Jack Rankin MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 16 Dec 2025 · Budget 2025: Impact on Graduates · Hansard source

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  I intend to get to the implications of plan 2 loans—both the freeze in the threshold for repayment and the freezing of the interest rates in a falling-interest-rates environment. I think the hon. Gentleman will find in the Budget papers that that raises about as much money as the mansion tax does, for example. I think that is deeply unfair. More broadly, what is the incentive structure here? Are we not punishing some of our most productive people? Of course many people across the country have it worse, but the point is that Nick, Henry or Henrietta should not have to apologise for striving and being ambitious. After all, it is their tax money that is used to prop up the welfare state, whether that involves benefits, pensions or housing illegal migrants. But they are the lucky ones; we now have about 1 million young people not in work, education or training. Worse still, we have 400,000 graduates claiming out-of-work benefits. I hear from graduates in my constituency who have applied for hundreds of jobs but get rejected or hear nothing at all. At the end of 2024, the Institute of Student Employers found that, on average, organisations were receiving 140 applications per job.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Budget 2025: Impact on Graduates · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of the Autumn Budget 2025 on graduates. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the Minister for taking time from his busy schedule to attend the debate today. I will start by painting a picture of two graduates at two different points in their lives—both taxed to death. Let us start with Nick, now 30. He has done all the right things. He got his GCSEs and A-levels, went to a Russell Group university, secured a place on a decent graduate scheme—in London and the south-east perhaps—and has even got himself a lovely girlfriend. Yet Labour’s most recent Budget will see his student loan repayments increase. His rent will go up. He will end up paying more tax because of the freeze on income tax thresholds. At work, his company is making redundancies and blaming rising employer’s national insurance. He cannot buy a house. His finances are pushed to the edge every month, yet a family on his road receiving benefits seem to enjoy the same quality of life without ever leaving the house. The Centre for Social Justice found that someone would need pre-tax earnings of £71,000 a year to match the disposable income of a family with three children and receiving benefits. Even if Nick earns more, as a headline figure, than someone on benefits, he faces so many extra costs—for commuting, council tax, rent and suits for work—that his disposable income will end up being very similar to, if not less than, that of someone who sits at home. In my view, Nick has every right to feel aggrieved. Writing in the Telegraph at the weekend, I estimated that a young person earning £40,000 a year and renting in my constituency is left with less than £500 a month in disposable income after reasonable expenses. Then there is Henry, or Henrietta—a high earner, not rich yet—who is perhaps slightly older, and might have excelled working in engineering or a tech start-up. Yes, they may have more disposable income, but often they are still far from financially free. We are seeing a bubble in the data for younger professionals earning just under £100,000, because crossing that threshold, for a parent of two, could well mean a £20,000 tax hit due to the high income child benefit charge and the withdrawal of child support.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Budget 2025: Impact on Graduates · Hansard source

