Tag: Speeches

Chloe Smith – 2022 Speech to Policy Exchange on the Labour Market

The speech made by Chloe Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, at Policy Exchange on 13 October 2022.

Introduction

This Government’s mission is to grow the economy, to drive prosperity and deliver opportunity for all.

And for me, this is about jobs. Delivering our agenda is all about tackling economic inactivity and putting the incentives in place to make sure we help as many British people into work as possible.

In practical terms, that means providing the tools, support and incentives to ensure people can start, stay and succeed in work – so that whatever a person’s age or career stage, everyone has the chance to fulfil their potential and build greater security for themselves and their families.

Everyone’s talents must be included in growing our economy – and everyone should have the chance to grow.

We need to be clear about what we mean when we talk about opportunity for all.

It’s the difference between someone having a job or not.

Having a pay rise, or not.

Getting the education they need – and any skills needed later in life – or not.

Suffering from barriers like limited childcare choices – or knowing the kids are OK and you can go for it.

We need to break down the barriers which can hold people back –

And smash the glass ceilings limiting ambition and advancement.

So opportunity means successful incentives and support to move off benefits and into work.

Opportunity means making work pay.

It’s by helping people increase their own spending power, improve their wellbeing and enhance their life choices that this Government’s Growth Plan will deliver in the practical real world.

The power of work to deliver opportunity – and the sense of purpose and pride that it provides – is something that has been important to me throughout my whole life, starting indeed at my education. Which, like the Prime Minister, took place was at a comprehensive school, in fact – in her constituency of rural South West Norfolk!

It’s also a fundamental principle that’s guided me for 13 years as a Norfolk Member of Parliament for Norwich North and most recently, in my previous role as the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work.

Now as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions I am absolutely determined to use all those experiences, first and foremost to tackle our labour market shortages, but of course also to protect the most vulnerable in society.

As the Prime Minister has set out, in this country, you should be able to go as far as your talents will take you.

No one should be left behind.

No one should feel like they are at a dead end.

Nobody should be written off from achieving their potential.

Recent Challenges

Over the last two years as a country we have faced significant obstacles. We saw real challenges to lives and livelihoods during the pandemic and we now have the economic headwinds that have stemmed from Putin’s acts of aggression in Ukraine.

Of course I am primarily here today to talk about my department’s role in achieving growth, I’d also like to start actually by reflecting on how proud I am of DWP’s work in supporting the most vulnerable during the cost of living crisis that’s followed from these events.

For example, my teams have played key roles in ensuring that the Cost of Living payments have gone out, which offer targeted support for around eight million low-income households, and most recently, the one-off disability payment to six million people.

The Government is also shielding households and businesses from high energy bills through the Energy Price Guarantee, which will mean a typical household energy bill shouldn’t be more than around £2,500 this winter and next per year, enabling the typical household to save an average of £1,000 a year on their energy bills.

These interventions are necessary and important – but the best way, the surest and most sustainable way, to increase people’s living standards and put them on a track to success is to help them into a good job.

That’s why we have to get Britain working, moving and growing again.

We’re going to get going through renewing our focus on helping people to move into and – crucially – to progress in work.

Labour Market

Like the British people themselves, our labour market has remained resilient through the pandemic and beyond.

In fact, Tuesday’s Labour Market Statistics show that the number of people on company payrolls is at a record high and unemployment is at its lowest rate since 1974.

There is no doubt that this is good news.

And it reflects the focus that we have placed on protecting, creating and supporting jobs, including the efforts of our work coaches and jobcentres all around the country to get people into work – and I think a few might even be in the audience here today.

But challenges remain and we must not stop there. We have very high numbers of vacancies still – 1.2 million and over.

Those unfilled posts represent unfulfilled potential – for people of course, and for the economy as a whole. My mission is to help businesses up and down the UK to fill the vacancies that would otherwise mean they can’t grow.

At the same time, we have many thousands of people looking for work, but who are not moving into work.

We have also seen a rise in the number of people who are economically inactive –

Meaning they are neither employed nor unemployed – and some who have left the world of work altogether.

Now this combination of circumstances is holding back people who deserve a chance.

It’s holding back opportunity.

It’s holding back British employers.

And it’s holding back economic growth.

Improving the labour market – going for Growth

So today, I would like to set out the three areas that I, and my department, will be focused on to help get the labour market moving –

and to realise its potential as a gold mine for growth and opportunity.

Firstly, by reforming work incentives and support within the welfare system will help more unemployed people move into available jobs, and for those already in work, to increase their earnings.

Secondly, by stopping the flow of people moving into economic inactivity will help people return to the workforce by securing the role that’s right for them and the support that people may need to remain in work – so they can get the benefits of that drive for growth.

And third, by forging a new deal with employers – we will do our bit by helping businesses to fill their posts quickly, particularly in sectors with the tightest labour markets,

but in return, we want businesses to play their part in growing the economy.

Which can include investing in and supporting and retaining workers within a flexible and inclusive workforce, improving occupational health practices so that they don’t fall into being unwell.

Reforming work incentives and support within the welfare system

So first, I’ll to turn to the welfare system.

We have a good track record of getting people into jobs. The Way to Work campaign, for example, got half a million people into jobs in just six months.

Of course, some people are not able to return to work, and we will always support them with dignity and with compassion.

And as Secretary of State, I am absolutely determined and passionate that our claimants are given excellent support – and that our welfare works for them.

That’s also why we have recently made changes so that people nearing the end of their life can focus on sharing the valuable time they may have left with the loved ones who matter most to them – rather than worrying about finances.

For those who can work, though, we need to make sure we’re doing enough. We need to make sure people have the right incentives and support in place to move into work or increase their earnings, so that they no longer have to rely on Universal Credit.

Around half the people on Universal Credit who are required to search for work have been claiming for over two years.

With over 1.2 million vacancies, it is right that we are firm but fair in ensuring people are engaging effectively with the support available to take up the opportunities that are there.

So that’s why, as the Chancellor announced as part of his recent Growth Plan, we are strengthening the expectations on claimants, including about applying for jobs, attending interviews or increasing their hours – in return for receiving Universal Credit.

To really get the country really working and growing, it’s not enough just to move people into jobs. We need to help people move up – to up their hours, take a step up the career ladder, to up their pay.

We know that our Jobcentre programmes work, so to help our claimants, we are increasing the pool of people benefiting from our intensive work search support.

This means an extra hundred thousand claimants will benefit from crucial time with their work coach, helping them to increase their hours and thrive.

The Chancellor and I recently announced changes to raise the earnings threshold even higher from January. This will support our claimants to drive their career forward and will also put in place even stronger incentives for staying and succeeding in work.

We are also rolling out new practical advice and support across all our jobcentres, implementing one of the recommendations of the In Work Progression Commission.

