to take such reckless risks with the public finances.

    I have noticed one thing about the new Chancellor, though: he is not pretending that it is year zero. He is owning the record—all 12 years of it—and he now wants to implement a version of what was done after 2010. We have gone from an economic policy of having to borrow from communities such as mine in Wolverhampton South East to fund a tax cut for people earning over £150,000 to a policy of those communities having to pay for the chaos caused by the first policy.

    We can see what the plan is. Having crashed the economy and brought a new dimension of pity, bemusement and risk to the term “global Britain”, the Government now want the acid test to be support for their public expenditure cuts. They have already made people pay once for their mismanagement through higher mortgage rates. Now they want to make people pay twice through cuts to public services. It is the ultimate in governmental arrogance. They get to mess up the country through a giant ideological experiment and then ask everyone else to pay the price. That is not a political virility test; it is a candid admission of failure.

    The roots of that failure lie not just in one or two policy errors but in something deeper. They lie in the triumph of ideology over evidence. They lie in the view that all that is needed is blind faith—the test that someone is a true believer—and the view that anyone who questions or points out inconvenient truths is a doom-monger, part of the blob, and not a proper patriot. That destructive ideology has done great harm to our politics. It has reduced the Conservative party to its current abject state, and has served as the rationale for attacking one institution after another.

    Politics begins with wanting to change the world, but what have this Conservative Government been reduced to? Attacking tofu. What other forms of food will now be lined up in the culture war that is all that is left for them? The disaster of the past few months should result not just in a few policy U-turns, but in turning away from the politics that drove those decisions and has done such harm to the country. This country has great strengths: world-leading services, great high-value manufacturing, creative industries with global reach, some of the best universities in the world, and a fantastic workforce. It deserves much better than this Conservative Government.

  • Pat McFadden – 2022 Speech on UK’s GDP Figures

    Pat McFadden – 2022 Speech on UK’s GDP Figures

    The speech made by Pat McFadden, the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, in the House of Commons on 13 June 2022.

    I am grateful to the Minister for his response. GDP down 0.3% in April. A fall of 0.1% in March. Services down 0.3%. Production down 0.6%. Construction down 0.4%. Inflation at 9%. Tax promises broken. The trade deficit at £24 billion. The pound falling against the dollar. The director general of the CBI saying business leaders are “in despair”. The OECD forecasting that, next year, the UK will have the lowest growth of any G20 economy, with the sole exception of—Russia.

    That is what the Government are presiding over. Britain is going backwards under the Conservatives. Our businesses, universities and people are all great, but they do not have the partner they need in this Government. The chaos is affecting more and more areas of life: passports, driving licences, GP appointments, A&E waiting times, airports and delays in court trials. Time after time what we used to take for granted is now another feature of Boris Johnson’s backlog Britain.

    Those on the Government Benches had a chance to change direction last week. They had a chance to install new leadership that might have given us some hope of a greater sense of grip on all this. But what did they do? They decided that the best person to turn the economy round, to sort out the chaos and the backlogs, and to bring the qualities of focus, attention to detail and sustained delivery to these matters was the current Prime Minister. That was the judgment they made.

    The question for the Minister today is simple: after making that judgment—I do not know what he did, but that was the collective judgment—and choosing to continue with the leadership that brought us here, what will the Government do now to turn matters around, and why on earth should anyone believe that the result will be different from what went before?

  • Pat McFadden – 2022 Comments on GDP Figures

    Pat McFadden – 2022 Comments on GDP Figures

    The comments made by Pat McFadden, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 14 January 2022.

    The UK suffered the worst economic crisis of any major economy, and now the cost of living crisis means our economic recovery is at risk.

    Inflation is hitting working people and weighing on growth. We need urgent action for a stronger economy to achieve prosperity in every part of the country.

    Labour would use our recovery to create a more secure economy by spending wisely, taxing fairly, and getting the economy firing on all cylinders.

    All around the country households are wondering how they will pay the bills this year. The Government has no plan to help them with the cost of living crisis they are facing.