Jeremy Hunt MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 May 2025 · Surrey Hills National Landscape · Hansard source

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  On VE Day, I remember the role of Dunsfold aerodrome in my constituency, which played a vital role in the battle of Britain. I thank the Minister for her response. She knows that the proposed expansion of the Surrey hills national landscape will have a huge impact by improving biodiversity and natural protection in villages such as Dunsfold, Tongham, Bramley, Wonersh and Shamley Green in my constituency. Before she makes the final decision on whether to go ahead, will she spare the time to meet me so I can explain to her just how important the expansion is to my constituents?

• 20 Mar 2025 · Sewage Discharge Reduction: Water Company Investment · Hansard source

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  2. What recent discussions he has had with Ofwat on encouraging water companies to increase investment in sewage discharge reduction measures.

• 20 Mar 2025 · Sewage Discharge Reduction: Water Company Investment · Hansard source

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  I wish you a happy World Sparrow Day, Madam Deputy Speaker. In Bramley in my constituency in 2023, sewage was spilled into the local river for 59 hours. In Godalming, the figure was 83 hours; in Chiddingfold, it was 410 hours; and in Cranleigh, it was 691 hours. That is the equivalent of nearly two hours every single day—it is totally unacceptable. As a result, last year, after pressure from me and others, Thames Water agreed to invest £400 million by the end of next year. Will the Secretary of State meet me and the chief executive of Thames Water to see whether that money is actually being spent?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Income tax (charge) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to open this day of the Budget debate with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, for what will be my last contribution as shadow Chancellor. I am aware that may be a relief to Members on the Government Benches, and possibly to those on the Opposition Benches as well. Yesterday’s Budget was the biggest tax-raising Budget in British history. It was a huge tax on business and takes our tax burden up to German levels for the first time. After the pandemic, the previous Government also put up taxes, but we started to bring them down, because higher tax leads to lower growth. Indeed, the Office for Budget Responsibility said that yesterday’s £40 billion of tax rises would lead to lower pay, lower living standards, higher prices and more expensive mortgages. Without remorse and without hesitation, a triumphalist Government have ripped up the pre-election promises that they made in the biggest ever assault on our economic competitiveness since the 1970s. Let us look at the promises cast aside so casually. The Chancellor said that she would not change the debt target, because she was “not going to fiddle the figures or make something different to get better results”. Yesterday, she did exactly that. In May she said that Labour policy “will be fully costed and fully funded. No ifs, no ands, no buts”— and no additional tax rises. A total of 30 times this year, she promised not to do exactly what she did yesterday. She even said that she wanted to bring the burden of tax down. Ordinary families, small businesses and working people believed her. Yesterday, they were betrayed. It went further. When we said in the election that taxes would go up by £2,000 per household over four years, the Leader of the Opposition at the time accused the then Prime Minister of a deliberate lie. Three months on, they will go up not by £2,000 over four years, but by £2,000 every year. Paul Johnson called it a “straightforward breach of a manifesto commitment”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has today said: “The continued pretence that these changes will not affect working people risks further undermining trust.” The OBR said that 76% of the impact of the national insurance rise would pass through to lower wages. And because the Government planned this all along, we now know why they rushed so fast to concoct the fiction of a black hole—something that was not corroborated by the OBR yesterday. It was cover not just to raise national insurance, but to impose countless other tax rises on working people: capital gains tax up; energy taxes up; stamp duty up; and taxes on family farms up—something we will oppose, for the sake of farmers up and down the country. Working people whose wages the Chancellor promised to protect will see them go down; businesses whose profits fund new investment will see them raided; markets to which she promised stability are absorbing the biggest tax-and-spend Budget in a generation; and all of us on the outside are left wondering which is worse, the damage to the economy or the damage to trust.

