Mel Stride MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  As Chair of the Treasury Committee at the time, I had quite a lot to say about it, and I would point the hon. Gentleman to the public record in that regard. Let me return to Labour’s claims of a vast £22 billion black hole, which one senses can even be seen from the moon. When the OBR looked at this matter, it concluded that the fiscal pressure was less than half that figure. It also made the point that, had it been known at that time, there would have been discussions between Treasury officials and the OBR, and that number might well have been smaller still. And it is equally the case that Governments manage down in-year fiscal pressures as a matter of course. To use another astronomer’s analogy, this is not so much a black hole as a red dwarf. [Interruption.] Or a red herring—even better. This is about not just misleading the British people, but economic incompetence. The Government have set great store by growth. They say that they will generate the fastest consistently, sustainably growing economy in the G7—I see Labour Members nodding their heads. How is that going? Our friends at the OBR clearly forecast a lower level of growth following the Budget than they had forecast based on our Budget the preceding spring. That is a direct consequence of the kind of growth-destroying policies in which the Government are engaged. What happened when the Office for National Statistics came out with its figures recently for the third quarter of this year? [ Interruption. ]

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important and valid point. As he says, Labour is now claiming that there will be no incidence of this tax increase on working people, although it seems to have a problem defining exactly what a working person is. None the less, try telling that to those people who will see their wages depressed as a consequence of this measure. Try telling that to the 50,000 full-time equivalents who the OBR says will lose their jobs as a consequence of this measure. Try telling that to the young people up and down our country who, because it is not just an increase in the rate but also an approximate halving of the threshold, will be disproportionately affected. Labour also reassured farmers. The then shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—the now Secretary of State—reassured farmers. He went to the National Farmers Union and said that nothing would be done on inheritance tax and the annual percentage rate. And on that basis, the NFU told its members that, at least on that measure, there was nothing to fear from a future Labour Government. How wrong it was. Only last week, we saw, tens of thousands of farmers, in their dignified way, coming up to the very gates of our democracy to ask a simple question of the Labour Government: “Why did you lie to us?” That is the nub of it. The measure will see the break-up of our farms and it will do nothing for food security.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point because the Chancellor did say at the CBI conference, when asked, that she would not raise taxes in the future, but this very afternoon, at the Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister appeared to resile from that. We now do not even have clarity on that vital point. Surely the point is that the Chancellor is no economist, no matter how much puff one applies to try to disguise the fact. I thought I would take a leaf out of her book, even though that page was apparently written by somebody else. I can inform the House that I am an economist. Speaking as a former Governor of the Bank of England and president of the International Monetary Fund, and having run the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation at the same time—yes, for 10 years—I have as much experience as our Chancellor. That flight of fancy is, of course, all mine, but the inspiration came from the Government Benches. This is a Finance Bill of broken promises and breathtaking incompetence—a Finance Bill that represents a present danger to the future of our economy. Was there ever a Bill more injurious to what we Conservatives love—to our pensioners, our farmers, our businesses, the poor, the vulnerable and, yes, working men and women right up and down our country? They say that astrologers are there to make economists look good. Well, they cannot make this lot look good. It is written in the stars—it is a story foretold—that unchecked, this Budget and this Finance Bill would take Britain down. That is why we will never tire of the trials of opposition, and why we will be the party that stands up for working men and women across our country, and fights this Government.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It demonstrates that this Government do not understand farming and do not understand the countryside. There are 100 Labour Members who represent rural constituencies. I will not guess how many there will be after the next general election, but some number fewer than 100, I suspect. Perhaps the cruellest deception of all was of our pensioners, who were reassured that there would not be any means-testing of the winter fuel payment, yet what happened? 10 million pensioners are to face a cut. Before somebody on the Government Benches stands up and tells us that some of those pensioners can afford it, I say that many of them simply cannot. Of those under the poverty line, two thirds will actually lose these benefits.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  It is not a binary decision like that. The hon. Gentleman is clever enough— [ Interruption. ] I am sorry, but I will not disrespect him by claiming that he truly believes that. Had the Government brought forward a Budget that would have grown the economy, as the Conservatives would have done, the Government would have more money. Had Labour grasped the nettle of welfare reform, as we did when we were in office, and we had very clear plans in our manifesto for a saving of £12 billion a year, the Government would not have to go around caning companies, beating up on pensioners and so on as an alternative. There are better ways of doing things, and we had a much better way.