Charlie Maynard MP: speeches

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2026 · Taxation (Energy and Vehicles) · Hansard source

  More

  The electricity generator levy is a windfall tax on UK electricity generation from nuclear, renewable and biomass sources, and it raised £0.7 billion in the last financial year. The EGL is a revenue-based tax that currently applies at a rate of 45% on exceptional generation receipts above a benchmark price of £77.94 per megawatt-hour, with an allowance of £10 million per company. In contrast, the energy profits levy applies to oil and gas production in the UK and the UK continental shelf, and raised £2.9 billion in the last financial year. We support the goal of seeking to fund cost of living support through emergency revenue measures during the gas price shock, but we also note that power wholesale prices are now around £90 per megawatt-hour, compared with a spike of £135 per megawatt-hour and a pre-Iran conflict price of £80 per megawatt-hour. How much is this measure likely to raise, given the move in prices? It feels like the horse may have already bolted, so I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that. We recognise that this measure is a nudge to accelerate the shift of legacy renewable generators away from volatile wholesale prices and towards fixed contracts for difference, using a higher tax rate as leverage. If legacy renewable generators—those on the renewables obligation, not those already under CfDs—sign up to a wholesale contract for difference, they exchange their volatile wholesale revenues for a fixed strike price. That is obviously good news for consumers, who are insulated from future gas price spikes on that portion of generation because the generator is no longer passing through the wholesale prices, and the Government capture any upside via the Low Carbon Contracts Company when wholesale prices rise. The second motion will increase the mileage allowance. Again, this seems a logical step, and one that we are happy to support. I note that the 45p rate has been frozen since 2011, so it has been 15 years without an adjustment. Over that period, the costs of fuel, insurance, tyres and servicing have all risen materially, so while 55p is a meaningful correction, it is questionable whether it fully catches up with accumulated inflation. This change will have a positive impact overall, not least for people in professions such as care work, who do a lot of driving between appointments. I refer again to the Lib Dem proposal to cut fuel duty by 10%—if the Chancellor took that proposal on board, it would combine with the increase in mileage allowance to make a significant difference in the pockets of people who often have to drive for work. I also note that the cost of this change has not been set out, only that it is “subject to scrutiny by the Office for Budget Responsibility and will be set out at a future fiscal event.” Personally, I do not think that is good enough. The Treasury team should set out the cost of any change in the tax take, whether positive or negative, when it is proposed. Finally, the 12-month vehicle excise duty holiday for HGVs is a sensible and welcome measure, and we will not oppose it. Our hauliers, such as Chris Hayter in Witney, are critical. They are the backbone of our economy, and I understand that the Minister knows them well. We need to be honest about what this change is and what it is not. Our haulage sector was already in crisis before the conflict in Iran. Insolvency rates in road freight have been running at record levels. Margins were being squeezed by rising insurance costs, driver shortages and the lingering disruption of years of post-Brexit paperwork. The Iran conflict has simply poured fuel—at £1.85 a litre—on to a fire that was already burning. The VED holiday saves a typical operator about £600 a vehicle. We welcome every penny of that, but against a fuel cost shock that is adding £1 billion a year to the industry’s cost base, it is by the Government’s own figures a quarter of the problem. Many operators will burn through that saving in a matter of weeks at the pump. What the sector needs alongside this is a serious long-term plan on fuel duty RPI indexation, which threatens to push costs higher again next April, on driver recruitment and retention, where the shortage remains acute, and on the transition to cleaner vehicles, where smaller operators have been left without a credible path to decarbonisation. We will support this measure through Parliament because the people driving these lorries deserve the relief now, not after another round of consultations.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

  More

  Well, there you are. It is a wonderful pub, and we need to keep it open. This is all doubly tough for rural pubs. City pubs have a much larger catchment of potential customers who are within walking distance and not car-dependent, which matters with drink driving. Rural pubs are likely to rely on oil, liquefied petroleum gas or electric heating rather than the gas grid, and they have a small labour pool from which to hire. On top of all those hurdles, pubs in the countryside are much more significant to their communities, as they are typically the only pub in the village and a key hub in village life, as so many Members have pointed out. In west Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse, we have fought really hard to enforce making pubs assets of community value, so that everyone understands that they cannot make a quick buck from buying a pub, turning it into a house and selling it—the cost to the community is far too great. But being a community asset alone does not pay the bills. We have to make those pubs into survivable businesses. The changes announced in last year’s autumn Budget—the business rates revaluation and the removal of reductions that dated from the covid pandemic—led to extreme distress for publicans. While I recognise that the Government have subsequently acknowledged the crisis facing Britain’s pubs, the package of support that they announced at the start of the year, including the 15% cut to pubs’ business rates bills from April and a two-year real-terms freeze, was only a partial U-turn, and it will still leave many pubs facing a business rates increase on top of the other cost pressures that I have listed.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) for securing this important debate and I thank all my colleagues who gave such excellent speeches, which set out not only how much they love their pubs, but the struggles that they face. That is the important thing. I do not want to talk about how much those pubs matter to our communities or how much fun I have had in pubs over the years, because the thing that we must focus on is the big screaming problem. We need to take it seriously. Warm words go only so far right now. We have a huge problem that is hitting pubs every day, and we have to do something about it. I will set out how big the problem is. In the first half of last year, more than 200 pubs closed in six months. That is eight a week. A year on, things are even worse. The British Beer and Pub Association said that 161 pubs closed in the first three months of this year alone in England, Scotland and Wales. That is about 2,400 jobs. Those in rural and coastal constituencies have been among the hardest hit, and according to UKHospitality, running costs for pubs have risen by an estimated 43% since 2019. One third of hospitality businesses are operating at a loss, six in 10 have cut jobs and 63% have reduced staff hours. That is bad. Anyone knows that pubs are much more expensive than they used to be. That is hurting customers, as fewer people can afford an evening out. When a plate of fish and chips costs 15 quid, that is hardly surprising. It is obviously not because pubs are raking it in. Sadly, quite the opposite is true. Pubs are facing many of the same pressures that are hammering small local businesses across the board: spiralling food prices, high rents, sharp business rate increases, soaring energy bills, increased employer national insurance contributions and rising wages. As an entrepreneur who spent 24 years building a business, the overall situation scares the daylights out of me. I am not envious of them in that position. I am grateful to Nick at the Old Crown in Faringdon and Tommy and Mike at the Three Horseshoes in Witney, who sat me down and talked through just how tough it is to run these businesses. The Minister is smiling at me because he is a Witney boy, so he understands.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