These reforms will give claimants the best possible opportunity to move into work, boost their hours and grow their incomes.

Underpinning all of this is our programme to move claimants off the legacy benefits and onto Universal Credit.

This is vital because Universal Credit removes cliff edges and incentivises work through the taper rate. We have strengthened this work incentive already this Parliament by reducing the taper rate from 63% to 55% – putting more money into the pockets of the lowest earners.

The taper rate also allows employees and businesses to be more flexible about the hours that work for them – and ensure that the amount of benefits they get change according to the amount of income they earn.

Ultimately, though, the welfare system has always had a bottom line – if people don’t engage, if people don’t keep their promise in the Claimant Commitment – then they are not holding up their end of their bargain and benefits can be reduced.

Stopping the flow of people moving into economic inactivity

Turning to economic inactivity, how do we achieve what we’ve set out when it comes to in work progression and help stop that flow from employment to inactivity?

Through listening to businesses, we know that the tight Labour Market across the UK is making it more difficult to fill vacancies – as I’ve said there’s 1.2 million vacancies, a very large amount.

Coupled with this, there are now 9 million working-age people who are economically inactive, which is up by 630,000 since the start of the pandemic.

While we have lower rates of inactivity than the OECD average, they have not returned to pre-Covid levels like other countries have seen, reversing the downward trend in inactivity which the UK saw in the 2010s.

So my job is to help both claimants and employers her – and we’re doing all we can to match the right people with the right roles.

We’re helping businesses to fill their gaps and mobilising untapped talent.

We know that 1.7 million people – who are not active yet in the labour market, want to work. That is a waste of talent across the country.

Now economic inactivity is a rising is a rising trend. We cannot afford for more people to join it. It stands at 9 million.

As I say, but just this week new figures suggest a quarter of a million more people joined that number, so it now stands at well over a fifth of the working age population.

Let me turn to who makes up this number:

Almost 2.5 million people are students, a further 2.5 million people are long-term sick. This is in addition to the 1.7 million people who are looking after somebody, and almost 1.2 million working age people who have retired.

Now each person within those numbers, behind those statistics, will have their own story, but in each case they may be held back from securing a fulfilling job that they want.

And this is all despite the outstanding progress we have made in increasing labour market participation, particularly of disabled people.

For example, we not only met – but exceeded – our 2017 manifesto commitment to see a million more disabled people in work over 10 years – in fact, we saw that happen in just five years.

But it is not only getting disabled people into jobs, but making sure their workplace and society is as accessible as possible.

When I was the Minister for Disabled People, I saw how deaf people too often were left out, too often excluded in work, education or wider society.

And that’s why I was so proud to help lead the changes represented by the British Sign Language Act, along with my friends cross-party like Rosie Cooper MP.

But we need to do more to help disabled people, or those looking to return to work after suffering from a long-term health condition.

Perhaps it’s the moment to touch on my own return to work following a period of sickness.

In October 2020 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, particularly poignant this year again because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I am stood here as one of the lucky ones, caught it early, able to get the treatment you need to go on I hope to live a long and healthy life. But I also understand what it is like to return to work after being ill, and I am committed to putting the measures in place to help others with what they may face.

So that’s why we’re investing £1.3 billion over three years in more targeted employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions.

I’ve come to see the extent to which the health and disability benefits system can itself be something of a barrier to employment because it genuinely focuses on what people cannot do, instead of what they can.

And I want to turn that on its head so we are focused on what people can do, so they are supported to take up the opportunities that are right for them, that they deserve, guided by the knowledge that employers need their talents.

With this can-do approach, I think we can achieve some more incredible things, together.

Older Workers

I want to turn next to older workers. Older workers have a wealth of experience that is crucial to our labour market. That experience is a key part of the diverse workforce that we need to be able to deliver growth.

The Government and business must work together to do all we can to support older people to stay in the labour market. Both recruitment and retention are very important.

In my department we understand the value that older workers bring, and provision already exists to help them be part of growth.

For example, our new and refreshed, 50 PLUS Champions network provides dedicated support to work coaches across all of the jobcentres in the country. Supported by these champions, DWP is expanding the delivery of the Government’s mid-life MOT, which encourages those 40 and above to take stock of their finances, skills and health – That’s both of us David as I’m now definitely 40 and above.

We’re building on this solid base of support, with even more help announced in the cross-government Growth Plan to support older workers to get jobs.

We are stepping up support for the over-50s, with millions of pounds of measures to help tackle joblessness, including referring those who are long term unemployed to our Restart programme so they get the support they need to find a job.

Forging a new deal with employers

As I set out briefly before, in return for the government helping businesses fill their vacancies, we are expecting employers to invest in their workforce’s progression and health. And doing so is a crucial step to ensure we don’t face similar labour market challenges in the future.

We can pull out all the stops to help businesses fill their vacancies, we need employers to help people to start and stay and succeed.

Businesses can play their part in reducing inactivity and growing the economy by making the labour market more accessible and inclusive. Many already do.

On top of helping prevent people from falling into unemployment due to sickness, this means recruiting people based on attitude and potential –seeing past disabilities and age.

It means making reasonable adjustments, which are the right thing to do, and also which help to retain workers and cost a fraction of the costs of recruiting replacement.

It means investing in the workforce in terms of training and supporting career options.

This will enable workers to progress into better-paid and better-quality jobs, while also enhancing growth and productivity.

This in turn delivers more jobs, higher wages and the economic growth to fund vital public services and allow us in turn, to put more money into the pockets of hardworking people.

A healthy workforce supports a healthy and growing economy.

Sickness absence has been found to cost employers an estimated £9 billion a year – and that was before the pandemic! We know this holds businesses back – which in turn, holds back growth.

To underline once more, out of that 9 million economically inactive group, around 2.5 million people are long term sick, which is up by 378,000 since before the pandemic.

Many employers are doing great work to support the health and wellbeing of their workforce.

But to truly address this issue and prevent even more people being inactive due to long term poor health and to prevent even more businesses facing shortages in what they can recruit and the talent that they need, more needs to be done.

So this is why we’ve set out plans to reform the occupational health market to support employers, particularly smaller ones, to purchase high quality and cost-effective occupational health services.

I think most businesses understand this and for really good reason.

I’m aware of the challenges for small businesses in particular, in delivering high-quality occupational health, but I want to help them by aiming high – every business will want to make great provision available for employees.

We know that one of the biggest causes of people being long term ill is mental ill health – and so to counteract this, I am delighted that there is some great examples of small companies who are really going the extra mile to look after their staff.

As an example you can see Sawdays, a Bristol-based travel company that employs 65 people. The company has a number of policies in place to support wellbeing, including up to four sessions of private counselling for anyone who may need it, a trained mental health first aider in each team, and contact with a mental health support specialist.