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Lady knows full well, it is accepted that the key measure is absolute poverty after housing costs. She cannot flit between one measure and another when it suits her. The reality is that it is projected that 100,00 more children and 300,000 more adults will be in poverty as a consequence of the Budget.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  The number of children in poverty fell by 100,000 in total. I will come to the record of this Government in a moment, but first I give way to the Secretary of State.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I have just explained exactly what the OBR said. It said that it does not legitimise the black hole—the £22 billion, which has been repeated yet again from the Government Front Bench. Opportunities were missed in this Budget, not least around driving up productivity. We know that Labour Governments spend money. We know that Labour Governments tax people a lot—that is what they do. What they do not do is spend the money with any strings attached. There has been a 14% pay rise for train drivers and 22% for junior doctors, but not one suggestion that there might be improvements in productivity to accompany that spending. That is unlike the Conservative party when we were in office: under my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt), we had a very clear, fully funded plan for the national health service and a long-term workforce plan to drive up productivity. Let me come to the issue of welfare. It is gratifying to hear the Secretary of State confirm that the Labour party is going ahead with some of the more important reforms that we brought forward, such as that to the work capability assessment.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  The Labour party pledged at the last election to usher in a new form of politics based on transparency and integrity. When pressed, Labour Members ruled out a large number of tax rises. One of these taxes, as the Labour manifesto explicitly stated, was national insurance: “we will not increase National Insurance”. Yet, only a few short weeks later, what has happened in this Budget? Employers’ national insurance contributions have been raised, which is a direct breach of the Labour manifesto. Do not take my word for it—Paul Johnson, the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said exactly the same. Of course, despite being at the scene of the crime, the Government have since hidden behind their alibi that, somehow, putting up employers’ national insurance contributions will have no impact on working people, but that is simply untrue.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  I stand by our record when I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, particularly on the support that the Department gave to the disabled, not least the results that we achieved in encouraging and helping them into work, which is the best possible outcome. When there has been such a perpetration of deceit, there must be the alibi—the smokescreen—which is, of course, the fictitious, confected black hole of £22 billion. Labour Members rubbed their hands in glee when the OBR said it would be looking into the matter. It reported back, on the day of the Budget, and what did it find? It found that it was not able to legitimise that black hole of £22 billion, and came up with a figure for in-year fiscal pressure that was below half that. It observed that if it had been focused on that figure at the time of the spring Budget, conversations would have been held, and it is conceivable that the number would have been smaller still. From our experience in government, we know that it is quite normal practice to manage in-year fiscal pressures, and to net off the underspends against the overspends. In reality, this black hole is “a dead parrot”. It has ceased to be. If it was not nailed to its perch, it would be “pushing up the daisies”. Far from being just “shagged out” after a prolonged squark, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is dead: the black hole is “an ex-parrot”.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is right that this is another broken promise. At the general election, the now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs gave an unequivocal guarantee to farmers across the country that there was no question of farms being brought into inheritance tax. There is a good reason for the exemptions and relief, because if inheritance tax is levied on family farms that are passed down to another generation, those farms will have to be broken up, with parts sold off to pay the tax. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned this, because the OBR has said that, by 2030, this measure will raise the princely sum of £520 million, which is enough to run the national health service for just one day. Has a more modest sum ever raised so much misery? I think not. The Chancellor assured us that she will not fiddle the figures by changing the fiscal targets, yet we have seen the fiscal targets changed to allow this Government to borrow an additional £140 billion. This is not a good time for the Secretary of State to talk about pensioners, but she mentioned them at the end of her speech. They were so badly let down by the means-testing of the winter fuel payment, and they were not told in advance to expect anything like it. Ten million pensioners across the country will lose up to £300 as a consequence of this measure. The Government claim that only the wealthiest, only the millionaires, will be affected, but two thirds of pensioners below the poverty line will have this benefit removed.