  More

  As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) points out from a sedentary position, I am not suggesting that we rejoin the European Union. Employer national insurance contributions are the single biggest nightmare. It is a tax before getting out of bed, before generating any revenue and before making any profit. It is a huge mistake by Labour, and a direct result of Labour Members straitjacketing themselves into foolish promises about not touching any of the big three taxes. It needs to be unwound. Equally, we have strongly opposed the Government’s changes to employer NICs at every opportunity, and we have called on them to reverse the tax rise in full. We are also calling for a consultation on a new NICs band of £5,000 to £9,100, with a lower rate to better support part-time workers, on whom the hospitality industry heavily relies. I have already covered business rates, so I will not go into them further. On energy costs, the crisis in Iran has obviously made many costs, not least fuel prices, worse rather than better in the last few months. That is causing enormous pain. We would remove the main renewables levy from household energy bills, putting £270 back into people’s pockets over 18 months. That would be funded by a new windfall tax on big commercial banks, targeting the windfall interest payments they receive from the quantitative easing-related reserves they hold at the Bank of England.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

  More

  Absolutely. I will finish by saying that we need to look in the round at the massive cost pressures and changing consumer habits, from lower footfall to falling discretionary spending power, which combine to put pressure on pubs. A one-off package of business rates support is one thing, but we need to get back into the single market, fix NICs, reform business rates properly, fix energy costs and give pubs and hospitality a 5% VAT break. If we do not do those things, pubs in my constituency—the land of your birth, Minister —will keep going bust. We want to avoid that.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Rural Pubs: Fiscal Support · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Business rates feel so unjust—so arbitrary and out of control, and appeals are virtually impossible. We all beg the Minister to put doing something about that at the top of his list, because they are so grossly unfair and really rip the heart out of running a business. We need to pick those problems apart and work out what can be done. As announced just an hour ago by our mighty Lib Dem leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), getting back inside the EU’s single market would help in a number of ways. Food costs would go down if we were back inside the single market, both in pubs and on supermarket shelves. That matters: it would allow food to be sold for less, making pubs more affordable and getting more people through the door. It would also help with recruitment, as we would not need to spend thousands and waste months on visas for key staff, many of whom are from outside the UK. Being back inside the European single market for electricity would reduce energy bills, because we would be able to buy and sell electricity when the UK or the EU had surplus energy. I am not pretending that the move would solve everything, but those outcomes would materially help. However, there are plenty more problems that we would still need to deal with.

• 15 Jun 2026 · State Pensioners: Personal Allowance · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. The Liberal Democrats have said clearly that we think it is both wrong and unfair that the Government have implemented a stealth tax grab that will hit some of the lowest-paid and most vulnerable the hardest, by maintaining a freeze on income tax thresholds that hits ordinary families, people on low incomes and the group we are discussing today: pensioners. An estimated 600,000 people were dragged into paying income tax for the first time this April, while a further 580,000 were pulled into the higher 40p rate. Raising tax thresholds is the best and fairest way to cut taxes. Liberal Democrats would advocate that as a way to reduce income tax for everyone at every stage of life, taking the lowest-paid, including state pensioners, out of income tax altogether when public finances allow. When we were in government, we raised the personal allowance, taking millions of people out of income tax, putting money back into people’s pockets and helping ensure that work and hard-earned state pensions would pay. By contrast, the Conservatives and Labour have frozen it again and again. That has left us in a position in which the state pension is nearly equal to the threshold. The full rate of the new state pension for 2026-27 is £240.30 a week, or £12,547.60 a year, while the standard personal allowance is £12,570 a year. It is an absolutely tiny gap. The Chancellor has said that state pensioners will be exempt from paying income tax. We support that exemption, which is all well and good, but we need the Government to publish more information on how they are going to guarantee it if they continue their policy of freezing the tax threshold. With less than a year to go, people will understandably be worried. They urgently need clarity about which specific process they will have to follow and a cast-iron reassurance that they will not fall through the cracks. Ultimately, stealth tax rises are not only dishonest with voters, but a completely inadequate and ineffective way for the Government to paper over the cracks in their economic plan. There is no better way to get the economy growing than to make everybody feel better off; the best way to balance the books is to grow our economy, and the quickest way to do that is to repair the damage of the terrible Brexit deal by negotiating a new UK-EU customs deal. A better trade deal would be a huge boost to our public finances, and the best and fairest way to end the crisis in the NHS, boost our defence capabilities and look to reduce the unfair tax burden that people have shouldered for the last few years. The Liberal Democrats are clear that everyone deserves a chance to enjoy a decent retirement where they can live comfortably, whether in my Witney constituency or anywhere else in the country. We strongly opposed the Government’s decision to remove the winter fuel payments. We welcomed the Chancellor’s U-turn in that case, restoring payments to pensioners with incomes of £35,000 or less, but we continue to call on the Government to backdate payments to those who lost out and to confirm that the £35,000 threshold will be uprated with inflation each year. We were proud when in government to introduce the triple lock. It was desperately needed after years of the real value of the state pension falling, as was set out very well by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). We will always fight to guarantee that pensions keep pace with the cost of living. We want to develop measures to end the gender pension gap in private pensions and ensure that working-age carers can save properly for retirement. We would also like to see improvement to the state pension system by investing in helplines to ensure quicker resolution of underpayments, and an end to the scandal of lost top-up payments through an overhaul of the processing system and provision of proper receipts. In summary, I urge the Government once again to reconsider the freeze on tax thresholds, which has dragged millions of people into paying more tax at a time when cost of living pressures are hitting people at all stages of life really hard. Raising the thresholds would ensure that pensioners, as well as working-age households, got a fairer deal. The Government should stop using stealth tax grabs to paper over the bigger issues in the economy and boost trade to get the economy moving, making everyone feel better off. Finally, I ask the Minister to spell out how he will ensure that people on the state pension are not dragged into paying income tax on it, so that we can give peace of mind to older people on low incomes.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  On 21 May, the Business and Trade Committee met representatives of more than 20 steel fabrication companies who were deeply worried about the potential loss of hundreds, or thousands, of jobs. I second that, in respect of the urgency, because 1 July is around the corner, and this represents a major risk to the sector.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Water Companies · Hansard source