Another principal cause of people becoming long-term sick is Muscular Skeletal issues.

But, again, there are things employers can really do to help in that area.

For example – aware of the detrimental impact of spending many hours in front of the computer – the Cornwall-based print supplier Forms Plus have organised an ‘on your feet day’ where every hour staff get together to do two minutes of exercises.

When businesses put in place a holistic approach to looking after their staff – it increases the chances that common issues will be avoided, talent can be retained, people have a better opportunity to reach their potential and the company will thrive.

So I challenge all employers to join me in rolling out the best provision that they can.

Conclusion

So I am determined in conclusion, that DWP needs to play its full part in delivering a new era for Britain focused on growth. To go further and faster, we need to work across the Government and be led by the evidence.

By reforming welfare to create stronger incentives, extra support and clearer expectations on people to move into work and increase their hours because a good job is the best way to be resilient against changes in the Cost of Living.

By acting to reduce economic inactivity so we can help businesses to fill their vacancies and grow.

By ensuring that the health and disability system focuses on what people can do rather than on what they can’t so their talent is not wasted.

By continuing to protect the most vulnerable at a time of many pressures and anxieties.

With businesses working with us, we can play that full part together.

We can unleash the full potential of our labour market.

We are an aspiration nation.

We are going for opportunity, and we’re going for growth.

Thank you.

October 13, 2022
James Cleverly – 2022 Statement on the UN General Assembly Vote on Ukraine

The statement made by James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, on 12 October 2022.

Today’s UN General Assembly vote is a powerful demonstration of the international community’s widespread condemnation of Russia’s outrageous, illegal attempts to annex the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

This is an important show of international unity against an aggressor that seeks to destabilise the international norms that protect us all. In the face of President Putin’s unprovoked aggression, 143 nations across the globe have come together in defence of the UN Charter and in solidarity with Ukraine.

The vote is indisputable evidence of what we have known for some time – Putin stands alone on the international stage and his actions are driving his country further into self-inflicted isolation.

October 13, 2022
Shaista Gohir – Maiden Speech in the House of Lords (Baroness Gohir)

The maiden speech made by Shaista Gohir, Baroness Gohir, in the House of Lords on 10 October 2022.

My Lords, it is a huge honour and privilege to be among you. I thank noble Lords for their warm welcome across the Benches, whether they have found me wandering the corridors or sat next to them, and for the warm welcome that I have received today. I want to particularly thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, and the many members of staff who have supported me in so many different ways. I also appreciate the words of wisdom and advice that have been offered to me so far. I am listening and I am learning: thank you.

Let me introduce myself to noble Lords who do not know me. I am the CEO and one of the founding members of Muslim Women’s Network UK, a national charity based in Birmingham. We operate a national helpline and counselling service, conduct research—most recently on maternity experiences—and conduct awareness-raising campaigns. We also have a national membership. The late Baroness Afshar was also one of our founding members. I was really excited to tell her that I was going to be following in her footsteps and joining her on the Cross Benches, but I did not get to share my good news with her because, just a few days before the public announcement of my appointment, she sadly passed away. However, I will be continuing her fight for gender justice and women’s equality.

As a women’s rights campaigner, I also work with many women’s organisations on many different issues. So I will be concentrating on women’s lived experiences, whether of the criminal justice system, the education system or the health service, or in employment. I will also be focusing on the economic impact on women of laws and policies. I will do all that I can to advance the rights of all women and girls and advocate for a fairer society.

However, society will be fairer only if more money goes into the pockets of women, because money is power—the power to increase life chances. However, over the last decade or so we have consistently seen more money, and hence more power, go into the pockets of predominantly wealthy men. In real terms, money has been taken out of the pockets of the poor, especially women. According to analysis by the Women’s Budget Group, the spending cuts on public services and freezes to social security over the last 10 years or so have hit women the hardest because they are most likely to use public services, work in the public sector and depend on social security for a bigger portion of their income.

Public spending may have gone up briefly during the pandemic, but a return to the pattern of cutting public spending while cutting taxes will continue to benefit men because women earn less and are more likely to work part time. Research by the Women’s Budget Group along with the Runnymede Trust shows that cutting spending and taxes at the same time hits women in every income group harder than men, hits the poorest hardest and hits minority-ethnic women, disabled women and lone parents hardest of all. That means women will struggle to pay for food, energy bills, rent and mortgages. Children will go to school and to bed hungry and they will be cold. Because children cannot keep warm, they will get sick. Families will become homeless.

If that situation is not bad enough, part-time workers have been told that if they do not increase their hours, their benefits will be cut. But many women work part time because they have caring responsibilities. They are looking after children, the sick, the disabled and the elderly. Women are not sitting idly by; they are working, but it is unpaid work that is not valued.

If we want to see a fairer society, Budgets must reduce inequalities and not exacerbate them. I look forward to seeing one day—I hope not too far in the future—an intersectional and feminist approach to the Budget. The empowerment of women will be crucial if Britain is to recover from the current economic challenges. I will therefore be returning to these issues again and again. I know there are many allies in the House, and I look forward to working with noble Lords across the Benches on many different issues, including the ones that I have mentioned today.

October 12, 2022
Jane Hutt – 2022 Statement on Funding for Warm Hubs in Wales

The statement made by Jane Hutt, the Welsh Minister for Social Justice, on 12 October 2022.

On 20th September we announced an initial £1m of funding to support Warm Hubs. Today I am announcing how that funding will be distributed and what it will be used for.

With domestic fuel prices increasing, it is expected many people will struggle to keep their homes at a healthy temperature this winter, particularly those people at home all day, the elderly and the vulnerable. Many organisations including local authorities, community councils, faith groups, sports clubs, community centres are already setting up, or looking to set up, Warm Hubs within local communities. Warm Hubs are intended as places in local communities where people can find a safe, accessible and warm environment during the day to help reduce the cost of heating their own homes and to help those facing extreme fuel poverty this winter.

Early discussions with stakeholders have indicated That Warm Hubs should be an inviting place to spend time. They should be open and inclusive and take into account local and cultural needs.

Warm Hubs might offer:

Refreshments and snacks (as a minimum) but may extend to a more substantive meal where relevant or possible.
Advice and support services to those who attend, this can be for example advice and support on financial matters, health and well-being or digital accessibility.
Activities such as exercise, or arts and cultural activity (subject to location and availability).
Much of the expertise on where Warm Hubs should be placed, and what should be provided within Warm Hubs, rests within local communities. Local authorities working in partnership with the public sector, voluntary sector and community partners will be best placed to gauge and understand local needs, existing provision and to design and deliver local solutions.