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  The Minister for Employment shakes her head, but my understanding is that while the Government may say they will make some changes, they are quite happy to take the savings that are baked into the OBR’s forecast. The Secretary of State is right to clamp down on fraud, but it is important that she does not misrepresent the fact that the approach she is taking is exactly the same as the approach we were bringing forward to do that. The reality is that some DWP budgets are growing to an extent that they need to be arrested in order for us to have a successful economy. If we were able to hold the number of people of working age with a health or disability component to their benefit at the level it is now for the next five years, there would be a saving of about £14 billion; if we were able to get it back to where it was before the pandemic, over £30 billion would be saved. When the Conservative party was in government, we had a clear plan to begin to address that issue. We have heard nothing from the Government about how they will tackle that fundamental fact. What we have had from the Government on welfare expenditure is the announcement that the welfare cap will be set, at the end of the scorecard period, at 5% above the OBR’s forecast for spending on those benefits. That is not a restraint; that is permission—an invitation—to spend ever more on welfare without hitting the cap. The Government have no plan and the taxpayer will continue to pay for it. So what do we have to show for this Budget? Compared with the spring: lower growth, lower living standards, lower wages, higher taxes, higher borrowing, and increased interest rates and mortgages. This is a Budget of broken promises, and when the dust has finally settled and this lot have gone, as we step over the fallen—the former farmers, the pensioners, the one-time businesspeople, the poor and the vulnerable—there we will find the shattered remains of the working people of this country, betrayed by a party that lied to them, and they will never forget it.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is a sensible man to give way to, and I will do so in a moment. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury recently admitted on Sky that putting up national insurance for employers will directly impact working people—of course it will. The Office for Budget Responsibility lays out in black and white that the consequence will be over 50,000 fewer jobs, with about 70% of the cost of this increase in taxation ultimately being borne by those who work, through lower wages. Are these not working people? The Secretary of State mentioned her youth guarantee and the importance of youth. I simply observe that youth unemployment fell by over 40% under the previous Government, whereas it rose by over 40% under the last Labour Government. That is how successful the Labour party is. Of course, because both the rate and the threshold have been increased, the national insurance increase will disproportionately impact those on lower wages, including the youngest workers.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  How can I finally resist the hon. Gentleman, who is just itching to make some point about integrity? The Floor is his.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  We fought for the “triple lock plus” in our manifesto, which would have spared millions of pensioners from being dragged into income tax, many for the first time, under this Government’s arrangements. There were, as the hon. Gentleman knows, particular circumstances in October 2022, including inflation surging above 11%. What are the broad effects of this Budget? The tax burden will rise to the highest level in the history of our country—higher than in 1948, when we first started to collect the data. We will be borrowing a staggering £140 billion over the next five years. What are the consequences of that, apart from passing on debt to future generations, who will have to pay it by way of higher taxation in the future? It is the crowding-out of private business investment, which this Government say they are eager to drive up. If we look at OBR’s forecast from the spring Budget last year and for inflation in every year under this Budget, it is higher in every single year. Why? Because there has been a huge fiscal splurge, particularly in the first two years of the forecast, that will require a monetary response, so interest rates will stay higher for longer. That will mean, the OBR estimates, an extra 0.25% on mortgages—or over £400 extra for the average family, up and down the country. According to the OBR’s forecast, wages will stagnate across the period, with lower real household disposable income than under the spring forecast, when the Conservative party was in government. I am surprised that the Secretary of State raised the subject of living standards. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates: “The average family will be £770 worse off in real terms by October 2029 compared with today.” I am also surprised that she raised the issue of poverty. When we were in government, we faced so many lectures from Labour Members, while we were bringing poverty down—the number of pensioners in absolute poverty fell by 200,000.