  More

  Thames Water, which serves my constituency, embodies the systemic failures of the sector. The company is in breach of its licence conditions by not having held any investment grade credit ratings for nearly the last two years and by failing to inform Ofwat and the Government of the change of control at the company. The Government have stood by and let that happen. Now, their only plan is to hand the company over to the very same creditors who have pillaged, and continue to pillage, it. They must now change course, put Thames Water into special administration and bring it out as a business that is mutually owned and operated in the interests of its customers and the environment. I find the shadow Minister’s words extraordinary—he comes across as a corporate shill. I have provided him with information from Thames Water’s own independent expert that demonstrates that the cost to the Government will be zero in the medium term, but he has not responded. Will the Government please now put the company into special administration?

• 4 Jun 2026 · High Street Businesses: Government Support · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) for the interest, passion, desire and ideas that he brought to the debate—I think we all really appreciate that—and I thank my other hon. Friends for all their good ideas. I will give a particular shout-out to the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for his ideas about enforcement and dealing with illicit businesses on the high street—I think all our constituencies would benefit from those. It is clear that we have a serious problem. Local pubs, family-owned shops and restaurants matter—they make our communities tick—but up and down the country they are closing at an alarming rate. I want to quantify just what that means: according to figures from the British Beer and Pub Association, 161 pubs—nearly two per day—closed in the first three months of this year across England, Scotland and Wales, taking with them 2,400 jobs, and in 2024 the UK lost 37 shops per day, with almost 13,500 closing. Preliminary figures for 2025 indicate that last year was likely even worse and could surpass 2022, the previous record year for closures. Alarm bells are ringing. A successful high street is not just about shops; it is about community and connection. As almost everybody in the room has said, it is about bringing community together and giving people opportunity and fun. It is on us as politicians to do our best to make that happen and ensure that it survives. The Lib Dems have been calling consistently for a package of support that recognises the scale of the problem: cutting VAT for hospitality and attractions from 20% to 15%; reforming business rates to reward occupancy; and strengthening the town centre-first principle in planning policy to tackle vacancy rates. That requires applications for main town centre uses to be located in town centres rather than edge-of-centre locations, which should be used only if suitable sites are not available in the town centre. I will give a special shout-out to Witney as an example of a place where decades of support from planning officers and councillors has kept the high street lively, as opposed to everything being dragged out of town. Well done to everybody for doing that over decades. Let me turn to the problems. I will start with the big stuff: at the top is the failure to get our economy moving. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) just mentioned, being back inside the European single market and customs union would not cost anything—it makes really good sense. Dealing with tax reform makes really good sense. Those measures would cut the cost of doing business by reducing the cost of food, addressing the chronic vacancy rate in hospitality, easing labour shortages and reducing the cost of energy. This is all doable. At the top of the charge sheet are national insurance contributions. As an ex-entrepreneur, I feel the horror of this daft tax on headcount. Before getting out of bed in the morning—before generating any revenue, let alone profit—businesses are being whacked, and they do not want to hire people. That is really bad news. Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed the change and think it should be reversed in full. We are also calling for a consultation on a new NICs band from £5,000 to £9,100, with a lower rate to better support part-time workers, on whom the hospitality industry relies heavily. Then there is VAT—that is the 5% cut—and business rates. The numbers on business rates are terrifying. Statistics from the Valuation Office Agency show rateable values rising by an average of 30% in 2026 for pubs and restaurants in England, and by an average of 70% for pubs with accommodation—imagine if that was your business!—outstripping the still substantial average increase of 19.4% across England for all properties. Those increases are completely unsustainable, and I do not think the Government are doing nearly enough to address them. In my constituency we have fabulous high streets. We have the medieval wonders of Witney and Burford, which rightly attract visitors from around the world. We have much-loved and much-defended free parking, which matters a lot to people, and we are working hard to better our local transport, whether that is buses, walking or biking. As my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage said, we need all those things, not to pit one against the other. Often-overlooked Carterton and Faringdon have tons of wonderful independent shops and need so much more support than we are currently giving them. I want to focus on a few examples. Lisa and Kirsty have been running Sassi, a clothing shop on Witney high street, for over 15 years. Their business rates bill has gone up by £1,200 this year. Clive, who runs The Flooring Centre in Witney, has seen his business rates increase by 15% this year. This is not being addressed as a problem. Given the dire economic circumstances, such big increases in rates are a disaster. Let me turn to solutions and return to the need for a 5% VAT cut, a reversal of the increase in employer NICs, and the proper and fair reform of the business rates system that businesses have long been promised. As an interim support measure, we have called for the Government to keep in place the existing 75% relief for retail, hospitality and leisure until the new system is in place. Our high streets and town centres are places that we all rely on and depend on, hang out in and have fun in, and they are going in the wrong direction. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on what we can do about it.

