Mel Stride MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

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

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  I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add “this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Finance (No. 2) Bill because the Bill includes provisions breaking the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s promise, given after the Autumn Budget 2024, not to raise taxes, and breaking the Chancellor’s promise at the last Budget that there would be no extension of the freeze in Income Tax and National Insurance thresholds and that, from 2028–29, personal tax thresholds would be uprated in line with inflation once again; because the Bill implements changes to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief for Inheritance Tax which will devastate family farms, businesses and food security; because the Bill is the result of a Budget that will lead to higher spending and borrowing, while damaging growth and living standards with £26 billion of tax rises; and because this House is opposed to raising taxes on working people to pay for increased welfare spending.” In the middle of Leicester Square, in the heart of our great city, there is a statue of perhaps one of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived: William Shakespeare. In his hand there is a scroll, which reads, in his own words: “there is no darkness but ignorance”. This Government have brought plenty of darkness to our country—indeed, during the run-up to the Budget, we had so many kites flown as to what taxes were going to be put up or not that the sun was blotted out of the sky, and a huge, dark shadow was cast across consumers, who stopped spending, and businesses, which stopped investing and employing people. Don’t take my word for it, Madam Deputy Speaker: the Bank of England itself says precisely that it damaged the economy. Indeed, we have seen this in the latest figures on growth, which the Minister was most eager to tell us about in his speech. For the three months to the end of October, growth in the economy was negative—it was minus 0.1%—which is further evidence of the darkness that this Government have cast upon the animal spirits in our economy. To return to Shakespeare, were he here today, he would be appalled by the ignorance that this Government have shown of the basic rules of economics. It is a basic fact that if you focus on redistribution, as socialists always do—of course, there is always an argument for redistribution—at the expense of getting the incentives right in the economy, you will damage growth. That is exactly what is at the heart of this Budget. The key choice that has been taken is to increase taxes on hard-working people and spend at least a substantial proportion of the money raised on increasing the benefits bill. The second rule that this Government seem incapable of grasping is that if you tax something, you get less of it. That is a simple fact. That brings me to the topic of work. This Finance Bill further freezes the income tax threshold, meaning that 800,000 people or thereabouts will be dragged into the basic rate of income tax, and 1 million or thereabouts will be dragged through fiscal drag into the higher rate of income tax. By 2030, it is estimated that around one in four taxpayers will be in either the higher rate of income tax or the additional rate—an £8 billion tax grab in the target year, rising to £12.7 billion in 2030. That is on top of various other issues that are coming down the track, such as the freezing of the threshold for repayment of student loans, which is effectively a stealth tax on younger people. It is also on top of the freeze in the employer national insurance threshold, which will raise around £1 billion by 2030. Once again, that comes straight out of employers’ pockets—it is a further instalment of the extra jobs tax. All of this will reduce the incentive to work, as we have seen. In an intervention a moment ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) raised this very point in the context of hospitality. We have seen 90,000 jobs destroyed on this Government’s watch—and whose jobs are they? They are predominantly young people’s jobs, because increasing national insurance and reducing the threshold at which that tax kicks in disproportionately impacts those on lower incomes, which includes younger people. Of course, we also have the Employment Rights Bill coming down the track, which will make employing people, particularly younger people, even more risky and expensive. We see in this Finance Bill an outright attack on savers —those who are doing the right thing, putting money by for their retirement—and a 2% increase in taxes on savings income, which the OBR suggests will ironically lead to more people putting cash into individual savings accounts. That is quite the reverse of the effect that the Chancellor is attempting to achieve. According to the OBR, three quarters of the impact of that tax will be borne by working people by way of reduced pension contributions and lower wages. Indeed, the Association of British Insurers says that this measure is “a short-sighted tax grab which will lower pension saving and undermine people’s retirement security.” Then we get to inheritance tax. When we shuffle off this mortal coil—to get back to our friend Shakespeare—there will be a tax charge for those who have the temerity to have left something by way of a pension. It is a £1.5 billion tax grab by the Chancellor on those unused pensions.

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

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  How could I resist my right hon. and gallant Friend?

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

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  Sadly, I think the gravediggers are still alive and well under this Government. We are seeing that in the destruction of jobs, businesses, farms and livelihoods up and down this country.