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  I am not sure that I agree 100% with the hon. Member. I suspect that, in this country, we are sending too many people to university, and we should have a higher focus on higher quality courses and courses that add economic value, while investing some of the money saved in apprenticeships. But I take the hon. Member’s point, which he makes well. There are hundreds of people, like Nick, who have done everything the right way—just as the system told them to—but who are not seeing the results in their lives. We have a huge disenfranchised cohort of young people, ranging from Gen Zers who have just graduated to millennial young professionals who are trying to get on and start a family. I am afraid that many are now voting with their feet. In the last year to March, 176,000 people aged 16 to 34 left Britain. Net migration may be down, but that is only because young Brits are fleeing the country under this Government. This is a national crisis, and it is really a question about the future of our country. If young people do not think they can thrive, they will not put down roots and have families, and there will be no next generation to fund the pensions and public services of the future that we will all rely on. That feeling of disillusionment has not come around by accident. I would not pretend to the Minister, who gives as good as he gets, that my party delivered in some of these areas, particularly in house building and the intergenerational compact, but the past two Budgets have made things demonstrably worse. The increase to employer’s national insurance in the first Budget created a freeze on hiring, and saw vacancies down and unemployment up. The Office for Budget Responsibility has shown that this could cost almost 50,000 jobs, and stats out today show that unemployment has risen to 5.1%. Increasing the national minimum wage has an impact on hiring and it further squeezes those on middle incomes. It could mean that baristas and shop assistants are dragged into paying back their student loans despite seeing no benefit from the so-called graduate premium. At this year’s Budget, the Government raised £26 billion on the backs of working people. If the Minister will not take it from me, maybe he will take it from the Resolution Foundation, which found that a worker on £35,000 a year will be £1,400 poorer because of the freeze. It also raised concerns about the negative impact of increasing the minimum wage on levels of employment. The most directly damaging policy is the latest changes to student loans, which have largely gone under the radar. Freezing the threshold for repayment will mean that as graduates’ starting salaries increase with inflation, they will end up paying more and earlier. There are also the perverse disincentives whereby those on plan 2 loans who earn more than £50,270 per year will pay a higher interest rate of 6% RPI—retail prices index—plus 3%. This means that they will have to earn up to £65,000 before they start paying off the actual loan, rather than simply the interest accumulating on it. They are being punished for success. That interest rate freeze, in an environment where rates are falling, is unjustifiable. Even the New Statesman has been critical of the grad tax, making the point that it will raise roughly the same amount as the mansion tax. Do the Government really see graduate workers as rich or as having the broadest shoulders? They are not being asked to chip in; they are being bled out. Moreover, the Minister and I may have different political perspectives, but an idiot he is not. He knows that national insurance for landlords will be passed straight on to rents, walloping exactly the same people. All those choices will affect recent graduates: the Intergenerational Foundation estimate that they will pay an extra £24,500 on average as a result of this year’s Budget. But young people everywhere still want what young people everywhere have always wanted—the chance to own a home, start a family, be productive and get on in life. I want to articulate a centre-right approach where we reform welfare, saving £23 billion, and cut anti-growth taxes such as stamp duty to galvanise the housing market. I have also been pushing for the liberalisation of planning reform and a bonfire of regulation to give young people a future to believe in. In the light of that, I have several questions to put to the Minister on behalf of all the Nicks, Henrys and Henriettas out there. What message does it send to graduates when their taxes and student loan repayments increase while those on benefits get more? How can the Government explain record low house building in London while some on benefits live in council properties in London worth more than £2 million? What would he say to the young people who are considering leaving these shores because they do not feel that they can get on in life, buy a home and start a family here in Britain? And what risks does he perceive in the impact of the anti-graduate approach on future productivity, and really, the future financial stability of this country?

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

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  My right hon. Friend makes a good case for Conservative economics. Does he agree that the Government have made some wrong-footed changes to non-dom status in their two years in office so far, and that they will damage investment and growth? Not only is that a development that Conservative Members do not want to see, but the Government’s forecasts rely on £34 billion of revenue from these people. Does my hon. Friend agree that they should think again about the wisdom of these changes?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Budget: Work Incentives · Hansard source

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  4. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the autumn Budget 2025 on levels of incentives to work.