Funding for Warm Hubs will therefore be distributed via local authorities in Wales. Funding will be distributed in line with local authority agreed existing formula. As part of the funding local authorities will be required to engage with their local partners, including County Voluntary Councils (CVC’s), in the development of Warm Hubs and in the provision / distribution of funding at a local community level to local community groups wishing to operate / establish a Warm Hub.

It is important that the approach to the delivery of Warm Hubs is joined up and meets local needs. In the same way that it is expected local authorities will work with local stakeholders, it is expected that any organisation wishing to put Warm Hub provision in place will contact their local authority or their local CVC to ensure they are delivering as part of the overall area approach and not duplicating local provision. It may be more appropriate in some places for organisations and volunteers to work with existing Warm Hubs rather than establish additional ones.

For more information on the local arrangements for Warm Hubs and local funding, I would encourage people to contact their local authority to register their interest.

October 12, 2022
Sharon Bowles – 2022 Speech on the Growth Plan (Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted)

The speech made by Sharon Bowles, Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted, in the House of Lords on 12 October 2022.

My Lords, the Government have U-turned on some of their insensitive Reaganomics, giving tax cuts and perks to the wealthy during a cost of living crisis for the wider population, but a harsh right-wing agenda is an integral part of the Tory Brexit plan. It may not have headlined beyond the Singapore-on-Thames misnomer—thought just to mean light-touch financial regulation—but disruption and asset price adjustment are part of it, as the Prime Minister has revealed in various things that have been said.

Those kinds of adjustments are painful and require a long policy horizon, broad and deep support and good communication, as do any challenges to market orthodoxy. But done naively, two years before an election, with none of the accompanying platform—no wonder the markets took flight. The mini-Budget and growth plan set in train faster and further falls in sterling and gilt prices, and rises in interest and mortgage rates, than would otherwise have happened.

The gilt glitch triggered Bank of England intervention to save defined benefit pension funds that had tried to manage mark-to-market gilt valuations with derivatives and borrowing, collateralised by the gilts themselves: an incestuous systemic linkage, which sounds crazy anyway, inherently vulnerable to a doom loop, created and perpetrated by and around regulated entities, warned about to the Bank of England, and deemed acceptable or untouchable by regulators.

This was a systemic accident waiting to happen. Dodgy derivatives, shifting risk horizons, timelines and effective ownership change—has nothing been learned from 2007? The issue that has driven the invention of liability-driven investments and the recent gilt-sale doom loop is the mark-to-market requirement of accounting standards and applying it to hold-to-maturity gilts within pension fund assets. It has caused 20 years of instability in the pensions sector.

Gilts held to maturity are not volatile; the coupon and end return are either fixed or linked to inflation. As Terry Smith pointed out in his opinion piece in the FT last week, LDIs are not hedging risk—which is the total realised end return—but attempting to hedge the accounting valuation with all its short-term noise and volatility. The only gainers are the peddlers of exotic products; the losers are the public and pensioners who foot the cost of the rescue and the finagling.

Why is this done? Because of universal mark-to-market accounting standards dogma, also embedded in other regulation. Maybe it makes audit less work, requiring less judgment, but what good is that when the consequences and get-arounds open the door to extreme systemic events?

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, follows the infallibility of accounting standards mantra of BEIS—it is probably being scribbled down in the Box right now—but there are dangerous flaws and absurdities, and it is negligent if government, BEIS, the Treasury, regulators and the Bank will not get their heads around issues in accounting standards. It is no defence to say that accounting standards are independent; they are a closed shop defended by their acolytes. We are not all bamboozled, but those with power must take off their blinkers.

October 12, 2022
Roger Liddle – 2022 Speech on the Growth Plan (Baron Liddle)

The speech made by Roger Liddle, Baron Liddle, in the House of Lords on 11 October 2022.

I join the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, in welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, back to the ministerial Bench. There is much in the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, with which I agree. We all want growth, and it is a realistic ambition to try to turn Britain back to the 2.5% growth figure that we enjoyed until the financial crisis. The question is how to do it in a way—I think this is an important point—where the whole of society benefits. The fact is that the growth we have seen since the financial crisis has not trickled down. People on median wages and below have not seen any increase in their standard of living. This is an important thing that future government policy has to address.

As for the details of the plan for growth, there are some things in it with which I agree, but it is limited in its vision. If the Government had paid attention to business, business would have put skills at the top of the list and said that what is needed is more apprenticeships and more people with higher technical qualifications. On pages 19 and 20, which talk about getting more people into work with the right skills, there is not a single mention of that agenda and what the Government are prepared to do about it.

On housing, there is the cut in stamp duty but no clarity on how planning law is to be changed. We know that Conservative MPs in the Commons hate this. There is no mention of any need for social housing.

On infrastructure, there is a sort of half-acknowledgement of guilt that it was the Conservative Back-Benchers, again, who stopped onshore wind—one of the most positive things we could have done to cut energy bills. Let us see whether the objections to onshore wind can now be overcome.

Things such as Northern Powerhouse Rail, which we have been talking about for a decade or more, are on the list of things that the Government might do, but what credibility is there that they will actually do them? Investment zones are an interesting idea, but I have read the academic evidence and it is not very positive on whether they produce results.

There is a point that I think is original. A lot of the Johnson levelling-up agenda was about how we reinvigorated our town centres. Lots of government money is being funnelled into that. These investment zones will be on brownfield sites outside town centres; this seems to be a fundamental contradiction. If I were to encourage investment in my home town of Carlisle, I would want to see it in the centre and on the fringes of the centre, not on some site outside.

The fundamental thing about this Government’s policy is that they have lost the reputation for macroeconomic stability that is fundamental to encouraging business to invest. It was the most irresponsible and reckless Budget since Barber’s in 1972. It caused turmoil in the markets, which threatened the future of people’s pensions. It will lead to spiralling mortgage costs. As the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, pointed out, there are risks here of a contradiction with monetary policy.

On the fiscal plan that the Government are committed to coming up with, I do not believe the numbers can be made to add up by public spending cuts, which would be both counterproductive in their impact on growth and politically undeliverable. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, that some of the announced tax cuts should be cancelled.

This is not a plan for growth. It is an economic disaster.

October 12, 2022
Norman Lamont – 2022 Speech on the Growth Plan (Baron Lamont of Lerwick)

The speech made by Norman Lamont, Baron Lamont of Lerwick, in the House of Lords on 11 October 2022.

My Lords, it is a personal pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Burns, who always gave me very wise advice in the Treasury, just as he has to the House today. I also welcome my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe back to her position on the Front Bench. We have lost a doughty Back-Bencher but regained a formidable Minister.