• 22 Jul 2024 · Economy, Welfare and Public Services · Hansard source

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  Yes, we are minded to support the Bill, subject to having had a close look at it, because we think it is perfectly sensible. Whether it is completely necessary is a different question, but it is perfectly sensible. We have grave concerns about some elements of the King’s Speech, with a Times editorial this week describing some of its Bills as “a dose of traditional socialist dogma”. Tony Blair came to office having removed the old clause IV of the Labour party constitution, because he knew that state-run businesses are rarely successful and usually end up being bailed out by the taxpayer. Last week, with their railway and energy plans, the Government brought forward more nationalisation than Blair ever did—indeed, more than any Government in modern times. If the Chancellor really cares about fiscal responsibility, she should beware. The reason why unions like publicly owned utilities is that they give them more leverage on pay and more ability to demand bail-outs. Unlearning the lessons of history will mean more strikes and bigger bills for the taxpayer. An even bigger concern for business is the impact on jobs of Labour’s new deal for workers. We have seen the creation of almost 4 million jobs since 2010, which is nearly 800 jobs for every single day that Conservative Governments were in office. The president of the Confederation of British Industry described the UK as a “job-creation factory” but, like many others, he expressed concern that the Deputy Prime Minister’s new labour laws could put that at risk. Day one rights sound attractive, but employers fear they will mean a flood of tribunal claims, meaning it is safer not to offer a job at all. That is why the Federation of Small Businesses responded to the King’s Speech by saying that companies are worried about increased costs and risks. In the end, French-style labour laws will lead to French levels of unemployment, which are nearly double our own—indeed, they are close to what they were when the last Labour Government were in office. By contrast, the Conservatives nearly halved unemployment over the last 14 years, and it would be a tragedy for working families up and down the country if the new Government turned the clock back. Finally, the most dubious claim of all is this nonsense about the Government having the worst economic inheritance since the second world war, which everybody knows is just a pretext for long-planned tax rises. People can see what nonsense this is by simply comparing it with the last time we had a change of Government in 2010. Inflation was 3.4%, compared with 2% today. Unemployment was 8%, compared with 4.4% today. Growth was forecast then to be among the slowest in the G7, compared with the fastest today. Instead of an economy in which markets and the pound were facing meltdown, the Chancellor has inherited an economy in which the Office for National Statistics has said that growth is “going gangbusters.” That has been backed up by even more data since the election. May’s GDP figures show that Britain’s growth was double the rate predicted by economists, and the fastest in more than two years. New figures from S&P show that, in February, British businesses were among the most optimistic in the world—top of the league again, according to the ONS. Inflation has remained at its 2% target level. In her BBC interview yesterday, the Chancellor glossed over those figures, putting on the most shocked expression she could muster, to pretend that public finances are worse than she expected. But the root cause of the pressure on public finances—£400 billion in pandemic support and £94 billion in cost of living support—was never a secret. Indeed, the Labour party supported those measures and, in some cases, called for us to go further. Nor were the difficult decisions we had to take to pay for them a secret either. When we had to increase borrowing, increase tax and reduce spending plans in the autumn statement of 2022, Labour did not oppose us. Like all Chancellors, she faces fiscal challenges: welcome to the job. But that job is a whole lot easier because, faced with an economic crisis two years ago, Conservatives took decisions that her predecessor Labour Government ducked completely after the financial crisis. That is why she has a deficit of 4.4% this year compared with 10.3% left behind for the Conservatives in 2010. She did not just compare her inheritance to 2010; she claimed to have the worst inheritance since the second world war. Is she really saying that she faces conditions worse than Geoffrey Howe in 1979, with a winter of discontent, stagflation, an 83% top rate of tax and a Labour Government who went with a begging bowl to be bailed out by the IMF? The Chancellor knows perfectly well that that claim is nonsense, otherwise why, in her first week, would she announce £7.3 billion of spending on her national wealth fund, without a spending review, a budget or any external validation from the OBR? As Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies says, thanks to the OBR the nation’s books are “wide open” and “fully transparent”, so pretending things are worse than expected “really won’t wash.” As she establishes her reputation, it is surely unwise to base her big central argument on a claim so patently ridiculous. But we all know exactly why the Chancellor is doing it. She wants to lay the ground for tax rises she has been planning all along, which leads to two major concerns. First, she says her No. 1 mission is growth, but all around the world, evidence suggests countries with higher taxes tend to grow more slowly. Lower taxes, when funded properly, boost growth, as we saw with full expensing and the national insurance cuts last year, both of which the OBR confirmed add to our GDP. However, keeping taxes down is hard work. I saw the numbers the Chancellor has seen just a few weeks ago, and the official advice was clear: with public sector pay restraint, productivity plans such as those we announced in the Budget, and welfare reform, it is perfectly possible to balance the books without tax rises. It is not easy—government never is—but not impossible. Yet all those three things—pay restraint, productivity improvements and welfare reform—were glaringly omitted from the King’s Speech. Instead, she has chosen an easier path: what Labour party sources told T he Guardian was a “doctor’s mandate” to raise taxes. The Chancellor has ruled out raising income tax, national insurance and VAT, but she should not think for one second that other tax rises will not impact working people. Capital gains tax destroys the pensions people build up over their lifetimes; business tax rises are passed on to customers, leading to higher bills; and taxes on banks and energy companies lead to fewer companies operating in the UK, a lower tax take and less money for public services such as the NHS. That is the biggest contradiction in the new programme —a Government who say they want the fastest growth in the G7 but, in the very same breath, plan tax rises that will make that growth harder, if not impossible, to achieve. Even if such an approach were misconceived, it is none the less a legitimate choice for a governing party. What is not acceptable is, just 18 days after the election, to be laying the ground for tax rises after the Chancellor promised us 50 times in the election campaign that she had no plans to raise them. Every Labour Government in history have raised taxes and raised spending. If she wanted to do the same, she should have had the courage to make the case for that before the election. Instead, she is softening us up for a colossal U-turn that will lead to lower growth, less money for public services and massive public anger, which is why I commend to the House the amendment in the Opposition’s name.