Dan Tomlinson MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2025 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for bringing the Front Benchers on both sides to heel at just the right time, before I make the closing remarks. It is a pleasure to close this Second Reading debate, and I thank all Members on both sides of the House for their contributions. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) for his contribution and his brief foray—and it was brief—into broader points around the Budget, which I did appreciate. I will try to minimise doing so in my remarks. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), raised a few points. While he is whispering over there, I will confirm to him that the costing provided by the OBR accounts for the dynamic effects of this policy. The costing itself has been certified by the OBR. The reason why the change does not come in for a number of years is because it will give businesses time to plan, which we think is an important thing to do when we are making significant changes to the pension system. This is an important Bill, if small. This is an important debate to have, although it has felt somewhat rushed given that it has come after the many final-week statements and urgent questions today. But that has given me a bit more time to prepare some remarks, which I have hastily cut down from the 30 minutes I was planning; we will see whether we can make faster progress than that for the sake of all concerned. In my extra time this afternoon, I thought I would attempt to shoehorn a Christmas theme into my closing remarks, given that this will be the last time the House divides before Christmas. Very briefly, I present “The Twelve Numbers of Christmas: the Salary Sacrifice Edition”. I start with 12 words from Baron Hammond of Runnymede on how some employees are, in his words, “able to sacrifice salary…and pay much lower tax….That is unfair”. —[ Official Report , 23 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 907.] The Whips can count, and I can see that they have counted that as 12 words—very good. It is clear that even 10 years ago the Conservative party was aware of issues with salary sacrifice schemes. They knew that we must ensure that significant tax reliefs totalling £75 billion a year are properly targeted. That is why we are capping pension salary sacrifice contributions at £2,000. Let us be clear: we are not removing pension tax relief, just the ability for unlimited relief via salary sacrifice, which many people cannot access in any case. That brings me to my No. 11. Those earning £11, £12 or £13 an hour at the national minimum wage or the national living wage cannot make use of salary sacrifice schemes because if they sacrificed their salary, they would be paid less than the minimum. It is the richest who benefit the most from these schemes.

• 17 Dec 2025 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  Some 4.4 million of the self-employed are also not able to save into salary sacrifice schemes; it is right that we make the scheme fairer for all. Let me continue to run through my numbers. Some 10 million people have signed up to a pension since auto-enrolment, which has limited the need for salary sacrifice. There are more than 900 tax reliefs; this is one of a number that we are reducing to raise revenue fairly at this Budget. Without intervention, salary sacrifice would have cost £8 billion a year by the end of the decade. Instead, we will now raise £7 billion from this change over the course of the scorecard. The change will affect those on higher earnings more: 60% of the contributions come from the top fifth of employees and just 5% of those earning less than £30,000 will be affected. We will give businesses time to plan—this is not coming in for a bit less than four calendar years.

• 17 Dec 2025 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  I happily give way to my hon. Friend.