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

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. What businesses, including farms, need to succeed is lower taxes and not to be spending most of their time worrying about how they will cover the impact of future taxation. They need to be planning for the future of their businesses and investing in them.

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

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  I will give way to the hon. Gentleman and then I will come to the hon. Lady.

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

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  I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention. She is absolutely right on the matter of APR, but the issue is not just APR.

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

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It shows a complete lack of understanding of business, and it reflects the lack of true business experience on the Government Front Bench. It also goes right to the core of the difference in principles and beliefs between the two principal parties in this Chamber. We on the Opposition Benches believe that if someone works hard, saves hard and has something left at the end of their life, they should be allowed—because they love those who they wish to look after in their absence—to pass on that inheritance without the taxman taking a huge, disproportionate amount of what they have accumulated. All the Labour party believes in is mounding up ever more debt in a statist world in which that debt is to be passed on to future generations to be paid back. We believe in supporting the little platoon, as Burke put it—the families that together form a mighty army. We believe in personal responsibility and for that to be rewarded.

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

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  I notice that my right hon. Friend is being restrained in his use of language, given the severity of the matters we are discussing. He is absolutely right. Business property relief is being changed in broadly the same way as agricultural property relief in this Bill. That will have a devastating and similar consequence for family businesses across the UK, and I have been up and down the country to meet many of them. One of the foremost in campaigning has been Steve Rigby of the Rigby Group. He is the head of Family Business UK, and he put it perfectly when he said that family businesses are spending too much time protecting their legacy and succession, not on promoting growth. That is the whole point. If this Government want growth, they will have to do things that get businesses to think about growth, rather than having to worry about being broken up because of onerous tax measures.

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

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  As I have to say so often following his interventions, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There is a huge difference between the position of a dynamic, growing organism of a company and the other situation that he has described. Loading up these taxes on the death of the principal owner or one of the significant owners of a business means loading it up with uncertainty, and quite conceivably the business must be broken up as a consequence.

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

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  My hon. Friend is right to suggest that we have become an economy that has closed the door on international investment. In fact, the door has been blown wide open by those fleeing to go to the United Arab Emirates, Milan and other places around the world to escape the high-tax jurisdiction that we have become, and it comes with great cost. Given the 16,000 high net worth individuals who have fled under this Government, about a third of a million to half a million people on average earnings would probably be needed to cover the tax that has just walked out of the door. I can also tell the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) and others that we will reverse the APR and BPR changes if we form the next Government. I will now make swift progress. Let me just say that the wrong choices have been made. Tax should not be going up and spending should not be going up in this way, and I do not even believe that the Chancellor’s heart is in the benefit changes that have occurred, including the two-child benefit cap change. If it were, why was the Whip removed from several Labour Members? The reality is that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are lashed to the same mast. This is all about their survival. They lost control of their own Back Benchers. Let me go back to Shakespeare, and “The Tempest”. The storm has no respect for rank, so they pitch and roll solely at the command of those behind them. The great man also wrote: “All the world’s a stage…And one man in his time plays many parts”. However, this Chancellor has played but one part, that of recklessness. At heart, she has taxed that which is good, and in this Bill she has incentivised that which is not. By so doing, with this Bill she will diminish us all.

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

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  My hon. Friend is right. I was out there this morning speaking to farmers, including a group up from Newbury, who have taken the trouble to come here to make exactly that case powerfully to us on the day of this debate.

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

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The value of farming goes above and beyond successful businesses simply contributing to the economy in the traditional way. Farming also underpins our food security as a nation.