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

  More

  Flashing back to the 1980s, would the right hon. Member like to remind us when the Conservatives last balanced a budget?

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

  More

  We all agree that we urgently need to get the economy growing again. However, the Bills in the King’s Speech do not represent the big, bold economic change that the country needs. I will talk today about just two things that would create economic growth: trade, and balancing tax and spending through our fiscal framework. On trade, our country prospers when fair markets for goods, services, capital and labour operate effectively. Trade makes this country great. Raising barriers to trade makes it harder for the economy to grow and erodes the tax base on which our vital public services depend—and the cost of doing business skyrockets, whether for a small business person in my constituency or for a large financial institution here in London. The evidence of the damage that Brexit has done is in plain view. America’s National Bureau of Economic Research, which produces non-partisan economic research, estimates that by 2025, the Brexit process had reduced UK GDP per capita by 6% to 8%, investment by 12% to 18%, employment by 3% to 4%, and productivity by 3% to 4%. That comes at enormous human cost. The UK-EU reset has some good elements, but each element, which is being painfully negotiated, returns merely some of the benefits that we all used to have. Our young people may soon have the opportunity again to travel and work abroad. We may rejoin the EU’s energy market, cutting electricity costs and making both markets greener and more efficient. The Government have been working hard on an SPS agreement on food with the EU. That would hugely reduce costs and delays for our farmers, and the benefits would be felt in Oxfordshire and rural communities across the country. It would bring cheaper food to supermarket shelves, which is good news for all of us. But consider the logic: the Government are now fighting really hard to rejoin the EU’s single market in food products, while remaining resolutely against rejoining the single market for anything else. Where is the logic in that? Two things are painfully clear. We are expending enormous political capital to recover just a fraction of the benefits we once had, and even that goal is wholly insufficient, given the scale of the challenge that our economy faces. We need to be bolder and aim higher. I turn to the UK’s fiscal framework. Let us have a think about how well it has worked over the last quarter of a century. In the last 25 years—a period spanning at least eight different fiscal frameworks—we have not had a single year in which tax receipts have exceeded spending. The 2024-25 deficit was £153 billion, which was 5.2% of GDP. The consequences of this are severe: our national debt has ballooned to £2.9 trillion, equivalent to 94% of GDP. When I look at our fiscal rules, the words that come to me are, “Lie to me.” The tradition works something like this. The Government of the day assure the country that all targets will be hit—not now, when it actually matters, but at a completely unknowable forecast date, five years hence. That five-year target rolls forward and is never reached. Spending is front-loaded in years one, two and three, and tax rises are backloaded in years four and five—ideally, the other side of a general election. Traditionally, voters have been lied to because the alternative means politicians confronting and explaining a financial situation that nobody wants to face. Is this failure inevitable? No, it is not. Other countries have moved in the other direction and cut their debt-to-GDP ratios. Sweden had a financial crisis in the 1990s, with a debt to GDP ratio of above 80%. Its response was the 1996 Budget Act, one of the most rigorous fiscal frameworks in Europe, which fundamentally reshaped how taxation and parliamentary scrutiny interact. Most importantly for our situation today, the principles of this framework continue to command very strong cross-party support. That does not mean that there is agreement on specific spending or tax decisions—these remain contested—but the framework rules themselves are treated as largely above partisan dispute. That is precisely why the Swedish model is so frequently cited internationally. I am asking everyone in this Chamber and everyone listening to think seriously about whether we could do something similar here. After all, we are far better off addressing this very large problem now, before a financial crisis forces our hand later.

• 22 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Minister for his statement. We have learned today that this contract was awarded two and a half years ago. Capita had two and a half years to prepare for taking on the administration of the civil service scheme. As has been mentioned, the Public Accounts Committee warned in October that Capita was not ready, yet it took on the contract regardless on 1 December. Today we learned also that the Government have terminated another Capita contract, for the Royal Mail pension scheme. My constituents would like answers to the following questions. How many people on the civil service pension scheme, as of now, have not received payments that they should have had? Why should taxpayers be paying for the surge in His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs staff? A hundred and forty staff have come in to sort this out. Surely Capita should be paying for its incompetence. What is the timeline for Capita to clear up all inherited arrears, and is it prioritising hardship and bereavement cases? With regard to the Royal Mail pension scheme, now that Capita has been terminated, what is the plan?