• 17 Dec 2025 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  We should make progress. I step back for my final three numbers. Let me briefly set out how some of the long-term decisions the Government are taking are paying off. Figures today show that inflation has fallen to nearly 3%, with wages up more under this Government than in the first decade under the Conservatives. In the past two Budgets, the Government have made the right decisions for the good of the British people. We have focused on improving public services because we know that we were elected to put them right. We have focused on getting living standards up because we were elected to end decline. We have focused on making the right decisions for the long term because we were elected to put to bed the short-term chaos of years gone by. To conclude, my final number is not a partridge in a pear tree but this fantastic country—my No. 1. We are all here to represent and improve this one great country of ours. It is a land full of hope and wonder, particularly at this time of year, with families and friends looking forward to seeing each other over the coming weeks, neighbours who look out for one another, communities who come together at Christmas—which we all want to get to in good time—and people who work hard and who want the state and the economy to work for them in return. Although we disagree on much, I know that right hon. and hon. Members from across the House care deeply about this country of ours, and it deserves our best. Although the Bill is short and has only a few clauses, it is part of a bigger story about a Government who love this country and its people and want the best for it, a Government who are making the right decisions for the national interest, and a Government who are working every day to help everyday Brits get a fairer deal, in every way that we can. With that, I commend the Bill to the House. Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am happy to discuss those numbers with the right hon. Member in more detail, either afterwards or I can come in and discuss those points with him, although I did not quite follow all of the maths— [ Interruption. ] I thank Members on the Conservative Front Bench for their intervention about that. Increasing taxes on online gaming and betting is another change that we are making in the Budget, with the rate for remote gaming increasing from 21% to 40% from April 2026, and the rate of remote betting increasing from 15% to 25% from April 2027, while choosing to protect in-person betting and horseracing, which plays such an important role in our sporting culture and many local economies.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Our proposals on APR and BPR mean that those with business or agricultural assets will have both the additional £1 million allowance and a tax rate that is half the rate that others within the system pay. My understanding is that the system will be more generous than the one in place before 1992, throughout the whole time that Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. We are reforming the Motability scheme to end the VAT relief on top-up payments, which was a one-off payment required to lease more expensive vehicles on the scheme. We are also ending the application of insurance premium tax on leases to ensure that the scheme delivers value for money for the taxpayer, while choosing to continue to support disabled people. We are introducing reforms to ensure that private hire vehicle operators will no longer be able to illegitimately exploit an administrative scheme intended for tour operators to pay a much lower rate of VAT than others.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The OBR was aware of the tax changes announced in the previous Budget when it made its forecast just a few weeks ago. It expects that employment will rise in every year of this forecast; that every year, the figure will be higher than it was in March; and that there will be over 35 million people in work by the end of the decade. As I was saying, this year, borrowing as a share of GDP will be at its lowest level in six years, and the Chancellor made the decision to more than double our headroom against the fiscal rules in this Budget to provide continued economic stability. This Finance Bill, alongside other Budget decisions, delivers choices that give people new opportunities and renew our public services. These choices will help lift thousands of children out of poverty, get more people into work and maintain the highest level of public sector investment in 40 years. I was struck by the response from the North East chamber of commerce, which welcomed the ending of the two-child limit, saying, “The Chancellor is right to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Our members have long argued that this is one of the most powerful levers available to tackle the unacceptable rates of child poverty across our region and to support more parents into sustained and meaningful employment.” Statements like that are further confirmation that lifting 500,000 children out of poverty is not just the right thing to do, in order to give our children the best start in life, but is an investment in the future and our economy. All of us will be better for it. This Government have promised to deliver economic growth as our No. 1 priority.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I, too, welcome that change in the Budget, and I commend my colleague the Economic Secretary to the Treasury for the work she has been doing on that—I am sure we will hear more about it in her closing remarks.