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that that measure was supported by our Government— [ Laughter. ] No, no—most private Members’ Bills are not supported by the Government of the day and therefore make no progress. We were happy, whatever legislative vehicle was available, to ensure that that important measure came into effect on our watch. Let me speak for a moment about the complexities of carer’s allowance, because this is really important. It goes to the heart of many of the assertions that have been made in the Chamber today. This is how it works. It is £81.90 per week. We expect somebody who is in receipt of that benefit to be providing care for 35 hours or more to one or more individuals. There is an element of trust in the way the benefit works, because the Department for Work and Pensions cannot establish exactly what individuals are doing up and down the country, and therefore there is an earnings limit, which is a proxy for the amount of paid work that somebody is doing, rather than the amount of time they are spending looking after a loved one. That is the purpose of the limit. A complication, which has not yet been raised in this debate, is that someone’s income has to be adjusted in order to determine whether they are above or below that limit. There are adjustments. For example, they can reduce their declared income in this respect by 50% of any pension contributions they may make. They can adjust the amount of income that they compare to the limit for any equipment that they purchase in respect of their caring obligations. There are also travel costs. If someone is self-employed, various business costs can also see a reduction in the level of income. This lies at the heart of why there is a challenge in notifying people of whether they are above or below the earnings limit, because it is impossible, at the centre, to determine the answer to that question, for the reasons that I have given.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  It is difficult to give a precise answer; what does the right hon. Gentleman mean by “a small amount over the earnings limit”? We know that, for the vast majority of the thousands of people in this situation, it will almost certainly be small amounts, including some very small amounts. None the less, fraud and error are a significant challenge across the benefits system, and need to be addressed. Any responsible Government will take that approach. Simply to say, “We have a problem, so we should take off the brakes and have no limit. We should let people claim what they like, whatever it might be, even if it is fraud”, as suggested by the leader of the Liberal Democrats, is not viable.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and of course the motion states that there should be an increase—an unspecified amount, but it is there none the less. I think the answer to his question is that it is a balance, because the higher we put up the earnings limit and the more generous we are to carers, which of course is something we all want to do, the more people can earn and the longer they can work. Potentially, therefore, if this is acting as a proxy for the amount that people are working, they might not have the real time to spend 35 hours a week caring for a loved one. So it is inevitably a balance. I certainly accept that this is worth reviewing, and I note that the Minister for Social Security and Disability, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), when he chaired the Work and Pensions Committee, called forcefully for a significant increase in the level of carer’s allowance.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  No, I would not. I am not ruling out the possibility that it may yet become a mess, but certainly on our watch it was never a mess. In fact, it dispenses about £280 billion-worth of transfer payments both to pensioners and through the benefits system, and by and large it does a remarkable job in doing that efficiently. I want to pay tribute to all the officials and civil servants that work in that Department. They work incredibly hard and, for the vast majority of their time, produce outstanding results. None the less, of course, we can always point to elements of the system where things break down, and we must always strive to get better. That is why I welcome the Government’s review. The suggestion that the Government should not seek the repayment of overpayments is absurd. We cannot go that far. If someone goes over a threshold, we cannot say, “Do not worry about it.” We might as well not have the threshold in the first place. By all means, change the threshold—that may be a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Otherwise, the threshold should be removed altogether. Some Members will perfectly legitimately raise failings in the system, but when I was Secretary of State there were examples of fraud. For instance, one individual was working 100 hours a week as a taxi driver while apparently still having the time to spend 35 hours a week looking after a loved one. To my mind, that is clearly fraud, so we cannot write off absolutely everything. The Department does the right thing by looking at this issue on a case-by-case basis.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I welcome this debate on this important matter. There is unanimity across the House that carers up and down this country do an extraordinary job, often in very difficult circumstances. We owe them a huge amount, and not only for the compassion and social value that their work brings, but for the financial and fiscal benefits, as Carers UK has identified, because of the costs that the taxpayer is not required to pick up. I recognise the experience that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has in this area, through his campaigning and his personal experience. I think he said that it was good that the Liberal Democrats had brought forward a motion today that was devoid of any politics, but I am not sure that I entirely agree with him. The motion of course contains much that we can all agree on, but the relevant poisonous pills within it will ensure that when we divide later—I confidently predict that the motion will fall—only the Liberal Democrats, and perhaps a few other minority parties, will go through the Aye Lobby. They will then be able to crank up