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The Liberal Democrats have been clear throughout the Bill’s stages that we think the Government would be misguided to make this change. While it may raise some tax revenue in the medium term, in the longer term it discourages pension saving. It also puts an extra cost and admin burden on small businesses at the worst possible time. For that reason, we support Lords amendments 6 and 12, which would exempt small and medium-sized businesses and charities. I would like to note again, as I did on Second Reading, that I am sceptical of the timing of this change. It will, very conveniently for the Government, only kick in during the likely election year of 2029-30, and not in 2026-27 or 2027-28. It seems as if the Government are motivated more by a wish to fix their numbers nominally to meet their fiscal rules than by a genuine belief that this change is the right thing to do. [ Interruption. ] I am asking the Minister to give us a reason why it is deferred and to explain that logic. Lords amendment 5, tabled by my colleague Baroness Kramer, would raise the proposed threshold from £2,000 to £5,000 on NICs-exempt savings. That would at least mitigate the impact on many lower and middle earners. This would be a sensible way to ensure that it is genuinely those who can afford to pay more who are impacted by this change. The proposed threshold of £2,000 will undoubtedly hit people on relatively modest incomes who are simply trying to do the right and sensible thing and plan for their future. The CBI has also expressed its strong support for a threshold at £5,000.

• 23 Mar 2026 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I completely agree. It sends the wrong message and puts in place the wrong incentives, and that is a real problem. Ministers will have seen the analysis produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility in response to the former Lib Dem Pensions Minister, Steve Webb, highlighting the flaws in the Government’s claim that these changes will not impact most lower and middle earners—that is, those not saving more than the £2,000 threshold in any case. The OBR’s new analysis highlights three main ways that the Bill could affect the wider workforce. First, employers may move away from salary sacrifice altogether by increasing ordinary employer pension contributions in place of wage growth, all by reducing contractual pay in exchange for higher contributions. The OBR’s analysis makes it clear that any change of this kind would necessarily have to be applied across all of the workforce and could not be limited to higher earners, so the impact of these changes could indeed see lower pay rises or reduce base pay for employees who contribute less than £2,000. Secondly, the new analysis spells out that some employees may move to make standard pension contributions, including through relief at source schemes, thereby losing the NICs advantages of salary sacrifice and increasing their NICs bill, even if they contribute small amounts. Thirdly, OBR modelling shows that employers would pass down around three quarters of the additional NICs cost to employees, mainly through lower wages, which again would likely hit all workers regardless of the amount they save through salary sacrifice. Not only does this OBR analysis indicate that the Government have been wrong to frame these changes as something that will impact only those with broader shoulders, but, crucially, when the OBR assumed a significant behavioural response from employers and employees, the estimated amount this policy will raise fell by almost half, from £4.7 billion in 2029-30 to £2.6 billion in 2030-31, as these impacts feed through. I am interested to understand whether or not the Minister agrees with that point. Raising the threshold from £2,000 to £5,000 will not solve these issues entirely, but it would mitigate them by exempting a larger number of people on lower and middle incomes from the key change in the Bill. That would, in turn, reduce the number of employees impacted. Lords amendment 2 relates to the repayment of student loans. This issue was also explored in the Lords, but I think it should be reiterated here, because although it is probably an inadvertent effect, it is none the less a significant issue. I appreciate the Minister’s words, but the fact remains that for any graduate who saves above the threshold, not only will their NICs payments go up, but so will their student loan repayments. This Bill is a double whammy on a group who are already struggling with high interest payments, escalating debt and a very challenging jobs market. To conclude, with four in 10 people in the country, whether in my Witney constituency or any other Member’s, already not saving enough for retirement, and with the pressures on the state pension and social care system well known, it is counterproductive to reduce the incentives for those who can afford to do so to save towards their retirement. Once again, the measures in the Bill are short-sighted, and the Government’s justifications for them do not add up. I support the Lords amendments, which seek to iron out problems and mitigate the negative impacts. Overall, my party and I cannot support the Bill.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Royal Mail: Performance · Hansard source

  More

  I have been here for 17 months. We could rehash things from 14 or 17 years ago. I believe that in 2009 the Labour Government sought to take a 30% stake out of the Royal Mail, but I am not interested in going back through that because we are where we are. Let me try to finish my speech, and I will talk about where I think we should be heading now. The Government and Ofcom need to urgently make it clear to Royal Mail executives that they must get a grip on the situation. Although letter numbers have fallen, there is still plenty of demand for Royal Mail’s delivery services. Crucially, everyone across the country and all of us here in Parliament place huge value on retaining the universal service obligation. What seems clear is that the incentives are wrong. The new owner of Royal Mail is a commercial operator that bought International Distribution Services, the holding company of Royal Mail, in June 2025 with a full understanding of the Royal Mail’s USO requirement. The business seems to be prioritising its profitable parcel business, General Logistics Systems. The owner also has a clear commercial incentive to cut costs on the Royal Mail side of the business and to keep lobbying Ofcom to continue to loosen the USO requirements even further. Such a strategy serves the owner of Royal Mail very nicely, but is a terrible outcome for the many millions of people up and down the country who depend on the USO, and for the posties. I am sure the Minister and Ofcom recognise that predicament and also recognise that the USO is a key public good. I am interested in the extent to which the Minister considers the situation similar to or different from the telecoms industry levy, which is used to fund the broadband universal service obligation. Does the Minister agree that insisting on much clearer operational transparency from the Royal Mail would be good to establish more detail on whether parcels are being prioritised over letters and the impact of that? It could be managed by Ofcom requiring root-level data on delivery performance and clear reporting on parcels versus letters prioritisation to make it harder for USO traffic to be quietly deprioritised. What steps is the Minister considering taking to stop a situation where Royal Mail keeps trying to bounce Ofcom into cutting the USO further?