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a strong advocate for his constituents and the businesses based in his part of the world. Those businesses contribute significant revenue to the Exchequer, and this Government are asking them to contribute a bit more in order for us to be able to continue to fund our public services in a sustainable way. I will continue to have conversations with him and others about the impact of the changes that the Government are announcing to this sector and others in the Budget and this Bill. Alongside the choices I have mentioned, we are also taking action on the loan charge review. That will include accepting all but one of the recommendations of the independent review, and in some places going further than the review suggested. We are creating a new settlement opportunity to support those with outstanding liabilities to resolve their affairs with HMRC. This marks the start of a final opportunity to draw a line under this long-running issue. I sincerely and dearly hope for everyone involved that we will be able to move forward and that this issue can start to be part of people’s pasts, rather than a seemingly never-ending part of their future. In tandem, we are delivering a package of measures to close in on promoters of marketed tax avoidance and help taxpayers to steer clear of the schemes that they promote. Those measures include a new prohibition on promoting avoidance arrangements that have no realistic prospect of success and new promoter action notices to require businesses to stop providing goods or services to promoters of tax avoidance where they are used in the promotion of avoidance.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention—the first from a Labour Member. I look forward to many more from Labour hon. Friends, as well as Opposition Members. This Government have also chosen to cut Government borrowing every year, so that interest rates, already cut five times since the election, keep falling.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I look forward to contributions from Members on both sides of the House on the various measures in the Finance Bill. On the point that the hon. Member raises, this Government considered really carefully the reforms that were announced at the Budget last year, and have put forward changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief. There is an additional £1 million allowance—an allowance that was made transferable between spouses in this Budget—and also a 50% discount on the inheritance tax rate, so tax on that higher allowance will be at 20%, rather than 40%. As well as making changes to lift children out of poverty, this Government have chosen to increase the national living wage from 1 April 2026 by 4.1% to £12.71 an hour, and to increase the national minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds to £10.85.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. On 26 November, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor delivered her second Budget at this Dispatch Box. This was a Budget to build strong foundations and a secure future for our country, with no cuts to capital spending—which I am sure would have been implemented by the Conservatives, if they were in this financial situation—and no return to austerity, including for public services. This is a Budget about Labour choices.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  If I may, I will try to make some progress so that other hon. Members are able to contribute. This Government are delivering growth and are focused on driving investment in our economy. As I said earlier, whole-economy investment has risen by 4.2% in real terms since the start of the year, outperforming the OBR’s March forecast of a decline of 0.1%. As the shadow Chancellor will know, Britain has outperformed its growth forecast this year, with growth in 2025 upgraded to 1.5% from 1% in March. Beyond growth, this Bill delivers a set of responsible choices that safeguard our economy and prepare us for the future. We have been clear that in order to achieve that we have had to take the decision to ask everyone to contribute more at the end of the decade to protect our public services. After a freeze that was initiated by the previous Government, this Bill maintains income tax thresholds for employees and the self-employed at current levels for a further three years, from April 2028 to April 2031. That is a fair choice. In 2029-30, three-quarters of the revenue from maintaining income tax and employee, self-employed and national insurance contribution thresholds is expected to come from the top half of households. The Bill also takes action to ensure that income from assets is taxed more fairly, raising £2.2 billion in 2029-30 by increasing taxes on property dividend and savings interest income. The Government are narrowing the gap between taxes paid on work and taxes paid on income from assets. At the moment, for example, a tenant will pay national insurance on their income, and a landlord will not. With the extra 2p, we will be closing the gap between tax rates on landlords and on tenants. In 2029-30 around two-thirds of revenue from increases to dividend property and savings interest tax rates is expected to come from the top 20% of households. Importantly, there are choices we have not taken—choices that previous Governments have taken to borrow more in a fiscally irresponsible way, or to return to austerity, which would undermine our economy and society. We have also chosen not to increase the rate of corporation tax, and we have stuck to our corporation tax road map. It is important that those with the broadest shoulders contribute more to protect our vital public services, and the Bill delivers previously announced reforms to tax wealth fairly, including a revised tax regime for carried interest. That sits wholly within the income tax framework to ensure that reward is taxed in line with its economic characteristics, removing the opportunity for individuals to use pensions as a vehicle for inheritance tax by bringing unspent pots into the scope of inheritance tax, and by reforming agricultural property relief and business property relief, while ensuring that any of the £1 million allowance for the 100% rate that is unused will be transferable between spouses and civil partners. Those decisions build on our action in the previous Finance Bill, including abolishing the non-dom tax status, ending tax breaks for private school fees, and raising the rates of capital gains tax. That currently raises £14 billion a year, with revenue expected to more than double to around £30 billion by 2030-31. Fair choices also mean delivering justice for those affected by the infected blood scandal. The Government will extend the existing inheritance tax relief for infected blood compensation payments, so that if an infected or affected person has already died when compensation is paid, inheritance tax relief will instead apply on the death of the first living recipient of the compensation payment. Fair choices in a Finance Bill also mean tackling serious reforms that have been ducked for too long. That means reforming tax reliefs that, while intentioned, have exploded in cost in recent years. This Government are reforming capital gains tax relief, which has allowed wealthy business owners to sell their shares without paying any capital gains tax. We are reducing the relief available for business owners who are selling their businesses to employee ownership trusts from 100% to 50%—a relief that the previous Government expected to cost less than £100 million a year in 2018-19, although published figures now show that the cost of the capital gains tax relief reached £600 million in 2021. Without any action, forecasts suggest that that could rise to more than 20 times the original costing, to £2 billion by 2028-29.