the Risographs so that their leaflets can say that only they care about this particular matter. That is far from the truth. My party, the official Opposition, cares very deeply. When we were in Government, we brought forward a number of measures to ensure that we supported those carers. The level of carer’s allowance has increased by £1,500 since 2010. In 2023 it was my party that brought in the statutory entitlement to one week per year of carer’s leave. It was only last year that we, through the better care fund, provided £327 million to those in desperate need of respite from their caring duties. The care Act of this year increased the rights of carers and also the duties placed upon local authorities. I am also pleased to tell the House that, even more recently, my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), the shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, attended an event here hosted by Carers UK so that we could continue that really important dialogue.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Regardless of what the right hon. Gentleman may or may not have said in his opening remarks, the text of the motion cannot be disputed. On the point of whether anyone should be expected to repay, the motion says that this House “believes that carers should not be forced to face the stress, humiliation and fear caused by demands for repayments of Carer’s Allowance”. To me, that suggests everyone. The motion goes on to say that the Government should “write-off existing overpayments immediately”. It is clear and obvious that that would include any fraudulent payments. It may be that the earnings limit could be increased, but there would be a fiscal cost. Indeed, the Liberal Democrat manifesto reforms would cost about £1.5 billion, which is significant. We would have to take account of the balance between being more generous to carers and respecting the 35-hour rule, if that remains. Finally, whenever there is a cliff edge, it is suggested that tapering will solve the problem, but that neglects the fact that it introduces complexity, which is the very thing that universal credit, for example, was designed to iron out. The system was like spaghetti, and nobody could quite understand how it worked. In the tax system, for example, the personal allowance tapers away after £100,000. Many people just stop working further when they reach that level of earnings, because it is not worth their while, given the marginal tax rate. There is an interplay between universal credit and carer’s allowance, because people who earn more will end up having their carer’s allowance withdrawn. There is already a taper within carer’s allowance to make sure that work pays, so that as people earn more, their benefit is reduced but not sufficiently to make them worse off. Under the system advocated by the Liberal Democrats, there will be two tapers in two interacting benefits, which I do not think would best serve anybody, least of all carers. Madam Deputy Speaker is seeking my conclusion. I welcome this motion, and like other parties in this House, we stand four-square behind our carers, who do an extraordinary job. I wish the Government well with their review, which we will consider seriously and objectively, as we are all on the side of carers. I stand by our record in office, of which I am proud.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Indeed. What we want, ideally, is a system that is as simple as possible. The motion suggests that we bring in a taper, but that would be a complication of the system. I will come to why there are problems with that. It is easy to suggest these things, but the detail often makes them really quite complicated. The last Government made it clear, when someone applied for this particular benefit, exactly what the arrangements were. When uprating occurred every year, we wrote to everybody to explain the uprating and to inquire as to whether any changes in their circumstances or earnings might impact their entitlement to benefits. And it was we, not this Government, who in our May update to our fraud plan brought in the pilots for texting to alert those on carer’s allowance that they may—I say “may” because the Department will not know—be close to exceeding the earnings limit. I am pleased that the Minister has indicated that the Government will continue with our fine work, but let us be very clear who it was that started those particular measures.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Quite possibly not, which is why the Department operates on a case-by-case basis. That is the correct approach, rather than a blanket approach that says it does not matter if someone goes over the threshold. As I said, if there is never going to be a requirement for repayment, we might as well not have a threshold at all. In some cases, going over the threshold is egregious. The Government know this, and they will have to take it into account.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I will give way, but I invite the right hon. Gentleman to explain how he would deal with fraud when he is pushing for none of the overpayments to be returned.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  On 10 September, two days before recess, I led a debate in this Chamber, secured by the Conservative party, on the winter fuel allowance. The right hon. Lady spoke just now about transparency, but there was no equality impact assessment made available for that debate. Indeed, on 30 August, by way of a written question, my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) established that the Government had no intention of publishing that particular report. Yet on 13 September—two days after the debate and the vote, and one day after Parliament had risen—the report was made available. It was clearly, in my opinion, deliberately withheld. Does the right hon. Lady agree?