• 11 Mar 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The Bill, and the Budget it derives from, demonstrates clearly that the Chancellor has implemented stealth tax grabs that will hit some of the lowest paid the hardest, through extending a freeze on income tax thresholds and the national insurance contributions increases which suppress employment and wages. It is full of short-sighted harmful decisions that the Liberal Democrats cannot support. Our amendments aim to highlight and reduce some of its more harmful impacts. I will focus on four particular areas, the first of which is the impact of frozen income tax thresholds. New clauses 15 to 17 would secure additional information and analysis about their impact. As the worrying figures from the OBR suggest, continuing to freeze income tax thresholds will drag an extra 1 million pensioners into paying income tax for the first time by 2030-31, unless the Government act.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. and learned Gentleman please remind the House what last year’s growth rate was for Northern Ireland compared with for the whole UK? I think it might have been three times higher.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I speak on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and the shadow Minister’s audacity in talking about a “high-tax, low-growth doom loop” is pretty high. With regard to this Bill, I ask the Government to look again at four things. I will go through them quickly, and then I will sit down. I ask the Government to provide more detail, and quickly, on their plans to prevent pensioners from being dragged into paying income tax; to publish information on how the freezing of tax thresholds until 2030-31 impacts households at various income levels; to recognise the impact that the Government’s policies are having on youth unemployment, which is up by 100,000 in the last year, and to take steps to halt this rapid rise, which at a minimum would include reducing the national insurance contributions rate paid by employers on part-time employees earning between £5,000 and £9,100 per year; and, finally, as per new clause 11, which we just pushed to a vote, to look again at taking a fairer approach to farmers by allowing the thresholds on agricultural property relief to rise over time in line with agricultural land prices, rather than having those thresholds eroded over time. Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time. The House proceeded to a Division.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I completely agree. The stress of that is horrific, so the more it can function effectively would be appreciated. The Government have said that people whose only source of income is the state pension will not pay any income tax over this Parliament, but no details have been provided on how they will be protected. I ask the Government to put an end to the uncertainty and set out plans in full explaining exactly how they intend to shield pensioners from that unfair tax hit. We would love a timeline for when they will do that. More broadly, extending the stealth tax by two more years will drag an estimated 1.3 million people into a higher tax band by 2029-30: just over 600,000 into the basic rate of tax and just under 700,000 into the higher rate. Those are big numbers. We would really appreciate it if the Government explained to each of the 1.3 million people who will be impacted what it will do to them, because I do not think they are aware of it right now. That disproportionately impacts those on low incomes who will be dragged into income tax for the first time. At the very least, please provide that information. Next is the impact of the Government’s actions and inactions on youth unemployment, which is building to a real crisis point. Some 16% of all 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work, or almost 740,000 people, which is 100,000 up in the last year—I repeat, 100,000 up in the last year—so something is going wrong with the Government’s policies and we need to get to the bottom of that. The Liberal Democrats have tabled new clause 14, which requires the Chancellor to review and report on the impact of the Bill on unemployment, with particular regard to young people aged 16 to 24. It is worth noting that this legislation, which dampens growth and hits jobs, comes at a time of broader disruption in the labour market. AI is already having a particular impact on entry level so-called white-collar jobs, but it is also having an impact in pubs. All our local pubs are hiring fewer young people because there is no incentive to do so any more. The creation of a new employers’ national insurance contribution band between £5,000 and £9,100, with a lower rate to incentivise employers to hire often younger, part-time workers, would really help. In new clause 13, we highlight the complexity of the tax system and the cost of administering it. There is a green brick sitting here masquerading as a Bill. With such a big majority in this Parliament, the Government have a real opportunity to do some serious thinking about how to simplify, root and branch, our tax code. It is disappointing that we see no sign of that actually happening. With this size of legislation being added each time, the tax system is getting bigger and more complex, and that puts a real burden on business. The Treasury Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Business and Trade Committee have all spoken out about how much damage our over-complex tax system is doing to our businesses. We would really appreciate anything that the Government can do and if they could get more serious about that.

