Kanishka Narayan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 26 Jun 2025 · Transport: Economic Growth · Hansard source

  More

  14. What steps she is taking to help ensure that the transport system supports economic growth.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Transport: Economic Growth · Hansard source

  More

  We have a proud community in St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan that is both growing and thriving thanks to the economic opportunity provided by the Bro Tathan enterprise zone. Will the Secretary of State work with Welsh colleagues to progress funding for a new railway station in St Athan to support that growth and provide dignity for the residents?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Just this week, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) put a singular burning injustice first: the plight of overseas billionaires who pay too much tax. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the hon. Member’s priority, or does she agree with me that Reform UK doing sweetheart deals with the super-rich is a betrayal of British working people?

• 1 May 2025 · Industrial Strategy: Chemicals Sector · Hansard source

  More

  I very much welcome the Minister’s recognition of the chemicals sector’s contribution as a foundational sector and an anchor employer in constituencies such as mine; we have the Dow site there. What can we do to support the deeply integrated supply chains across the UK and Europe that the chemicals sector, and Dow in particular, relies on?

• 1 May 2025 · Industrial Strategy: Chemicals Sector · Hansard source

  More

  4. What steps he is taking to include the chemicals sector within the industrial strategy.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Retail Investment · Hansard source

  More

  Yes, absolutely. My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of expertise on this and on the wider question of how we support people with care needs. She is exactly right. I would be interested in how we support a market in the advice context that goes all the way from what I think the guidance on the boundary of the advice market will do, which is support people getting into the advice context in the first place and ultimately into the regulated part of that market. Again, as a fervent believer in what a reduced cost of delivery through technology can do, I think there is a huge amount of progress to be made in finding different sources of advice for different sets of people. Pensions are a primary point of leverage as we think about where we can make a mark in supporting greater retail investment. There is a fourth, really important category of those who invest in equities, but do not invest as much in British equities. It is worth distinguishing them from those who do not invest in equities altogether. My broad suggestion there is that we focus as much on the pull as the push and think about why it is that when people in Britain invest in equities, they are not investing as much in British equities. It is very clear that North American funds have had very material inflows over the course of the last decade, compared with actively managed UK funds, which have had outflows since 2016. UK-based index funds also had outflows in the two years prior to 2023. It is probably not surprising that it is in large part down to the returns profile. If someone invested in the MSCI USA Index, they got a 303% return over the last decade. Return in the MSCI World Index was 213%. If we look at the pattern of retail investment in US companies, we see that it is the highest growth, highest returning and often in some ways the highest engagement companies that get the greatest inflows. Some 30% of retail holdings in the “magnificent seven” tech stocks, as they are labelled, are radically lower in the rest of the S&P. Given that the median age of our top 10 companies in the FTSE is about 150 compared with 40 in the US top 10, it is probably not surprising that people do not feel as captivated by the possibility of investing in Britain. When we think about retail investment in British assets in particular, we need to think about what we are asking people to invest in and make sure that the wider set of economic reforms that we are focused on are driving at pace a sense that technology and renewable energy—things that build the country’s future—grounded in communities like Hexham and the Vale of Glamorgan are the assets that we support people to invest in. My final point is close to my heart as a Labour politician, which is that retail investors’ primary experience of a company is the company that they work in. There is a cause here that ties together the cause of worker dignity, worker engagement and retail investment for prosperity. It is a cause close to my heart from the technology sector, because the one thing that has been so remarkable about it globally has been the ability of the technology sector to create prosperity through employee stock ownership. I humbly suggest that the Government consider adapting a very successful enterprise management incentive scheme for employee stock ownership, to make it more attractive in the modern world of technology and artificial intelligence companies. I am conscious that I have whizzed through those five categories, but at the heart of the issue is a fundamental focus: in supporting both the prosperity and dignity of people in the Vale of Glamorgan and across the country, retail investment will be fundamental.