• 9 Dec 2025 · Budget: Work Incentives · Hansard source

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  Having 1 million young people not in work, education or training and 2.8 million people out of work on long-term sickness benefits is both a financial catastrophe and a moral failure. The Prime Minister has rightly said that it is his moral mission to get young people into work, but how does the Minister square that with two Budgets that have hiked taxes on working people by £66 billion while giving a pay rise to those on benefits?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Catapults and Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), and my constituency neighbour, for securing this important debate. Without it, I doubt that I would have the chance to raise in Parliament an issue that is extremely important to my constituents in Windsor, Eton, Datchet, Horton, Old Windsor and Wraysbury, where his constituency and mine border each another. In particular, I will focus on a recent series of heinous offences that has touched many of my constituents—that is, I am afraid to say, the callous murder of swans with high-velocity catapults. Swans are an iconic symbol of Windsor and of this country. They are the king’s birds. The yearly tradition of swan upping is a great community event, with all the mute swans along the Thames being counted and given a health check. As such, swans are treated with reverence—like royalty—in my community and across this country. I have visited local swan charities and seen the work that they do to nurse swans back to full health and get these beautiful animals back in the water, where they should be. That is what creates such affection between these animals and our community. Having met the brilliant Wendy Hermon at Swan Support, an outstanding local charity, I have seen at first hand just how much she cares for swans and other precious Thames wildlife. Unfortunately, during my recent visit, Wendy had to detail to me the most recent horrific slaughter in Old Windsor of a proud male swan affectionately named Pete, who had a mate and multiple cygnets, which, sadly, have now been left behind. Having seen these birds up close, we all know that swans are truly magnificent animals, and to see images of them floating dead on the water provokes a feeling of real sadness and, frankly, outrage. Why anybody would do such a thing is beyond me. It is completely unnecessary, and it is barbarous. I also have fears about the individuals who carry out such acts, presumably in a group setting, egging one another on, and presumably for the benefit of social media. Where does that antisocial urge end, and what could it possibly escalate to? Recently, a cat was killed in Datchet. We need to nip this in the bud before it becomes people next. Back in April, we had a really productive meeting. It was called by Swan Support and hosted by Eton town council. We were joined by the police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley, the King’s swan upper, Eton town councillors and a local royal borough councillor. We concluded at the time that the royal borough should introduce a public space protection order, which would give the police the power to challenge people, issue a fine and seize catapults, in the right instances. We thought that that was the best way forward. However, I am sorry to say that in the following five months it seems like little progress has been made. That is typical in the royal borough for something not involving Maidenhead. Runnymede borough council has been receptive and is cracking on, and I know that Spelthorne borough council, in the constituency of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Spelthorne, has already been successful. I am, however, glad to say that after the excellent work of Wendy at Swan Support, and others pushing the royal borough, the consultation on a PSPO banning the carrying of catapults in Windsor, Eton, Old Windsor, Datchet, Horton and Wraysbury has finally opened. I urge as many of my constituents as possible to respond to it on the RBWM Together website. I hope to see the ban introduced after the consultation ends on 8 January. As it stands, a police officer could see a group of youths—I am afraid to say that in my constituency it is often youths from the Traveller community—walking around the town with catapults, clearly not using them for fishing bait, and yet be pretty powerless to confiscate them. That must change. I look forward to hearing from the Minister what more can be done to cut down on antisocial behaviour and the misuse of catapults, so that my constituents can have peace of mind and our swans can be protected. I hope she will join me in urging the royal borough to do the right thing and introduce the PSPO.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q10. The Prime Minister has expressed “sincere regret” for appointing David Kogan as Independent Football Regulator. Will he now put on record the full amount that Mr Kogan has donated to his leadership campaign and his party, any hospitality he has received, and whether he declared these interests before appointing him?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Old Windsor is a small village in my constituency with an approved premises that has morphed to include high-risk offenders. It causes problems. Does the Minister agree that, first, probation services have responsibility for residents’ behaviour when they are outside that facility and, secondly, the police should have more focus on Old Windsor than they might otherwise have, given the location of that facility?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

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  The Justice Secretary’s team say that he found out about the accidental release of Algerian sex offender Kaddour-Cherif on Tuesday evening. He contradicted them by saying he only learned of it on Wednesday morning. He said at PMQs that he had been busy shopping for a suit that morning. Did the Lord Chancellor spend any time at all shopping for a suit after he was told about that prisoner’s release?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Diversity, Equality and Inclusion: Public Sector · Hansard source

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  4. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of diversity, equality and inclusion schemes in the public sector.

• 5 Nov 2025 · Diversity, Equality and Inclusion: Public Sector · Hansard source

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  Earlier this year, the Education Secretary said that white working-class boys “have been betrayed”, yet this summer, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ ran an internship scheme that was open only to people from ethnic minority backgrounds. I am afraid the House of Commons runs a similar scheme, in partnership with the Windsor Fellowship. What message does the Minister think it sends to our children when some doors are closed to them because of the colour of their skin, particularly in the context of what the Education Secretary said about white working-class boys?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Remote Betting and Gaming Duty: Horseracing · Hansard source

