David Pinto-Duschinsky MP: speeches

Speeches

• 28 Apr 2026 · Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges · Hansard source

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  Appointing Peter Mandelson was wrong, and, as with any debate on this subject, we should start by acknowledging the suffering of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. They have my full solidarity. However, I have listened closely to what has been said by Opposition Members during the debate, and I think we need to call their behaviour what it is: political game playing of the lowest order. Politics is a circus for the Opposition. They thrive on the use of politics as a soap opera, because it is all they know. That is why the public grew so heartily sick of them, and it is precisely why so many of their former colleagues no longer sit on their Benches. Just weeks ago, their leader showed a catastrophic failure of leadership in calling for this country to rush to war. When she spoke then, she had no underlying strategy, and she did not focus on what was right for the country. Clearly she has learned nothing from that. Her cynicism becomes clear now, when we peel back the rhetoric and expose the lack of substance behind her arguments. Peter Mandelson was dismissed last September, and rightly so. The Prime Minister has already acknowledged that his appointment was a mistake. Senior civil servants, including Olly Robbins, Chris Wormald and Cat Little, have all made it clear that due process was followed in that appointment. Olly Robbins has said that no one from No. 10 ever spoke to him or messaged him to apply pressure, and Philip Barton has today confirmed that there was no pressure on the substance of the vetting. I want to deal directly with the sequence of vetting. I have been through developed vetting. I have been through security vetting numerous times, and it is completely standard procedure to make offers of jobs contingent on passing security. On this point, as on other points, there is simply no case to answer.

• 12 Mar 2026 · Job Creation · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. Communities like mine in Hendon were let down by 14 years of economic instability and the lack of a strategic approach to driving growth under the Conservative party. Will the Secretary of State set out how our modern industrial strategy will help to accelerate growth in places like Hendon?

• 12 Mar 2026 · Job Creation · Hansard source

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  5. What steps he is taking to support the creation of well-paid jobs.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Mill Hill Broadway is Barnet’s busiest station, but its steep flight of stairs means that people with mobility issues struggle to use it. Sadly, its lack of accessibility has already had tragic consequences: Priscilla Tropp died after falling at the station. Step-free access at Mill Hill Broadway is essential. The previous Government promised to install lifts at the station but failed to deliver time and time again. Under this Government, progress is finally being made and detailed designs are being worked up. I urge the Department for Transport to give final approval once the design phase is complete. Will the Leader of the House make time available for a debate on the importance of making our transport network more accessible?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member acknowledge that employment under this Labour Government is higher than it was under the last Conservative Government, with an average of 75%? Will he therefore apologise for his comments?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 1 Dec 2025 · Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts · Hansard source

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  Like many other Members, I have been shocked by the early release of the OBR’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” report, as this kind of error risks compromising the integrity of the Budget process in moving markets. The evidence that has now emerged that this was not the first time that the OBR forecast was accessed prematurely owing to systematic failures in its own cyber-security, is simply unforgivable. Given this appalling failure, which the chair of the OBR himself acknowledges is the worst failure in the organisation’s history, can the Minister tell the House what he thinks it would take for the chair of the OBR to resign?

• 28 Oct 2025 · Stamp Duty Land Tax · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member says that owning a home gives people a stake in their community, and I agree with him. Why then does his party oppose this Government’s moves to help build 1.5 million homes and reform the planning system?

• 2 Sept 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Patrick, we have heard loud and clear your message that getting the value for money framework right is at the core of this. The Bill aims to put that on a sound footing. Which elements are required to get it right? How do you think the Bill will help to build them up? Patrick Heath-Lay: As a package, the Bill brings forward the concept of value for money in a general sense. We need to move the conversation in our industry, particularly the conversation around workplace pensions, to the subject of value. We are all here to deliver value for members. The bit that always gets a lot of conversation is what value really means, but you cannot walk past the three fundamental drivers of a pension proposition, which are the investment return we give our members, what we charge them for it, and how our service shows up for them, probably in those moments of truth when they need us for guidance. Those are the three core elements to value, which we should not walk past. We see this as an incredibly important area. I certainly believe that we should try to get this right as an industry, as best we can, from day one, because I think that it will be an important measure that we—regulators, Government, everyone—will lean on to understand how these reforms are playing through. As an organisation, we have led a pound-for-pound initiative that others have joined. We brought in expertise from Australia, which is about 20 years ahead of us, and brought together a group of providers that are effectively going to dry-run some value for money measures and utilise that concept to provide some findings to regulators and Government that will hopefully help the iteration of our value for money framework. We really do see this framework as an important area, and I would like to see those three elements at its core. Ian Cornelius: The focus on value has to be the right thing for our members. That is what they care about; that is what we are here for. There is some complexity to work through, such as how you measure value and what timeline you measure it over. Quite lot of engagement is required. We are piloting and trialling it; we almost certainly will not get it right the first time. It will be important to make it as practical and simple as possible. As Patrick said, it has real potential, in combination with the rest of the Bill, to shift the focus from cost to value. In the past, there has undoubtedly been too much focus on cost and not enough on value.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Pension Schemes Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q How do you see the Bill helping? Councillor Phillips: From that point of view, it is very helpful. Because we are a very transparent pension fund, pressure will be put on some of the pools to make sure that their workings are done in a transparent manner. They are now, but there will be even more pressure because lobby groups will go straight to them rather than the funds. Consolidation with regard to administration is not quite so easy. The last consolidation was between Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, and that was with maximum co-operation on both sides. This is a very well administered scheme, but bringing two administration authorities together is quite challenging. It needs to be done with co-operation and collaboration, never with a big stick behind it. Certainly in London, there is a case for some rationalisation of the number of funds, and there is always going to be an issue about some of the smaller funds as they deal with it, but pooling is not just about consolidating your investments. It also brings the opportunity for the member funds that own the pools to start working more collaboratively, particularly on things like communications and other areas of work. There is great potential there. One of the things that the scheme advisory board is very keen to do is to make sure we develop and grow those chairs of funds to be the competent leaders that they are, and make them even better. Robert McInroy: I think you were asking about the challenges of implementation. It is easy to see the direction on this and to think that there is not much change for the LGPS. There is a huge magnitude of change in these reforms. The LGPS funds and the pools already have a very full to-do list. They have stretched resources. They are asked to deliver an awful lot in a short period of time. They are transferring all of the remaining assets from the funds to the pools—there is still about 30% of those assets to come across in a short period of time. Two pools have been asked to change their operating model to be FCA-regulated. Every pool has been asked to build advisory functions—that is all from scratch, apart from one. They have been asked to build local investment capabilities as well, which is of paramount importance to be able to kick-start and contribute to the UK economy, and to implement some of these governance reforms, and now we know that two of the pools are being asked to wind up, so there is £100 billion of assets to transfer, which is implicated across 21 funds. That is a huge amount to do under any timescale. Some of what is envisaged in the consultation is that this would be completed in a little over six months’ time. That puts risk on some of these reforms, and I think that should be recognised.