• 22 Apr 2025 · Retail Investment · Hansard source

  More

  It is a privilege to speak with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. It is a particular privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley (Callum Anderson), who secured this debate and led it with expected expertise. I know that he brings a great deal of professional experience from his career prior to this place. It also a privilege to see the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in her chair. I know that she also brings vast expertise and experience to this debate from both her time in this place and prior to it. For those reasons, I will humbly keep a short focus on five particular segments of potential retail investors in my remarks. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley was very accurate in noting the focus of the debate. For me in the Vale of Glamorgan, as will be the case for many other colleagues, the focus must be on ensuring that individuals can not only accumulate prosperity through retail investment but ensure dignity, and that is the first segment of particular interest. For millions of households, retail investment is a question of saving up for a rainy day. For many households in the third decile of wealth in this country, with average net financial savings of about £1,500, the path to retail investment is through a low-cost—or hopefully even a zero-cost—accessible money market or index fund. The fundamental focus for those individuals is on how we support not just the right level of interest rate provision from our retail banks, which is absolutely necessary, but the advantages of technology in distributing index funds in a way that is accessible and understandable to many of those households. The secondary category is novel in its composition: the young in this country. While about 39% of adults in this country have invested actively, an overwhelming third of those started during the pandemic. The vast majority of those who started in the pandemic and afterwards are aged between 18 and 34. The patterns of behaviour in that category are radically different from others across the country: 58% of 18 to 24-year-olds hold cryptocurrency as their primary asset holding; among those aged between 55 and 65, holdings in that asset class are negligible. Cash ISAs are not particularly prominent for those young individuals at the moment. For them, the interesting and salient question is how to make sure that we have a bridge to wider responsible investing across asset classes, which builds for the long term, alongside doing what they want in holding cryptocurrency or other assets. The third category is critical to the nation’s future and private investment in this country: those who do not invest in equity today. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley has come up with a series of good practical ideas on supporting them into equity markets, but given that most of our financial assets up until the seventh or eighth decile of wealth lie in pensions rather than direct financial assets themselves, I feel that pensions will be the primary gateway to ensuring that retail investors have a bit more of a say in allocation that supports the country’s long-term goals. In the United States a 401(k) culture of people being able to exercise discretion in what happens with their pensions has led to a radical shift in retail holding in equities in particular. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury has been at the frontier of making reforms to our pension system in her prior role and now as well. In addition to supporting funds, shifting their allocation, really pushing ambition on the implementation of the pensions dashboard and in the movement to open pensions, the data, transparency and empowered control that will help many of us to make greater moves into supporting British and wider businesses is fundamental.

• 7 Mar 2025 · Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend has given detailed and eloquent descriptions of the UK space sector, and Glasgow’s contribution in particular, but what will the provisions of the Bill do for the rest of us—including those in south Wales and across Wales—so that space is also felt in our communities?

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for her question; let me say something that I was going to come to later. In all my experience of business, the one thing I have learned is that businesses are nothing but collections of people. They are mums and dads who drive their kids to school. They are people who drive through the potholes created by the Tory Government. They are people on our NHS waiting lists who want a decent health service. Of course it is difficult when we have to bear some of the burden of paying for our public services, but the people who run our family businesses benefit as well. Let me hone in again on the contribution that family businesses make, which I am passionate about in the Vale of Glamorgan. Family businesses are now looking at the fact that employment allowances have been doubled. We know that 96% of them are microbusinesses employing fewer than nine people. In fact, the vast majority are sole proprietorships. They are looking at the fact that the path of corporation tax has been fixed, bringing stability back after a decade and a half of total chaos. They are looking at the fact that late payments—the fundamental challenge for small and family businesses in the Vale—have now been cracked down on. They will look at today’s motion and feel the comfort of their pints being protected, too. The fundamental decision that family businesses make often comes down to a question of endurance—a question, in particular, of how they can sustain themselves across generations and be productive. In that context, what the Government are doing on late payments is critical. British family businesses are limited in their use of external finance. They often rely on cash flow, so to be able to deliver greater cash flow by tackling late payments is a fundamental contribution by this Government. Family businesses are also drivers of technological innovation. Almost half the family businesses in this country are users of accountancy software, moving to digital bookkeeping far ahead of many other businesses. I am passionate about what this Government are doing in driving the adoption not just of technology but of artificial intelligence software in businesses. Let me end where I started in my response to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). Family businesses are indeed just collections of people. When we make choices on taxation, we are making choices on spending in our public services. Those choices are at the heart of driving the long-term health, prosperity, stability and, indeed, effort of our family businesses.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