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

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  I would not naturally defer to the results of a Lib Dem survey over the work of His Majesty’s Treasury. However, I get the gist of what the hon. Lady is saying—perhaps a bar chart with a slightly dodgy scale would be a good way of putting the point. The Chancellor says that those who are in receipt solely of the state pension should not worry about being dragged slightly into taxation, because that will be dealt with, but we do not know what that actually means. We do not know what the plan is, nor the cost. Perhaps in the wind-ups the Minister can tell us exactly what is envisaged for the very large number of pensioners who, under the Bill, will be dragged into paying tax on their state pension for the first time. What a mess! The Government are working against the instincts of those who are doing the right thing to save for their future. The same is the case in respect of investment. The 2% increase in tax on dividends—a £1.2 billion tax grab—will simply have the effect of disincentivising investments in equities. That will mean less capital being invested in businesses, which is what drives up productivity. Part of the story of low productivity in our country is the fact that private investment has been too low for too long. This tax increase will weigh in the opposite direction. The Minister spoke about the importance of increasing investment in plant and machinery; the reality is that the Bill cuts the writing-down allowances, unless they relate to new plant and machinery, which will weigh against that very objective. This is an unfair Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) raised the issue of the farm tax, and he was absolutely right to do so. Farms up and down this country are now worried about the future. Farms in my constituency, which have sometimes been in the family for decades or generations—in some cases even for centuries—are now having to stare down the barrel of a very uncertain future. What an irony and what a tragedy that, during the run-up to the general election, the then shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), looked the president of the National Farmers Union in the eye, and said that, when it came to inheritance tax, farmers had nothing to fear from a future Labour Government. How wrong they were. As Tom Bradshaw said, this whole tax increase is “morally wrong and economically flawed”, and he is right.

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

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  It is interesting that the hon. Lady should raise the issue of inflation. Inflation is currently at about twice the target of 2%, and it was bang on target on the day of the general election, at 2%, because of the action that we took, alongside the Bank of England. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting that inflation in our country will be the highest in the G7 this year, and the highest in the G7 next year. If we ask why that has happened, the answer is relatively simple. If national insurance increases are imposed on employers, they pass on some of those additional costs by way of higher prices, and that is inflationary. If vast amounts of money are borrowed, and, notwithstanding what the Minister had to say earlier, vast amounts of money are spent, too—about half a trillion pounds more than was the case under the plans that Labour inherited—that also stokes inflation. Those on the Government Front Bench may trumpet the fact that interest rates have come down five times, but if they had not mismanaged the economy, rates would have come down an awful lot faster. Interest rates are higher, and for longer, because we have sticky inflation, which is due to the choices made by this Government.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why that behaviour was so irresponsible. There are people who would have drawn down on their pensions because they were extremely concerned about what was being briefed out by the Treasury as to what changes may be coming down the line, and about their ability to do so after the Budget. We also had people leaving the country because they were worried about an exit tax, which was another kite flown by the Treasury. That grossly irresponsible behaviour had real-life impacts in the real economy. When it comes to misleading, there is much to consider in the complete mismanagement of the run-up to this Budget. That is not just my view. Indeed, a member of the Cabinet was quoted in the press saying, “the handling of this Budget has been a disaster from start to finish.” The impression that has been given is that there was a deliberate attempt to paint an inaccurate picture of the public finances, designed to give political cover for Labour’s plans for more taxes and more welfare spending. The Chancellor delivered a pre-Budget statement in Downing Street on 4 November in which she said that the OBR would be downgrading its productivity forecast, meaning lower tax receipts, but she failed to mention that in reality the OBR’s forecast had already shown her four days earlier that overall tax receipts were £16 billion higher—not lower—than previously thought. To quote the OBR’s Budget report: “In isolation, the reduction in productivity growth could have lowered revenues by around £16 billion in 2029-30. However, the boost to receipts from higher inflation and changes to the composition of nominal GDP growth…more than offset this.” Ministers have pointed out that there was a need to increase headroom, but that was not the justification for tax rises that was being made before the Budget, and it is an admission that the headroom that the Chancellor left in her first two fiscal events was inadequate and irresponsible. Crucially, it also fails to acknowledge that a significant proportion of the increase in taxes was used to fund policy decisions to spend more on welfare. On 14 November, the media were briefed that a plan to increase income tax rates had been dropped following an improved forecast from the OBR. We now know that that was simply untrue. The finalised pre-measures forecast came weeks before this, on 31 October. That is why it is vital that the Financial Conduct Authority investigates the briefings and leaks that went on, and I have written to it again this week on that matter. Even after the Budget, in a Guardian interview, the Chancellor said that income tax rises had remained on the table well into November, “because we didn’t know the size of the downgrade, the productivity”. Again, that is simply untrue. We now know that at no point was there a deficit of the scale suggested to the media. We know that because the OBR felt it necessary to take the unprecedented step of publishing its forecast rounds in full. The question remains as to why Ministers seem to have been so unconcerned about what was appearing in the press, when the OBR has now revealed that the alarm was being raised before the Budget. The reality is that the briefings and leaks were a smokescreen designed to distract from the real reason that taxes were going up, the utter weakness of this Labour Government and the need to buy off their Back Benchers with yet more welfare spending. In the process, the uncertainty and speculation fuelled by the Treasury had an impact on families and on growth. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) rightly pointed out, people made decisions about their finances. They locked in higher mortgage rates, and businesses put off making investments and hiring workers. The British public have been left worse off and they have been misled. They deserve an apology, and they deserve much better than this weak and irresponsible Government.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House calls on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to apologise for misleading the country about the state of the public finances, rolling the pitch for raising taxes, breaking her promises and increasing welfare spending, including her claim on 4 November 2025 that the OBR would be downgrading their productivity forecast which, as the Chancellor said, had ‘consequences for the public finances too, in lower tax receipts’, when in fact on 31 October 2025 the OBR had submitted its forecast to the Chancellor that showed tax receipts would be £16 billion higher than previously thought, resulting in the Government’s current balance target being met by a margin of £4.2 billion; further calls on the Chancellor to apologise for breaching the trust of the OBR, whose forecasts are shared in strict confidence until the Chancellor has given her Budget Statement; also calls on the Chancellor to apologise for the misleading briefings and leaks from HM Treasury in advance of the Budget Statement which caused uncertainty for families, businesses and investors; and calls on the Chancellor to apologise for breaking her promise after the last Budget that the Government was not going to raise taxes again, instead raising taxes in the 2025 Budget by £26 billion. I will, of course, heed your remonstrations and remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is said that astrologists are there to make economists look good and second-hard car dealers are there to make politicians look good. It is inconceivable that anywhere in the world there is any trade or career that could possibly make this Chancellor look good. Indeed, one need only look at the polls. The Ipsos poll on the Chancellor’s approval rating shows that she has achieved minus 60%. That is a record low for a poll that was first commenced in the 1970s. A recent YouGov poll stated that the Chancellor was the least trusted on the economy, even more so than Jeremy Corbyn and, yes, Liz Truss—