• 24 Feb 2026 · Charter for Budget Responsibility · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will not burden the House with too long a speech. There are a lot of issues with the Government’s and the country’s economic policymaking process, but there are good arguments for reducing the number of fiscal events, which create artificial cliff edges. However, I note the concerns, including from the IFS, that this looks like a way to reduce scrutiny of the Government’s economic record. Fundamentally, if we are serious about the responsible management of the public finances, tackling our high levels of debt and getting our economy growing again, I am most interested in how we scrutinise our Government’s tax and spending plans. The current situation, in which we have months and months of speculation and then approve hundreds of billions of pounds of Government tax and spending with just a few hours of debate, with no one permitted to see what the Chancellor is proposing in the Budget until it is announced as a fait accompli in Parliament, is exceptional by international standards and a key source of uncertainty and instability. If the Government truly want to improve market confidence, this is where they should be looking to make reforms. For example, we could look at Sweden, which, following a budget crisis in the early 1990s and soaring debt, introduced proper parliamentary debate of the Government’s budget, with alternatives offered and amendments made before it is finalised, before getting a subsequent period of scrutiny and accountability. The fact that Sweden has seen years of strong growth and high living standards, and that its debt has now dropped from 80% to 30% of GDP, is a positive endorsement of this approach. The reality is that incredibly important choices are made as part of the Budget process. These choices impact the day-to-day life of each of our constituents, whether in Witney or any of the constituencies that the Members here all represent. The people have a right to have the fullest possible picture of how the Government are going about setting their taxes, spending their money and managing the economic picture, and this step will not achieve that alone. The Government need to foster stability and manage the public finances responsibly. That hinges on getting growth back into our economy, not pencilling in unfair tax rises in a last-minute fashion at the end of the forecast period just to stick to the letter of the fiscal rules. However, until the Government grasp the nettle on much more fundamental reform of our Budget process, I do not think that will be achieved, and more critically, I do not think the dial will move on economic growth or market confidence.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  It has been a very painful path to get to this point, but I simply want to welcome what the Government are bringing in. Reversing the decision on the two-child limit will lift 540,000 children out of absolute poverty, and it is unquestionably the right thing to do—certainly for those children and for their families, but also for our economy, our public services and our society as a whole. Children growing up in poverty face worse educational outcomes, poorer physical and mental health, and fewer opportunities in adulthood. As the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) pointed out, this has a huge economic cost on our society, and investing a relatively small amount now for great gains later is very sensible. This change will be worth up to £5,000 per year for each of the more than 500 families in my constituency who have been impacted by the cap. I have had heartbreaking emails from and surgeries with constituents impacted by this cap, as I am sure we all have. They have had to skip meals to ensure their children do not go without, because each month their money simply does not stretch far enough. Our food banks help enormously, but relying on them is obviously not the solution. Too many children and families have been trapped in poverty because of the previous decision to impose the cap and this Government’s stubborn decision to keep it until now. I wish this change had happened a year ago, which would have saved a lot of trouble and stress for families and children involved, as well as for a few Members in this Chamber. I commend the Labour MPs who lost the Whip for fighting to end this policy for their courage. I am sure that their voices and actions have played a large part in the Government now bringing forward this Bill. However, the Bill is very narrow in scope, and we should recognise that it is only one step towards tackling child poverty. There is much more we need to do, as highlighted by new clause 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Steve Darling). Ministers will no doubt have seen the report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that, while welcoming the decision to lift the cap, warned that progress on tackling child poverty as a result of removing the two-child benefit cap is likely to stall after April—two months away—unless it is supported by further follow-up measures. The headline from that report was that the number of people living in very deep poverty is at the highest level in more than 30 years, based on 2023-24 figures. The Government must now make it an absolute priority to address that, which is why we are calling on them to look at the much wider issues of overall levels of child poverty, destitution and deep poverty among households with children, as well as at educational outcomes and physical and mental health outcomes for children in households affected by poverty. They need to thoroughly assess those a year after the passage of this Bill and report back to the House on its impact.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Firearms Licensing · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for introducing this important debate so well and with such balance—I really appreciate it. I am proud and relieved that we live in a country with some of the strictest gun laws in the world. Obviously a painful history that got us to that point, but it is something we are fortunate to have. As my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) mentioned, there are many places that have much worse laws than we do. In December, emails began flooding in to my inbox on this issue. For some reason, one Saturday morning at about 5.30 am I found myself awake and wanting to dig into the issue on the internet. I dug into the murders that had happened, how they had happened and what had gone on. Obviously there was a mix; I grew up with shotguns and I am still a shotgun owner and certificate holder, but not a firearm holder, and I had not understood in detail section 1 versus section 2. As I looked into that, my thought was, “Holy smokes, this is going to change rural life enormously if it goes through.” That gave me the heebie-jeebies—it led to two hours of internet research and an email to my spokesperson to say, “Let’s get on top of this fast, if we’re not already.” The consequences of this proposal will be enormous and very damaging. Various Members have come to the debate with a great deal of knowledge, and some have attacked the stats on the number of people who have been killed. Every death is one too many—I get that—but we must also highlight where the licensing is or is not working, as well as the changes that came in last August. What happened in August 2025? New checks were brought in and changes were made to the references system. For example, the number of referees required increased from one to two, anyone connected with domestic abuse or violence can no longer be licensed and other medical checks were introduced. Those new changes are only six months old, so it is important that we see how they land and their impact—hopefully a very positive impact—before we take further steps. As many Members have said, the firearms licensing system, with the 43 licensing authorities, is a mess. It is an excellent candidate to be consolidated and run as one unified, well-resourced, digitised system that allows people to get recertified quickly and effectively. I recommend that we head in that direction as quickly as possible, rather than in the direction of the proposal under discussion. I am still relatively new to this House, but one of the reasons we are all here is to serve our constituents well. We want to keep the temperature of debate low, because situations such as this, where people have died, matter. If we ramp up the temperature, I do not think we are serving ourselves or our communities well. These are serious issues, and they deserve a serious debate. However, our rural communities are certainly wary, and measures such as the family farm tax and the sustainable farming incentive have really hurt them, so I urge the Government to go very carefully. I want to avoid any narratives of this elite or that elite pushing things down on people; that does not do us any good. We all need to stay away from such a narrative, and taking this issue on its merits would really serve us all well.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Independent Water Commission: Final Report · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello). I am going to move very quickly. I thank Sir Jon Cunliffe and all the campaigners in my constituency. I note that Blake primary school had to close on Friday because of sewage—the fourth time in the last two and a half months. Bills have gone up: we are paying 9.75% interest with Thames Water. I thank Alex Lipp and Jonny Dawe for putting together sewagemap.co.uk—a fantastic website that tracks what is going on and where. The “ultimate controller” definition is mentioned 16 times in the Independent Water Commission’s final report. I welcome the proposal in paragraph 700, which would allow an enforceable undertaking against ultimate controllers. However, that will work only if Ofwat is doing its job properly and recognising companies as ultimate controllers. As the Minister knows, the equity of Thames Water is now zero, with most of the investors having written down their equity investment in full, and some having taken away their board representation nearly two years ago. That leaves the debt holders—the class A creditors—holding the majority of the company’s debt. They have now set up the London & Valley Water consortium to co-ordinate their interests. The water sector is a regulated sector, with the ultimate controller designation being critical. To meet that definition, an entity only has to “materially influence the policy or affairs” of Thames Water. There is no limit on how many entities meet that criterion or whether there are equity or debt holders. Clearly, the consortium more than meets that definition as it is, in effect, the only significant party left standing across either Thames Water’s debt or equity structure. As per the regulation, Thames Water must inform Ofwat even of potential changes in its ultimate controllers. Ofwat then requires water companies to obtain legally enforceable undertakings from each of their ultimate controllers. That has not happened in the case of the class A creditors, and I believe this is a rig-up between the Treasury, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ofwat, Thames Water and the class A creditors. That is not good enough. It is in contravention of our regulations. I have repeatedly asked Ministers to explain, in the main Chamber, in the Business and Trade Committee, in this Chamber and in the press, why they believe that the class A creditor consortium does not meet the ultimate controller test. I have received either no answer— most recently from the Minister three weeks ago, when she refused point-blank to give me an answer in the main Chamber—or obfuscation. Please, will the Minister now answer the question? Does she consider the London & Valley Water consortium to meet the ultimate controller test with regard to its material influence over Thames Water, and if not, why not?

