Jerome Mayhew MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) asked the Minister a specific question. In October last year, the Chancellor said, “We are not coming back for more. We have wiped the slate clean. From now on, it is on us.” What has happened between then and now? What has changed?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  rose—

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  We have talked about the fear that our constituents have, but there is another fear held by businesses. My hon. Friend will know that business confidence has plummeted to the worst level on record, and investment decisions taken by businesses have been delayed because businesses are worried about the impact of this terrible Budget that we are facing. Does my hon. Friend agree that the speculation fuelled by the anonymous briefings from No. 11 are already damaging our economy?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is entirely correct. The Prime Minister tried—half-heartedly, admittedly—to save £4.5 billion from the welfare budget. He put his Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the ridiculous position of starting a debate arguing for £4.5 billion of savings from long-term disability and health benefits, only for her to end the very same debate advocating for a £300 million increase in those same benefits. The Prime Minister has lost control of his Back Benchers, and he has lost control of his Government’s spending. We have had no global event, but we do have Government policies that have been economically disastrous. Labour is truly the tax-and-spend party. It has raised the tax burden to the highest in history—certainly since the second world war. As for spend, it raised £40 billion in tax, borrowed a further £30 billion, and increased spending by £70 billion. According to the Government’s own plans, they intend to borrow half a trillion pounds extra during the course of this Parliament. And for what? Has there been reform of public services? No. Public sector productivity has declined. We are getting less for our money—even more so in healthcare, where the decline in productivity is fully 8.3%. What they have done is increase wage inflation. For public sector pay, it is more than 6%, whereas in the private sector, it is a third less. The Government are coming back for more. They intend, we are told through multiple briefings to newspapers, to breach their core election manifesto pledge and raise taxes, because they cannot reduce spending.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  As we are looking for clarity, what the shadow Chancellor was saying was that if he was in the Chancellor’s position, that is, if he could not cut spending and had to raise tax, perhaps that is what he would do, but that is not what his intention is. His intention, very properly, is to control spending, as any responsible Government would. Why will the hon. Gentleman’s Government not do the same?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I have a simple question for the Minister: does he think that manifesto promises are important?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. He wonders why the ability to cut more money from the welfare bill has been identified by the Opposition. Does he not recognise that more than 5,000 people a day are joining long-term disability and incapacity benefits? That is how he can save more money from welfare. Why does he not do it?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  If the hon. Gentleman is looking for ideas about how to cut spending, he could do worse than to look at the proposals set out at the Conservative party conference, in which we identified £47 billion of public sector cuts that would not require any of the cuts that he suggests.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  Does my hon. Friend have any idea why the Chancellor has changed her mind or what it is that has affected her decision? Just a year ago, she said that she did not need to come back for more, but now she says she does. Has there been any great global shock, or does he think the problem lies closer to home?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  He has only just walked in!

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I am encouraged to hear that the Minister wants to link increased funding with productivity increases. In that spirit, why was the resident doctors’ pay rise not linked to any productivity increases?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  This will be a very simple speech, because it has only a single fundamental point, which is that honesty in politics matters. That should not be a controversial statement. In debates in this place, we are advocates for a political philosophy, and for certain political tactics, and yes, we should put forward our case as attractively as possible, perhaps using statistics that make our case more effectively than others, but if we downright mislead the public, a line is crossed. That is wrong, because it is taking the public for fools. In the election of 2024, the Labour party had a manifesto on which every single one of its Members was elected. There was an identified £7 billion that they intended to raise through tax rises, but a core promise at the very heart of the manifesto was that apart from that, there would be no tax rises—in particular, no increases to national insurance contributions, income tax or VAT. That is the very basis of their electoral mandate, and even then, they only managed to secure 34% of the vote. The first breach of those promises came in October last year: the tax rises were for not £7 billion, but £40 billion. That was justified by a wholly fictitious £22 billion black hole, a figure that the Office for Budget Responsibility refused to support, and that the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Financial Times , among others, could not identify. The Government raised taxes on employers; it was a tax on jobs of fully £25 billion. The IFS said that was a “straightforward breach” of their manifesto. We were told that this was a one-off, and that the Government had “wiped the slate clean”. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s words were that they were “not coming back with…more taxes”; they had fixed “the foundations of our economy”, and she said, “It’s now on us.” Those are not my words, but the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The second Budget is in just two weeks’ time, and no global event has blown this Government’s plans off course. There has been no pandemic, and there has been no European invasion sending electricity and energy prices through the roof. If things have changed, it has been as a direct consequence of the political and economic decisions of the Government.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I could not have put it better myself. These are not statistics made up by my researchers; they are from the Office for National Statistics. The decisions that we are told the Chancellor is about to make in two weeks are not inevitable. There is another choice. She can grow a backbone—so can the Prime Minister—and impose some control over public spending. We have set out a plan to reduce spending by £47 billion. I have heard the criticisms and challenges from Labour Members. They have a budget of £1.3 trillion to work with; are they seriously saying that they cannot find £20 billion of necessary savings from a £1.3 trillion budget? If they cannot, then they do not deserve to be in government. The motion is not a sleight of hand. It is a simple, short motion, which merely asks Government Members, when they choose which Lobby to go through tonight, to decide whether they will stick with their promises—their manifesto commitments. Will they treat their constituents as fools, or will they vote with the Opposition and defend their, albeit shaky, democratic mandate?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  rose —

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I know that the hon. Member cannot pronounce that word. I quite understand the points that he makes—he is heartfelt in making them, and he thinks there should be Government spending on those issues. However, he was aware of every single one of those issues before the 2024 general election, when he stood on a manifesto commitment not to raise income tax, not to raise national insurance, and not to raise VAT. Does he accept that if his Government resile from those promises, it will be a huge breach of trust with the British people?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  The Chancellor often talks about taking difficult decisions and tough choices. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not a tough choice to raise taxes on other people; the tough choice is cutting spending?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I have heard what the Minister says and I do not ask him to comment on the Budget, but can he confirm whether he thinks that manifesto pledges are important?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I quite understand the hon. Member’s philosophical approach: he wants to spend more money on public services. He knew of all those issues before the last general election, yet when he stood for election, he said to his constituents, “Vote for me because we will not raise income tax, national insurance and VAT.” Will he stick by his own promise?

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  One quick clarification: waiting times have actually increased in each of the past three months, so they are not going down at the moment. If we hose enough money at a system, we can get increased results, but what we get per pound spent has declined by over 8%. That is a very serious point.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that he does not want the Government to break their promises. If he looks at the Liberal Democrat amendment, that is exactly what it does: it takes away the injunction to control public expenditure in order to keep the promises made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Does he now accept that it is right that the Government should keep their promises and not follow his amendment?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Draft Merchant Shipping (Marine Equipment) Regulation 2025 · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister is describing a really good example of draft regulations being shaped by responses to a UK consultation. Is that a Brexit benefit?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Curriculum and Assessment Review · Hansard source

  More

  I am going to leave wider criticisms of this review to others. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, I welcome the recognition of all the lobbying that has gone into this review. Financial education being made a statutory requirement at primary school and its position being strengthened at secondary school are good measures. The one area where I want to push the Secretary of State further is on post-16 financial education. The review made reference to many examples of best practice around the country, but it stopped short of offering ideas on how we can continue to progress financial education at a time when young people are beginning to take financial decisions themselves. Will the Secretary of State work with the APPG to develop this area further?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Economists have told the Chancellor that stamp duty is a terrible tax because it damages growth. The Government’s response is to double stamp duty on a £300,000 house. Why?