  More

  I will start by doing what the Opposition failed to do, which is to recognise the particular contribution of family businesses. I think family businesses in the Vale of Glamorgan will be disappointed that the shadow Chancellor trotted out a generic business conversation, rather than honing in on what is special about family businesses. What is special about family businesses can be counted in the Vale of Glamorgan and across the country. Family businesses make up the majority of businesses in the Vale of Glamorgan, but their contribution cannot just be counted, it can be felt. I feel it on a weekly basis in the sandwiches of the Food for Thought deli on Barry high street, where I see the incredible effort that Nathan, Sarah, Leroy and the whole team put in. I felt it on a visit to Clive Edwards Contracts in Colwinston, where Josh Edwards is taking on what his father started. I have felt it in the coffee of the Welsh Coffee Company, best consumed on the coastline of Ogmore-by-Sea. And I have felt it very specifically in the joy delivered by the traders of Barry Island, the primary effort drivers who bring waves of tourists to our shores. I have mentioned those contributions being felt, because they are the distinct contributions of family businesses. Many family businesses work way over time, putting a huge amount of personal and financial risk and wider collective effort into their businesses, but they make a wider contribution too. The median tenure of a FTSE chief executive officer is around five and a half years, but the tenure of family businesses is multigenerational. They are the drivers of patient capital decisions, they are the drivers often of conviction in those decisions, and they are the drivers often of both philanthropy and values in a number of business decisions, as Opposition Members have mentioned.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Member talks of cutting one’s cloth. Perhaps he can tell the 14 million people employed by family businesses how he would cut the public services they rely on to fund the unfunded tax cuts he is talking about making.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

  More

  I notice that the motion is on family businesses, but 96% of them have either no employees or a very small number. They are unaffected, if not helped, by the doubling of the employment allowance. Only 4% of family businesses have claimed BPR; most are unaffected. Moreover, the shadow Chancellor cannot name a single proposal under the Employment Rights Bill. Will he apologise to family businesses for the total irrelevance of his complaints to the theme that we are discussing?

• 29 Jan 2025 · Growing the UK Economy · Hansard source

  More

  Harold Wilson said: “The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” Today, we can add to that the Tory party. Will the Chief Secretary ditch that Tory past, seize the spirit of Wilson and bring the white heat of technology back to Britain’s shores, including an AI growth zone in the Vale of Glamorgan?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way?

• 14 Jan 2025 · UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue · Hansard source

  More

  Unlike the bickering in the Conservative party, we are cutting deals in the national interest and putting Britain at the frontier—£600 million just over the weekend, and an AI opportunities plan just this week. Does the Chancellor agree that we are the party of action and the Conservatives are the party of rhetoric?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Copyright and Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

  More

  He lives in the Vale of Glamorgan.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Copyright and Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

  More

  May I convey to the Minister my disappointment that his ChatGPT prompt yielded the Sugababes and “Football Manager” but not the enduring institution of “Gavin and Stacey” from the Vale of Glamorgan? I know that that is an omission that ChatGPT will correct. This is a critical debate, because the path to prosperity for nations has to be a path through technology. In that context, the primary question on my mind is whether the Minister can set out plans for how data accuracy and completeness in the creative sector can underpin the Government’s wider AI action plan, and ultimately drive national growth.

• 16 Dec 2024 · “Get Britain Working” White Paper · Hansard source

  More

  2. What recent estimate she has made of the number of people who will be supported into work through the proposals outlined in the “Get Britain Working” White Paper.