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will give way, and then I will try to make some progress, so that other Members can get in.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will have read the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report—we had a bit of extra time to read it this year. He will know that according to that report, investment—both overall, whole-economy investment and private sector investment—has outpaced the OBR’s forecast from March this year. I look forward to returning to those points later. The Budget delivers choices that were fair and necessary—choices that deliver on the public’s priorities, and that bring about the change that this Government promised. This Government have chosen to cut the cost of living, delivering £150 off energy bills and freezing train fares and prescription charges. This Government have chosen to cut NHS waiting lists, delivering 5.2 million more appointments and announcing in the Budget 250 new neighbourhood health centres. This Government have chosen to lift 550,000 children out of relative poverty in this Parliament, by removing the two-child limit, and by expanding free breakfast clubs and free school meal eligibility.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member said that he is not sure whether I believe what I am reading. I did write this myself, and I do very much believe it. We will have plenty of time to debate the business rates measures when we consider the relevant pieces of legislation and in Committee, I am sure. They are not specifically in the Finance (No. 2) Bill, but I am mentioning things that are not in the Bill, so of course, he is welcome to raise things that are in the Budget, too. At Treasury questions last week we discussed at length, with the shadow Front-Bench team and others, the relief and support that is now in the system to help businesses with the increases in valuations they have seen since the pandemic—there is over £4 billion of support over the next few years, with £2 billion coming this year alone. However, I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Madam Deputy Speaker, I thought I might speak for 15 minutes, but we are 11 minutes in and I am only on page 2, so I will try to make some progress. We are sticking to our commitments in the corporate tax road map, maintaining the headline rate of corporation tax—the lowest in the G7—and making reforms to capital allowances to support fiscal sustainability while retaining incentives to invest. We are going further to support companies to scale up and attract investment and talent by significantly expanding the enterprise management incentives company eligibility limits, to maintain the world-leading nature of this scheme. We are doubling the maximum amount that a company can raise through the enterprise investment scheme and venture capital trusts scheme, to make the schemes more generous and supportive for entrepreneurs, helping to support more investment in companies and improve access to finance for those we want to see make the transition from start-up to scale-up. We are delivering a new service to support major investment projects with advance tax certainty, as committed to in the corporate tax road map. We are also introducing a 40% first-year allowance, allowing businesses to immediately write off a significant amount of their investment to reduce their corporation tax or income tax bill in the year that they make that investment. Overall, these growth measures and the many others we are delivering across the Government will result in the doubling of limits for our enterprise tax incentives and will support many scale-ups and businesses to attract capital as they grow. This Finance Bill builds on many other measures announced at the Budget and delivered over this Parliament. We are expanding and continuing the work of the National Wealth Fund. We have committed £14 billion for Sizewell C, to help power more than 6 million homes. We are making rapid progress on enabling the delivery of a third runway at Heathrow, and we have provided £120 billion in additional capital investment for roads, rail and energy, including £15.6 billion for major city regions.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I give way to my constituency neighbour.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I happily give way—I look forward to it.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for his point. We do want to see farming businesses in rural communities and businesses up and down the country investing and growing for the future. On the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief, it is worth noting that the statistics suggest that up to 375 estates a year will be affected—a small proportion of the overall number—and that number has come down from 520, as was forecast at the previous Budget.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  This Budget will lift thousands of children in Scotland out of poverty, because of decisions that we have made. This Government have made £10 billion more spending available to the Scottish Government, yet we still see public services failing up and down Scotland; the NHS is not working as well as it should north of the border.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will give way—persistence pays.