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  Both Ascot and Royal Windsor racecourses are incredibly important to my constituency. I have visited both, and I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. On this issue, I urge the Minister to heed warnings from across the House and, more importantly, the industry. I cautiously welcome the briefing to The Telegraph at the weekend. Racing should be treated very differently from online casinos and gaming. Can he assure the House that taxes on horse and greyhound race flutters will not increase?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. It goes beyond that, because a lot of hospitality jobs are the first jobs that people do. We talk about youth unemployment; we need to get people into the pattern of earning a living, and to enable them to gain the softer skills of serving customers and getting up on time. As we all know, that is so important to young people’s development. That is a problem not only now but for the future. What do my landlords, hotel managers and businesses on the high street tell me their biggest problem is? Business rates. That is why I welcome my party’s commitment to permanently scrapping business rates for all retail, leisure and hospitality businesses up to a £110,000 cap.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  The point was well made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) that there are people who benefit from the minimum wage and new rights, but thousands of jobs will never exist as a result of the measures. We have to be cognisant of that in this House. All those measures are incompatible with a thriving high street and any aspiration to bring down welfare spending, as they are all job killers.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  Every MP in this place thinks that they have the best constituency in the United Kingdom, but I am afraid that only one of us can be correct. Perhaps with the exception of Romsey and Southampton North, Madam Deputy Speaker, the best constituency must be Windsor, with its beautiful towns and villages. As well as our green spaces, including the Great Park, which has been in the news slightly more than we might like of late, and our heritage, we also have our high streets, our small businesses and our hospitality crown jewels, which range from Ascot racecourse, Royal Windsor racecourse and Legoland to smaller attractions, such as the Windsor Museum, French Brothers boat trips along the Thames, and Windsor Carriages. Because of the Windsor constituency’s exceptional features, it has some of the greatest high streets anywhere in the country. Our hospitality businesses turn over £600 million every year—one of the highest figures outside London—and the industry employs over 10,000 people locally. A huge part of that is down to tourism. People come from all over the world to walk through our town, and to enjoy refreshments after exploring Windsor castle or working up a thirst on a long walk. The most recent statistics from the excellent Visit Windsor team highlight that 12.2% of the borough’s population are employed as a result of tourism. It is no surprise that one in 10 people in Windsor rely on the industry to make a living. There is a whole ecosystem of retail, hospitality and hotels that makes up the economic background of my town. All that stimulates the brilliant high streets and venues that make up our towns and villages. They are the subject of the debate, and I am afraid that all of them are feeling the pinch under this Labour Government. My constituency goes well beyond its namesake town. That was evidenced in my most recent “best pub” competition. Over 32 pubs were put forward from across the constituency, and hundreds of my constituents voted. It is only right to give special mention to the winner, The Swan in Clewer village, which is a great example of a community-led pub. I will not have time to talk about everything that makes The Swan special, but it has the Green Room school for special needs pupils, the Windsor cycle hub, a “chatter and natter” to tackle loneliness and social isolation, board games, the Stitch Gang for knitters, and a dog walkers’ group. However, the landlord, Mickey Foden-Andrews, whom I have met multiple times, stressed that while The Swan is well loved and used by the whole community, it is feeling all the pressures on our treasured pub industry, including from increased VAT, beer duty, business rates and now the extended producer responsibility tax. I am sure that we have all been guilty of complaining about the cost of a pint, but we must recognise the huge overheads that pubs face just to keep their doors open, which include paying their staff, soaring electricity prices and alcohol duties. The increase in national insurance in last year’s Budget compounded all those pressures and hit the hospitality sector hard. The sector has suffered more than half—85,000—of all British job losses since the last Budget. Pubs like The Swan provide a public service by bringing people together, letting neighbours check in on one another, hosting events and being a place to hash out ideas or discuss the politics of the day. On all my visits to pubs, hospitality and other high-street businesses, I hear that they are struggling, and Windsor is a relatively prosperous place with a clear unique selling point, so I am sure that such businesses will be struggling everywhere. That should come as no surprise. The increase in the minimum wage and national insurance, and the so-called new workers’ rights that are being brought in, are all incompatible with thriving high streets.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that I do not have time. That would lift 250,000 businesses out of business rates altogether, and it would provide essential relief to keep businesses afloat and money flowing through the local economy. The proposal is fully costed and follows our new golden economic rule.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is right, as always. The best way to back workers in this country is to back our small businesses, and our hospitality businesses in particular, which provide so many jobs to our constituents.