• 15 Jul 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  This is the Government who got trade deals that the Conservative party failed to do, and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. Are you saying that you would not have signed those deals? Are you saying—

• 9 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak against amendment (a) to amendment 2, amendments 45 and 52, and new clause 12. The creation of the modern welfare state by the 1945 Labour Government remains one of our proudest legacies. At its heart was the powerful idea that people should be protected from hardship and supported to realise their full potential. Underpinning that vision was a clear principle: everyone who can work should work, not just for the dignity and agency work brings, but because it is the most effective route out of poverty. Children in workless households are five times more likely to grow up poor than those in households where every adult works. That principle holds true today, but it is under strain. One in 10 working-age people is out of the labour market; among young people, that figure is one in eight. This is not a global trend, but a challenge unique to the UK, rooted in the welfare system’s design. Too often, that system locks people with health conditions and disabilities out of work; too often, it penalises attempts to get ahead and fails to offer real support; too often, it writes people off. Disabled people in the UK have an employment rate 29% lower than those without disabilities and face a wider unemployment gap than many of their international peers. Their poverty rate is 10% higher. This is not compassion. We owe it to these individuals and to the welfare state’s founding principles to fix this problem. We cannot avoid change or fall back on impractical slogans—to do so would be to abandon those who most need help. Yet that is what these amendments and new clauses do. I shall start with amendments 45 and 52 and new clause 12, tabled by the Opposition, whose Benches are empty. These measures reveal a lack of seriousness and of a plan. The Tories presided over this crisis of opportunity and soaring claimancy. They failed to reform the system, to address the disability employment gap or to tackle fraud, which tripled on their watch. Throughout this debate, they have been unable to explain their alternative—the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), whom it is good to see in his place, recently admitted as much, saying that he could not say exactly what he would do—so they resort to gimmicks. Amendment 45 demands that all assessments be face-to-face, forgetting that it was the Conservatives who cut face-to-face assessments by 90%. If there were an Olympic event for brass neck, they would win the gold medal every time. This proposal is unworkable, denying frontline managers discretion—a fact the Conservatives essentially admit in the small print. It is also unnecessary; unlike the Conservatives in government, this Government are restoring most assessments back to being face-to-face. The same applies to amendment 52 and new clause 12. PIP already has strict residency and qualification rules and is needs based. These proposals would not effect meaningful change, but would slow down reform. Once again, this is gesture politics—the Conservatives do not have a plan. While the Opposition admit a problem but offer no plan, amendment (a) to amendment 2 seems, I fear, to deny that there is a problem at all, proposing simply to remove all changes to the LCWRA. The changes those behind the amendment want to scrap are vital to rebalancing the system, which will not just remove disincentives to work but enable the largest above-inflation increase in basic jobseeker benefits since the 1970s. These benefits will rise £725 a year for 6.5 million people by 2029, helping 15,000 people in my constituency. Removing these changes risks losing measures that would lift 50,000 children out of poverty. None of this is easy. We are talking about real lives, not abstract policies. I understand the anxiety this debate causes, but freezing the system in aspic and ignoring its failings would lock in current injustices and create future problems. We should start reform by reaffirming the system’s basic purpose: to protect and treat all with dignity, but also to empower people and give them true agency. That means recognising that some cannot work, ensuring protection for the vulnerable, and listening to and co-producing with disabled people. However, it also means ensuring that those who can work do so, offering support and holding employers to account. I believe that the Government’s proposals do so. Just as Attlee’s Government reimagined the role of the state after the war, so we must reimagine it now after the upheavals of the pandemic, economic change and rising ill health. The world has changed, and our welfare system must do so too. We must reform the system—not in spite of Labour values, but because of them.