• 9 Feb 2026 · UK-India Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

  More

  I really hope I am wrong, but I don’t think I am. Moving beyond the numbers, I highlight the concerns of civil society groups, which many Members have mentioned, about clauses in the agreement on labour, the environment and human rights being characterised by a pattern of aspirational language and a lack of enforceability, with the result that they are not subject to the dispute settlement mechanism—cute words but no teeth. The Liberal Democrats have long called for a set of minimum standards to benchmark future trade agreements, which would include human rights, conflict and oppression and environmental, labour and safety standards, where they can be negotiated, based on a UK trade and human rights policy and a trade and development policy. I want to ask some question about India’s role in busting the trade sanctions that the UK has put on Russia. To recap: Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and both the UK and the EU banned direct imports of Russian oil and petroleum products in December 2022. However, a loophole stayed open that allowed derivative products including petrochemicals imported from third countries into the UK to continue using Russian-origin crude oil and gas. In July 2025, the EU amended its sanctions legislation to target imports of petrochemicals from third countries that used Russian-origin oil. This has now taken effect in the EU. The EU has blocked this loophole. In October 2025, the UK announced a further sanctions package targeting specific third-country entities that supported Russian fossil fuels. That included India’s Nayara Energy, which is part-owned by Russia’s state oil company Rosneft. On 2 December 2025, the Trade Minister told the Business and Trade Committee, of which I am a member, “we want India to do less business with Russia because we want Russia’s machine to be debilitated. There are lots of things that I want to achieve in the world and not all of them can be achieved through FTAs.” The Trade Minister and the trade team fully understood, therefore, that India was, and is, selling Russia-originated petchems into the UK. We had leverage when we were negotiating the FTA, but instead the UK decided to turn a blind eye to India’s sanction-busting, helping Russia’s war effort. This continues right now, with the UK importing jet fuel and other petrochemicals from India that are manufactured with Russian oil and gas. The refining loophole is still there because His Majesty’s Government have not yet legislated to ban imports of derivatives from Russian crude. The Government say that they expect a ban to be enforced in spring 2026, whenever that is. Analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air shows that between the ban on direct imports coming into force in 2022 and the end of 2025, the UK has imported £4 billion-worth of jet fuel and other oil products made at refineries in India and Turkey, which run partially on Russian crude, and that every month the UK delays banning oil products made from Russian crude, it is effectively writing the Kremlin a cheque for around £44 million. It gets worse. Four of the five largest oil refiners in India are majority-owned by the Indian Government, with Reliance being the fifth, so it is not just the Indian refiners that are helping Russia by selling us petchems; the state of India itself is right now selling jet fuel and other petrochemicals derived from Russian oil and gas into the UK. What have we done about it? We have signed a free trade agreement with India. To add insult to injury, the loophole to be closed, as far as I can tell, just covers oil derivatives, but petrochemicals are derived from natural gas, too. What is happening with those? I have five questions for the Minister. First, what is his justification for signing an FTA with a country that is helping Russia to breach its sanctions? Secondly, was this issue discussed in the FTA negotiations? Thirdly, does the planned ban cover petrochemicals imported from India and other third countries derived from either oil or gas? Fourthly, please will the Minister tell us the specific date on which the ban will come into force, what steps will be required to effect it and what the timeline is for each of those steps? Finally, what are the reasons for the delay in implementing the ban? Why have the Government not already closed the loophole?