• 28 Oct 2025 · UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago: Funding · Hansard source

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  12. How much and what proportion of the funding due to be allocated to Mauritius as part of the agreement concerning the Chagos archipelago will come from her Department’s budget.

• 28 Oct 2025 · UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago: Funding · Hansard source

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  In what proportion?

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

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  I agree with the hon. Member wholeheartedly, and he is making an excellent speech, but I would gently say that lots of us in the shires who face Liberal Democrats in our constituencies get leaflets from his colleagues that oppose building almost anywhere, ever. What would he say about that to some of his colleagues?

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

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  My hon. Friend is quite right. Although we are at risk of picking apart the Budget in its entirety, I would suggest that giving away our sovereign land and paying for the privilege might not be a great thing to do at any time, but particularly in a fiscally constrained environment. Despite having to have a reasonable answer on the question of cost, which I will get to later in my remarks, Conservative Members should not be shy when it comes to talking about some of the other positive fiscal benefits that abolishing stamp duty would yield. One area in which we Conservatives have not done as well as we could is that of making the positive, dynamic argument for some tax cuts, because every move in the housing market engages a raft of removers, decorators, window cleaners, gardeners, plumbers and electricians. Do those sound like the kind of people who could be described as “the rich”, as we have heard from Labour Members? These are real working people with decent jobs, generating income for the Exchequer through VAT, income tax and national insurance, and we should not be shy about saying that. If we are lucky, abolishing stamp duty might also lead to a reduction in welfare spending through job creation. There are also gains that cannot be recorded in a spreadsheet. Those include families such as mine moving into homes that are the right size for them, and pensioners rightsizing—some people have used downsizing, but I think rightsizing is the better word—to be closer to their grandchildren, which might provide childcare support for young families. They also include economic and social mobility, such as taking a promotion in a new area. Those things might not show up on a Treasury balance sheet, but they are really important things for our society. Cutting stamp duty would generate extra revenue for the Treasury in myriad ways that we should be happy to talk about. That said, as a credible Opposition, we still need to cost this policy. That is why, as we have heard already in this debate, the Conservative party has found £47 billion of savings, all while being able to honour our golden economic rule. That economic rule says that the majority of public sector spending reductions that we identify must go on deficit reduction. As a policy, the abolition of stamp duty aligns with many of the principles that those of us on the Opposition Benches hold dear to our hearts. It rewards ambition, it unlocks free markets, and it lowers the tax burden on families. Labour will not make any difference on housing because it is just too conflicted. Fixing the housing market needs holistic solutions. We cannot talk about improving the housing market with the levels of migration that we currently have. We cannot talk about improving the housing market while overseeing record low house building numbers in London, as our developers are strangled in regulation. We need a holistic solution. We need to abolish stamp duty. We need to end mass migration. We need, I am afraid to say, to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants. I look forward to seeing more ambition from the Opposition on reforming our planning system. That is part of a vision for my party, and I am proud to be a part of it. However, it is not a new vision. Home ownership and supply-side reforms have been at the centre of the Conservative vision throughout our storied history, whether that is Stanley Baldwin, Harold Macmillan or Mrs Thatcher. It is a moral mission to support young aspirant people through these important gateways of life. Buying your own home and starting a family—these are the building blocks of all our communities. Abolishing stamp duty in this costed way will give people the keys to their own futures and secure the future of this country.

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

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  Will the hon. Member reflect on the fact that one in six people in this country on universal credit are not British citizens? How would he justify that to his constituents?

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

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  I bet my hon. Friend does—she should declare an interest!

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

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  I would say that I hope the hon. Member in question is closer to this Budget, but having listened to some of his other utterances, perhaps most of us on the Conservative Benches would not hope for that. Never mind! The main criticism we have heard from Government Members, which is a fair criticism, is that of cost. There has been some constructive criticism from Labour Members who have agreed that stamp duty is a bad tax, but have then said that cost is the problem. They should be a little bit self-aware about that, because one of the reasons we are in such a fiscally precarious place is that some of the decisions the Government made in their previous Budget have put us in something of a fiscal doom loop, which we do not seem to have any chance of escaping.