I welcome many of the measures in the Government’s growth plan, particularly the radical deregulatory ones—IR35, the pensions cap and the planning reforms. Provided they can be delivered they are the sorts of measures that will make a real difference to our growth rate. I also welcome the energy price guarantee. It is a major intervention but, as the Minister said, one that, because of the death of the Queen, was not widely recognised and is still not widely known among the public. The package is very important not only for the relief it gives to hard-pressed consumers but economically, because of the 5% it knocks off the rate of inflation. This by itself could help to stave off a deep recession, as high energy prices can be both inflationary and deflationary.

However, it has to be recognised that the energy price guarantee is potentially a massive commitment and adds huge uncertainty to the borrowing figures. The Government’s support to consumers as a percentage of GDP, according to the Goethe Institut and Conservative Central Office, dwarfs that of other countries. It is, potentially, more than double that of Germany, which funded its package out of taxation. It was the hugeness of the money at stake, together with the absence of the OBR assessment of the cost of tax cuts, that produced the market reaction that it did. The Government also made something of a rod for their own back with some of the rhetoric that was carried forward from the leadership election about rejecting orthodoxy and the attacks on “bean counters” and people peddling “abacus economics”. I am sure it was not intended to, but it sounded very like a Conservative belief in the magic money tree. Since then, the Chancellor has emphasised that he believes in fiscal discipline and in a declining debt-to-GDP ratio.

Going for growth is a certainly laudable objective, but it has to be recognised that there can be a conflict between going for growth and getting inflation down. A stimulus to growth from unfunded tax cuts may mean that inflation stays higher for longer, and that could mean higher interest rates holding back growth. If fiscal and monetary policy point in opposite directions, the result is again likely to be higher interest rates and thus slower growth. So the stage is set for something of a battle between the Treasury and the Bank of England as the Government push for growth and the Bank raises interest rates to tame inflation.

This dilemma could of course be resolved if tax cuts always paid for themselves. That would be wonderful—we would never have to discuss taxation again—but as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said, they do not always pay for themselves. It depends on whether the rates are set at confiscatory levels or, technically put, where precisely the rate is on the Laffer curve. Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts resulted in increased debt, a fact that he later acknowledged and regretted.

Fiscal responsibility is not the enemy of growth. It produces the stability that is essential for it. I welcome the fact that the Chancellor is drawing up a debt reduction plan and plans to bring forward the OBR assessment of that plan. It is very important that the plan set out is credible and does not consist of just easing the present fiscal rules or back-ending all the pain that is going to be necessary. If we do not face reality, reality is going to face us. Fortunately, the Chancellor has, I believe, the resolve and determination to face these challenges, and I wish him well.

October 12, 2022
Will Quince – 2022 Speech on the Dental Training College

The speech made by Will Quince, the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, in the House of Commons on 11 October 2022.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) on securing this debate on the potential merits of establishing a dental training college in East Anglia. It is clear that he has support from his neighbouring MPs—I know that one of them cannot be here this evening, but very much supports this endeavour—and from colleagues further afield and across East Anglia. I also thank him for raising the issue of access to dentistry in rural and coastal areas, particularly the challenges of seeing a dentist in Norfolk.

As the new Minister for dentistry, I understand that areas across our country, as my hon. Friend has highlighted, have faced difficulties with recruitment and retention, including in his constituency of Broadland and in the east of England more widely. Those challenges have a significant impact on the provision of NHS dentistry and on patients’ ability to receive NHS care. My hon. Friend is right that we cannot ignore the problem, which I can assure him is a priority for me and for the Secretary of State. I hope that it will not have escaped my hon. Friend’s notice that dentists are a key element of the Secretary of State’s ABCD approach and of “Our plan for patients”.

I am aware that my hon. Friend, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), attended meetings with my predecessor, and I think even with my predecessor’s predecessor, to discuss the construction of a dental school in Norfolk. It is a testament to the character of my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland that he brought the issue to my attention just days after my appointment as a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care. If I may say so, his constituents are fortunate to have such a passionate and persistent advocate in their corner.

My hon. Friend set out in his speech to make a positive case for doing something about a long-term problem, and I think everyone in the Chamber this evening will agree that he has done so. He makes the case for a new dental school in Norfolk—a case that I know has the backing of my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk, who cannot be here this evening. On the face of it, it is a compelling case and is worth further exploration.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland knows me well enough to know that I am not someone who likes saying no to parliamentary colleagues, although sadly that is a responsibility that all too often comes with the job. On this occasion, it is a no, but it is “No for now, and let’s very much keep talking.” Let me explain why.

Establishing a new dental school takes several years and would not influence service provision in the short term, as my hon. Friend rightly identified. Notwithstanding the strong case that he makes, it also would not guarantee the ongoing sustained retention of dentists or support staff in the area. Our focus is not just on training more dentists, important as that is, but on the better use of the full dental team and the progression and retention of all dental care professionals in the NHS. There is, of course, an argument about the medium to long term, which is why I suggest that we keep talking, and of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend, as he requests, to further discuss his ideas and plans.

My hon. Friends the Members for Broadland, for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) all mentioned centres for dental development, the alternative training model identified by Health Education England in its 2021 “Advancing Dental Care” review report—that is a mouthful! The centres for dental development model would specifically benefit localities in which there is a shortage in provision and there are no nearby dental schools—as is the case in East Anglia, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland rightly pointed out.

The premise is that the centres would build on any existing dental infrastructure in the area, bringing together training and the resultant provision of NHS treatment to patients in a co-ordinated way. Things like postgraduate training opportunities are more likely to be compatible than early undergraduate placements, as they would increase access to the more complex and specialist care that we know is often most lacking in certain areas of the country, otherwise known as dental deserts. This would work towards the aim, specified in the “Advancing Dental Care” report, to produce the skilled “multi-professional oral healthcare workforce” that could best support patient and population needs within the NHS. A further advantage of the centres for dental development model is that they would be tailored to suit the local workforce requirements, in addition to the education and training needs of the area, contributing to stronger, multi-disciplinary dental teams and local area workforce retention.

Given that the centres would focus on postgraduate training or the later stages of undergraduate training, they could provide support in transitions from undergraduate to dental foundation training and more specialised training beyond those, all of which involve—as my hon. Friend mentioned—important decision-making moments in terms of career development and where dentists are likely to base their careers and practices. We believe that a broader range of placements across the country and in different clinical environments would enhance the student experience. The centres could offer a constructive alternative to dental schools, while acknowledging and addressing recruitment, retention and training gaps. I am sure my hon. Friend will be pleased to learn that Health Education England has now moved into its four-year implementation stage through its dental education reform programme—another mouthful!—following the “Advancing Dental Care” report and its recommendations.