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  That is very kind of my hon. Friend. I know that he and others on all sides of the House have made representations over many years on behalf of their constituents affected by the loan charge. I have met some of those affected and members of the all-party parliamentary group. In the months that I have been in this role, having been appointed only on 1 September, I have worked hard to ensure that we come forward with proposals that I hope will help to draw a line under this issue. I hope that those affected can see we have a reasonable and fair set of proposals that will help those who were subject to the loan charge to be able to come forward and to settle; I really encourage those individuals to come forward. Alongside those changes, we are making steps to continue to close the tax gap by closing loopholes and removing barriers to ensure that people pay the tax that they owe, including raising an additional £2.4 billion in ’29-30 by introducing further reforms to pursue those who bend or break the rules to collect more unpaid taxes. We are also going to modernise the tax system to make it easier for taxpayers to get their tax right the first time. With the choices delivered in this Finance Bill, that will bring the total additional revenue raised by closing the tax gap in this Parliament to £10 billion by 2029-30. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has spoken about this Budget being “a package, not a pick-and-mix”, and that is so important for our public finances and our public services. Through this Bill, we are choosing to deliver long-overdue reforms to update our tax system so that it can work for a modern, dynamic and thriving economy, and funding vital policies such as the removal of the two-child limit, which will lift half a million children out of poverty. This Bill is about delivering on choices: choices to protect working people; choices to cut energy bills, and to freeze train fares and prescription charges; choices to boost wages and reduce poverty; and choices to cut inflation to bring down mortgage costs. It delivers the Government’s commitment to this country to build a stronger and fairer economy in which living standards rise, to see child poverty fall, and to ensure that public services are improved up and down the country. With every measure in this Finance Bill being geared towards that goal, I commend this Bill to the House.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I give way to the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), who was the first to catch my eye on that occasion.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  Indeed; I heard the point of order loud and clear. It is worth remembering that this is an Opposition day debate—I think it is within the remit to talk about the Opposition and the fact that they have lost all their players to the other team. I also think it is time to move on from talking about process, because on this side of the House, we have a country to run, an economy to build and public services to mend. Instead of this subject, we could have talked about whether it is right to raise wages for those on the lowest incomes, but the Opposition did not want to bring that up. Maybe that is because wages have risen faster in the first 10 months of this Government than they did in the first decade of the Conservative Government, or maybe it is because it turns out that their latest policy is a real-terms cut to the living wage. We could have talked about the cost of living, but again, the Conservatives did not choose that as a topic because its mini-Budget crashed the economy and added thousands of pounds to mortgages, and since this Government have come to power, the Bank of England has cut interest rates.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Too many Conservative Members defended the mini-Budget, which crashed the economy and added thousands of pounds to mortgages. In contrast, since this Government have come to power, the Bank of England has cut interest rates five times, taking £1,200 off a typical two-year fixed rate mortgage. At this Budget, we cut £150 from the average energy bill, froze rail fares and prescription charges, and extended bus fare caps and fuel duty cuts, but the Conservatives do not want to talk about that either. They could have chosen in their Opposition day debate to talk about fiscal stability and increased headroom, but again, they chose not to do that because of the £21.7 billion of headroom that the Chancellor secured at the Budget, which will help protect our country from global shocks and unforeseen challenges. Of course, the Conservatives do not want to talk about child poverty either because they know that this Budget has lifted 550,000 children out of poverty, whereas the last Government were content to leave them, preferring instead to rebrand the hungry children who they let down while in power as benefit scroungers. They should be treated as our future, not as our opponent. I have a couple more minutes, so let me address some of the points made during the debate. I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), for engaging on policy. We have had conversations on business rates already this week, and I am sure that we will have more. We have begun the work to rebalance the system with a £900 million switch from the highest value properties to those on the high streets. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) for his Thatcher quote. It was a good quote that bears repeating. She said, “I always cheer up immensely…if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” I thank the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) for going through every single tax change and saying that she opposes them all. That is the sort of opposition we have got used to. Rather than constructive opposition, which comes forward with proposals that would raise revenue in a fair way, such as the changes on electric vehicle excise duty, which will stop us losing £12 billion of fuel duty revenue in the coming years, we just hear, “No, no, no,” over and over again. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher). His experience in economics is richly valued in this place, and I enjoyed his speech, as I always do. Finally, it has been a short debate, has it not, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am glad that the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) took the time during the debate to read the Labour manifesto—that was much appreciated—and that he was able to clarify for the House that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary was right to say that we have stuck to our manifesto commitment.