• 16 Dec 2024 · “Get Britain Working” White Paper · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my right hon. Friend for her response, not least given the dire inheritance from the previous Government: the worst performance of an employment rate in the G7 since the pandemic. I see that inheritance in my community, in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, where individuals carry not the indulgence, and not the offence, but the misfortune of ill health. What is the Secretary of State doing to tackle economic inactivity, so that we give hope again, not just to those individuals, but to my community?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving way; my interest was piqued by his talk of deficit financed tax cuts. Does he agree with his boss, the Leader of the Opposition, that the Liz Truss mini-Budget, which is the prime example of the thing he criticises, was the right package, but just with the wrong communication?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

  More

  The Vale of Glamorgan, and Wales more broadly, is full of small and micro businesses. The Office for National Statistics and the OBR have both told us that most small businesses and micro businesses will be better off or the same as before. The Vale’s businesses get not only better public services but a good tax set-up. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a great Budget and a great proposition for small businesses in the Vale?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to speak while you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was also a pleasure to hear the brilliant maiden speech from my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett). We are colleagues and partners in crime in the cause of technology. I know that she has a glittering career in front of her, and I look forward to witnessing it. In view of the instruction from your predecessor in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, I studiously read the Budget briefing from the House of Commons Library, which explained the history of the Finance Bill. Broadly, that history commends this country’s stability and its financial institutions—broadly, but with one great blip. Let me start by recognising the context of the Bill: the wreckage from which we emerge—the wreckage of the “growth plan”, as the Conservatives called it under their Prime Minister Liz Truss. The briefing, for which I thank the Library’s staff, tells us that not setting out the prospective flow of a Finance Bill from that was a total aberration. From the wreckage, however, has come the return of stability. In fairness, I recognise that at the time, the present shadow Chancellor—the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride)—called the party leader out. He said that she was “flying blind”, and others were following her blindly. It seems that blind flight is contagious on the Opposition Benches today. The right hon. Gentleman talks about opposing, about being the party of “no” rather than the party of government. He did not tell us how he would fund public services; he did not tell us what taxes he would raise if he opposed all of ours. I am conscious that he also once called the pension triple lock “unsustainable”. This is not someone to be trusted with government or with opposition. I note that the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) has just left the Chamber, having said that he was not interested in choosing. He stands for the 100%. As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) said, to govern is to choose. To avoid choice is to play the fantasy politics of opposition, and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has found the warm Benches opposite.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Has the hon. Member reflected on the fact that the Liberal Democrats, instead of being just the party of no, were the party who enabled the coalition Government, which she is criticising?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

  More

  May I recognise, with warm comfort, the traditional place of the Scottish nationalists as total enablers of Conservative Governments? The hon. Gentleman talks about fiscal credibility. May I point out the absolute wreckage of the Scottish Government, who have wasted almost half a billion pounds of offshore wind proceeds on day-to-day spending because of their fiscal mismanagement? If he is taking tutorials alongside the Conservative party, may I ask him to invite his colleagues in Scotland to them? Those will serve them very efficiently. From my experience of the City of London, and of investing in this country and abroad, the broad lesson I have learned is that finance is always contingent, but the fundamentals matter. For that reason, the Bill has to be seen in the context of what it enables. Where the Conservatives treated the working people of this country as their cash machines, we are protecting payslips. Where they did not support healthcare in this country and wrecked the waiting list system, as I experienced growing up in this country, we are supporting the NHS. Where they slashed public investment and took cowardly decisions across their Finance Bills, we are investing in our future. I want to mention a proposal in the Bill that is close to my heart: the relief on draught duty, which will affect the Lamb and Flag in Wick, the Three Golden Cups in Southerndown and, closest to my heart, Finnegans on Barry Island. When the “Gavin and Stacey” Christmas special is shown, I will make sure to make the most of the draught duty relief—particularly at Finnegans, but across the Vale of Glamorgan. Let me return to the choice at the heart of this Bill. As the Treasury’s distributional analysis shows, the overall context of what we have done, both in the Bill and more broadly, is that 90% of households in this country will be better off. That is the amazing distributional context, after 14 years of what we experienced under the Conservative party. What a daffodil-laden Budget we have! The Bill offers the biggest ever budget settlement for Wales; it means £1.7 billion for Welsh public services. Some 70,000 minimum-wage workers in Wales will be better off. There is £100 million for our coal and steel communities, and a timely £25 million of support for coal tips. For the daffodil-laden Budget and the Bill that undergirds it, I am very grateful to the Chancellor.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Does my hon. Friend agree that the proceeds from the Finance Bill will allow us not just to invest in the future but to recognise our heritage, compensate mineworkers, and in particular support coal tips in Wales?