My hon. Friend rightly raised the subject of collaboration. With regard to establishing a centre for dental development in East Anglia—this has been mentioned by my hon. Friend and others—the University of Suffolk and the NHS Suffolk and North East Essex integrated care board have announced plans for a centre in Ipswich. I am informed—this also covers my area, so I have an interest in it as well—that the initial plans include proposals to offer postgraduate educational opportunities as well as wider training opportunities for newly qualified dentists, alongside the training of the dental therapists, hygienists and dental technicians who form a vital part of the dental workforce. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney and for Ipswich for the work that they have done in pushing so strongly for that development, along with the integrated care board, which is a trail-blazer in this regard. It would be wrong, at this juncture, for me not also to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). She has pushed strongly for this as well, and, moreover, is—dare I say—a much-missed Minister at the Department of Health and Social Care. She has a passion for dentistry, and, within the Department, she really put it on the map. That is a legacy that I intend to continue.

I strongly encourage my hon. Friend to meet the NHS and HEE regional teams for his areas, as centres for dental development are very much a local solution, tailored to the existing infrastructure and needs of an area. I, and those in my office, would be delighted to help facilitate such a meeting.

I have mentioned integrated care systems and integrated care boards. As we make the transition to integrated care systems—this point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney—commissioning roles for dentistry will be delegated. This will ensure that dentistry decisions are considered at a local level, and that, for example, local workforce as well as local population health requirements are taken into account. I therefore encourage my hon. Friend to meet the integrated care board—I am sure he has already done so, but I think an ongoing dialogue would make sense—to discuss its plans further, and to talk about how they will affect Broadland and the rest of East Anglia.

My hon. Friend touched on recruitment and retention, which I know is a particular issue in his constituency and more broadly. I have referred to the changes that we have made nationally through system reform, but NHS England in the East of England region has been working closely with the organisations that train dentists to improve the recruitment and retention of NHS dentists in East Anglia, and will continue to help those training organisations to develop the dental workforce. I am pleased to say that, in 2021-22, there was an increase of 539 dentists performing NHS dentistry compared with the previous year. In the East of England, there was a 3.5% increase, with an additional 105 dentists. However, as my hon. Friend pointed out, that is not enough: we need more dentists, and we need more dentists on NHS contracts.

More broadly, I know that my hon. Friend will want to know what improvements are being made now which will improve access to dentistry for his constituents. He rightly focused on the medium to long term, but I know from my postbag that the pressing concern is often the here and now. We plan for the dental system improvements announced on 19 July as part of “Our plan for patients” to begin to take effect by the end of this year, and some of the improvements in the package have already taken effect and are beginning to bear fruit. The Secretary of State and I are looking at a number of further measures that we can take to aid recruitment and retention—I know that that is one of the key concerns of my hon. Friend and others, and I think my hon. Friend touched on one of the ideas that we are considering—and, in turn, improve access for constituents. As I have said, this is a priority for me, and I hope to share more details with my hon. Friend and the House in due course.

I am committed to playing my part to improve access to NHS dentistry, particularly for those most in need of dental care, and I know that recruitment and the dental workforce will play a pivotal role in that. I hope my hon. Friend has been reassured that action is being taken to address the challenges in recruitment and retention across the country, and particularly in his constituency. I look forward to working with him as we develop our ambitious plans, and I know he will continue to be a champion for his constituents and hold the Government’s metaphorical feet to the fire as we deliver the improvements in dentistry access that we all want to see.

October 12, 2022
Jerome Mayhew – 2022 Speech on the Dental Training College

The speech made by Jerome Mayhew, the Conservative MP for Broadland, in the House of Commons on 11 October 2022.

It would be all too easy to focus any speech on dentistry on a call for the renegotiation of the NHS—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

Order. Could colleagues leave quietly? Otherwise we will not be able to hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying.

Jerome Mayhew

As I was saying, it would be all too easy to focus any speech on dentistry on a call for the renegotiation of the NHS dental contract. Every Member of Parliament will know from their postbag the suffering that ordinary people are experiencing every day because they are simply unable to see a dentist.

The pandemic has caused the loss of 40 million dental appointments—more than an entire year’s worth of standard pre-covid treatment—but covid is not the cause of our problems. Ever since Labour imposed its NHS dental contract on the profession back in 2006, trouble has been brewing. Dentists have been voting with their feet, moving in their thousands away from NHS treatment into private work.

That trend has only accelerated through covid. Between the start of the pandemic and May 2022, 3,000 dentists have stopped doing any NHS work. Three quarters of those who are left say that they are likely to reduce their coverage further over the next year, so we simply cannot ignore the problem any longer. The pain and suffering are too great. Labour may have created this bad system, which fails to pay for the cost of complex work, but our job is to fix it, and the sooner the better.

The purpose of this debate, however, is not to moan about the state of NHS dental provision, but to put forward a positive case for solving the long-term problems in Norfolk and the east. Put simply, we have a desperate shortage of dentists of any description. Too few dentists and too few dental technicians—whether NHS or private—are choosing to work in East Anglia.

Nationally, the General Dental Council says that we have more dentists than ever before, with a national average of 43 for every 100,000 of the population, but in Norfolk and Waveney, that figure is just 38. That is the fifth lowest ratio of the 106 clinical commissioning groups around the country. Dental practices are crying out for new staff, but they simply cannot get them.

In the town of Fakenham in my constituency, I lobbied successfully for the NHS to award a brand-new NHS dental contract to increase local NHS provision. That was the Government being prepared to pour new money into increasing NHS provision. However, when that contract was advertised, not a single company bid for the work. There simply was not the staff to supply the need.

That is not just an NHS issue. In the same town, a private dental practice has been advertising for a private dentist for two years, but without success. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), there is a dentist in Sheringham who operates practices both in London and Norfolk. He has not had a newly qualified dentist come to work in his Sheringham practice for 10 years. Job vacancies in London are snapped up, but he simply cannot get them to take the jobs in Norfolk.

Why can we not produce dentists in East Anglia? The answer is that there is nowhere for them to train. If someone who lives in East Anglia wants to become a dentist, the nearest place they can train is Birmingham or London. None of the 10 training facilities around England is in the east of England.

That has to change. We know from our experience with the University of East Anglia that graduates tend to stay and build their lives close to where they have studied. Each year, the UEA does a survey of its graduates to see where they go to accept their first employment. If we look at that survey for doctors coming through the medical school of the University of East Anglia, we see that more than 40% end up taking jobs locally every year. That is great for us in relation to doctors and particularly for the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, which is based in Norwich. Unfortunately, however, the same problem is true in dentistry.

Let us look at the number of dentists working near existing dental training schools. As I said, Norfolk has 38 dentists per 100,000 of the population. Devon is a broadly similar county—it is largely rural, with coastal communities and one major conurbation, Plymouth—but there is a big difference: Plymouth has a dental school, which was installed in 2005, and Devon’s ratio of dentists per 100,000 of the population is not 38, but 49.6. If we look at the north-east, where there is a school in Newcastle, we see that its ratio of dentists to the general public is 56 per 100,000 of the population. In Cheshire and Merseyside, there is a school in Liverpool, so the whole area benefits from 58 dentists per 100,000 of the population. We can see from the hard data that people tend to settle down where they have trained.

So if that is the data, surely the solution to East Anglia’s problems is obvious: first, we need to open a dental school in East Anglia. I raised that need directly with the University of East Anglia some months ago and I have been enormously encouraged and impressed by their response, strongly supported by the NNUH, the region’s training hospital. The University of East Anglia has developed an innovative solution to our dental training problems that would minimise cost and get students out into the workplace from the start of their training, helping with capacity in the short term and dealing with the training deficit in the long run.

Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)

As a Suffolk MP, I welcome the idea of an East Anglian training centre. I also want the University of Suffolk to play a role. It recently outlined its plans for a Suffolk centre for dental development. Does my hon. Friend agree that, actually, a dental training college in Norwich could work hand in glove with the new centre in Ipswich to make sure that people are trained locally but, when needed, they are pooled to provide services on the NHS for our constituents?

Jerome Mayhew

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree entirely. There can be collaboration between the university in Norwich and the University of Suffolk, which is based in Ipswich. People can start training in Norwich and, once they are qualified, have career and professional development taken care of by the proposed unit in Ipswich. I will come on to that in further detail.

To return to the plans of the University of East Anglia, its idea is that students would work in the community for at least one day a week throughout their five-year training course. In that way, dental students will increase the capacity of associated NHS practices right from the get-go. Too often, it is suggested that a dental training school is too long term to solve the problems now. In a sense, it is, of course, but under this plan, we would have increased capacity right from the first year of the students’ five-year course.

There are more benefits, too: students would not only increase the capacity, but develop employment relationships locally, increasing their stickiness, and provide training income to stretched NHS practices. For that reason, MPs from North Norfolk, North West Norfolk, Mid Norfolk, South Norfolk and Norwich North all support the proposal. If there were an East Norfolk constituency, I am sure that that Member would support it as well.

Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)

I speak as an MP with a foot in both camps: I am a Suffolk MP but I also represent the Norfolk and Waveney integrated care system area. Does my hon. Friend agree, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) said, that it is very important that the two proposals being put together by the University of Suffolk and the University of East Anglia are collaborative and worked on together, so that they come through with a solution for the whole of East Anglia?

Jerome Mayhew

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The only phrase that I would pick him up on is that he has “a foot in both camps”. I do not think there should be two camps. This is an East Anglian solution, whereby the proposals are complementary and, in time, they should both be implemented.

George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)

I commend my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for raising this issue and highlighting the huge pressures that the dental service in his area and mine is experiencing on the ground. Many of our constituents are struggling and this proposal would not only make our region a leader in the science and technology of dentistry, but help to meet that demand and need on the ground. With new housing, the pressure will only get more acute in the next few years.

Jerome Mayhew

My hon. Friend is entirely right. There is a further point to be made about the collaboration between the University of East Anglia and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, because they also have the Norwich research park co-located. I am thinking particularly of the Quadram Institute, the sole focus of which is world-leading research on the gut microbiota. I cannot pretend to know exactly what the gut microbiota are, but I know that they start with the mouth. There is huge capacity for proper, hard research in the area, and it could be assisted by a dental training school in Norwich. That is the first solution.

The second solution, which is also needed, is for the dental school in Norwich to complement the University of Suffolk’s plans to build a centre for dental development in Ipswich to support further career development in the region, attracting and retaining newly qualified dentists. My hon. Friends the Members for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and others have all pushed for that.

The truth is that we need both to attract qualified dentists in the short term and to find a long-term solution to the wider training problem. It may be that an assessment is made nationally that there is no need for additional dental training seats, but people are human. We have to look beyond the empirical analysis and recognise that training needs to be offered in a location of real shortage. That location is East Anglia, and Norfolk in particular.

As a Conservative, I believe that people should have power over their own lives and that communities should not be dictated to by national Government. Rather, they should be empowered to come up with their own solutions to their local needs. We know what the problem is, and we have a solution to fix it locally; we just need the Government to trust the people to let us get on and do it.

We simply need more dentists and dental technicians in East Anglia. We recognise that budgets are tight and that timings may have to be stretched. We accept that short-term fixes are sometimes more powerful arguments in politics than long-term solutions. We simply ask the Minister to agree to meet the University of East Anglia team to learn at first hand how we can make East Anglian dentistry better, and to be inspired by their practical vision.

Peter Aldous rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

I cannot quite tell whether the hon. Gentleman wishes to contribute.

Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)

I will contribute very quickly, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you will give me the opportunity.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) has set out a great vision of a future in which East Anglia, Norfolk and Suffolk have high-quality dentistry schools. That is great, but we need a bridge to get to that future, because two dentistry schools will take some time to set up. Does he agree that we need to look at other strands to address the crisis in NHS dentistry in East Anglia, including recruitment and retention in the short term, making it easier for people from overseas to come and work in local dentistry; contract reform, which I think my hon. Friend referred to; a fair, long-term funding settlement; a focus on prevention; and improved local accountability through the fledgling integrated care systems?

Jerome Mayhew

I am grateful—

Madam Deputy Speaker

Order. Perhaps I am confused, but I thought that the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) had finished. [Interruption.] Ah, so now he is intervening on the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). That is absolutely fine.

Jerome Mayhew

Thank you for that clarification, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Does my hon. Friend agree that all those aspects are very important, but that perhaps there is another proposed solution that he has not mentioned? As we have learned today, there are inducement payments for teachers in special areas that are struggling to recruit. Perhaps we could apply the same approach to dentists in special areas that are struggling to recruit.

Peter Aldous

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and apologise for hijacking his debate. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. This is a multifaceted challenge; there is no one solution and no one golden bullet. We need to address all the points, and he is right to raise that one.

George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)

As a former Minister for life science and for science and research, I rise very briefly to highlight the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) made about the microbiome and the mouth—the buccal cavity—as a primary diagnostic for our understanding of the role of the biome and of gut flora and fauna, not only in good health but in diseases such as cancer. As a diagnostic tool, it could make our region a leader in the diagnostics of the digestive system and the gut biome, which would have a whole bunch of other important secondary health benefits. For that reason, I commend my hon. Friend’s case to Ministers on the Front Bench.

October 12, 2022
Alison McGovern – 2022 Speech on the Health and Social Care Levy (Repeal) Bill

The speech made by Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South, in the House of Commons on 11 October 2022.

Before I get into the Bill, I want to note some of the remarks made by the Government on their energy package and the speed with which that was brought forward. Given that this is the first opportunity we have to discuss these financial matters, I want to record that it felt during recess as though almost every day in August people were begging the Government to act, and they did not. We waited and waited, while they had an internal debate when they could have acted. For 12 years, in fact, it has seemed that the British economy has had both deep-rooted problems and significant shocks. Given the situation before us and the chaos we face, would not any Government want to act?

That brings us to today’s Bill, which is essentially a U-turn. As colleagues have said, the Government are showing here that they can U-turn, but what we need now is much more significant action. We can say with certainty that the Chancellor has already made a considerable impression on the economy. He inherited a cost of living crisis and for good measure added a cost of borrowing crisis, an interest rate crisis, a mortgage crisis, a sterling crisis, a Government bond crisis and a pension funds crisis.

Inflation was already at its highest rate in 40 years, devouring household wages and savings; Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron recorded their highest ever profits and household energy bills doubled within a year. Thanks to this Government, the pound has slumped to its lowest value against the dollar since Britain went decimal in 1971, and the Bank of England has been forced to launch an emergency £65 billion bond-buying scheme that, as we saw yesterday, has barely stopped the chaos.

Thanks to this Government, in the blink of an eye the average homeowner now faces a monthly mortgage payment that is £500 more expensive and food bank use has soared to such an extent—[Interruption.] Do not say it is global. The food bank increase is not global; it is a feature of the UK economy, and it has soared to such an extent that volunteers will need either to turn people away or to reduce the size of emergency rations. That is the situation we face, and that is why this Bill must not represent the last U-turn from this Government.

We have heard from various Conservative Members that they are the party of tradition, so let me commend the Government on respecting a long-standing Conservative tradition in their conduct relating to our economy. Just like on 16 September 1992, Conservative Governments always end up sacrificing family finances to pay for their chaos.

This Chancellor, in his airy disregard for experts, produced a Budget so complacent, so unfunded and so unconvincing to the markets that the cost of our long-term borrowing soared. His doubters are now not just the members of the Labour party; they include bond traders, the currency markets, the civil service, the OBR, the Bank of England, the IMF and the British public.

The Conservatives have pierced a hole in the British economy, and the effects are widespread and severe. Pension funds were brought to the edge of collapse and, before the Bank of England intervened, we risked falling into a self-perpetuating spiral,

“threatening severe disruption of core funding markets and consequent widespread financial instability.”

To be so ignorant, so high-handed and so willing to risk impoverishing people is unforgivable.

It is some small comfort that today the Tories are reversing their own rise in national insurance. U-turn follows U-turn and we return to square one. However, this zig-zagging incoherence is not just a waste of parliamentary time and energy, but damaging to our stability and our credibility. No matter whether they raise taxes or lower them, high-quality public services and economic growth will continue to elude the Conservatives. That is because, as has been said so often, economic strength does not come just from the top; it starts in the everyday lives of working people right across our great country. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) explained well what is happening right now for people trying to work. Thanks to the Conservatives, record waiting lists see acute conditions becoming chronic and more and more people having to leave the labour market. Do not crow about unemployment being at historically low levels when inactivity—people simply unable to work—is shooting up again, as we found today.

James Cartlidge

Just to clarify, what I said was that it was due to the pandemic—not entirely, but everything the Labour party says now is airbrushing out of history the greatest post-war trauma that the country faced, when there was an enormous surge in borrowing, which we all supported, to fund the support for businesses and people in our constituencies. At some point, will Labour recognise the impact that had and the action we had to take, which has led to decisions such as these tax increases?

Alison McGovern

The impact of the pandemic on our labour market and our health service has been profound. It should inspire us to see the capabilities of the people within our health service, and it should show us the undeniable truth that there will be no economic health in this country without securing the health of the people of this country. That is what the pandemic shows us. I simply ask that the party in government today, the Conservative party, learns that lesson.

If we look at what is going on with our labour market, we see that part of the growth plan must be to secure our health service, get waiting lists down and get people back to good health. We have heard that funding for health and social care services will be untouched, so let me assure the Government—already so elastic with their commitments—that their promise on the health service will be under heightened surveillance in months to come.

The Government say that they have a growth plan to end their cycle of stagnation and to radically overhaul what has been dragging us down, but that plan simply has no credibility. It is delayed and delayed. Until we see what they truly believe can help this country grow, all we see is the cost of borrowing growing, inflation growing, mortgage payments growing, food bank use growing and child poverty growing, while the true opportunities that this country has—its people and their talents—are left wasted.

Who asked for this? Who nodded happily at higher mortgage repayments? Who wanted public services to be slashed or spiralling inequality? There is no consent for this, as we have seen—not even consent on the Tory Back Benches. The resulting damage to our economy is immediate and sharp, but there is another danger that emerges slower but is just as great: the risk to our relationship with the British people.

I worry that we have short memories in this place. Only three months ago, more than 60 Ministers fled the Government of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). For some time, that Government were viewed with real anger by the public, who overcame the pandemic through shared sacrifice, only to feel cheated, insulted and taken for fools by their Government. Well, the British people are not fools, Madam Deputy Speaker. They understand that this winter, whether it is due to soaring energy bills, surging inflation or the war in Ukraine, shared sacrifice is needed again. In return, they are owed compassionate, responsible leadership and a Government who can look them in the eye.

This is not a time for economic hobbyism—for testing pet theories like schoolboys in the common room—and ignoring the country. Not even two people in every 1,000 voted for the Prime Minister or her Chancellor. Britain did not choose to be experimented on in this way. When the Chancellor delivered his crazy Budget on 23 September, everyone in this country was united in experiencing that act of economic vandalism. When children are hungry, pensioners colder and families fearful, the Chancellor avoided the profits of energy giants and signed off unfunded tax giveaways for millionaires. In waving through bigger bonuses for bankers, he took a torch to our social contract. Instead of shared sacrifice, this gang of fanatics on the Treasury Bench turned to casino economics and gambled away public trust.

It is an old, old saying that you can judge a person by what they choose to do with power. After 12 years of the Tories in power, the veneer has worn off, revealing the same old ideas that have been tested to destruction in this country: run the country on the cheap, leave public services crumbling and make working people pay the price. The big society—remember that?—has been and gone, one nation conservatism is a painted shell, and the façade of levelling up has been abandoned, as they cut taxes for millionaires and look set to cut benefits for the poor. It does not matter whether it is this Prime Minister or whoever soon replaces her—this is the Conservative project and it has been there all along.

It is the single greatest privilege in this country to sit on the Treasury Bench. Instead of living up to that honour, the Conservative party is hopeless, reckless, callous and weak. There is no consent for this Government’s ideas, and they should be driven out of office. If they really are such a confident group of free thinkers, surely they have nothing to fear from taking their pitch to the country.

October 12, 2022