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  Yes, not bad, but I have to say that the tie runs in a close second—that is pretty shocking too. I now turn from the substance of the Budget to the chaotic pantomime that we had in the run-up to the Budget? We had every possible kite flown by the Treasury as to which taxes were potentially going up. We had so many kites that they blotted out the sun, and the long shadow of all that chaos swept across businesses who stopped investing, and consumers who stopped spending. Members should not take my word for that; Andy Haldane, the former chief economist at the Bank of England, observed that all that speculation made businesses and consumers “hunker down”. It had real economic consequences.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  I will take one final intervention, and there is none better than my right hon. Friend.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  The steps, as the hon. Gentleman terms them, that his party is taking to get the deficit down are to borrow ever larger sums of money—half a trillion more than was laid out in the plans that his party inherited, and that has been added to further by the Chancellor at the last Budget. You will recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that after her first Budget, the Chancellor said that she would not be coming back for more tax, which brings me to the issue of her being misleading. That was clearly a misleading statement, because the recent Budget sets out that £26 billion more will be raised in tax in the year 2029-30. But £26 billion is not the extent of the increased tax rises. Because the Government have fuelled inflation, for the reasons that we have been discussing among ourselves, fiscal drag has dragged in a total of £38 billion of additional taxation in that year. The Labour party must start to understand that if it taxes and taxes and taxes the economy, it will get less growth, less productivity and less employment, and that is precisely what we are seeing. The Labour party also said—if you recall, Madam Deputy Speaker—that the Chancellor would not be taxing hard-working people. Well, that simply was not true. By freezing the income tax thresholds for those extra years, the Chancellor is increasing taxes by £7 billion, which is a direct contradiction of what she said—with great gusto—in the previous Budget. She said that she would not do that because it would hurt hard-working people and that she would stick to her promises. Clearly, she did not mean it when she said it.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government talk a good game on poverty, but when it comes down to what they do, we see something entirely different.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  I have had many things to say about the mini-Budget, both at the time that it happened and subsequently—and more recently too. Can I remind the hon. Gentleman that on the day of the general election, we had a near record level of employment and a near record low level of unemployment? We had the highest growth in the G7, and we had inflation bang on target at 2%. It is almost double that at present. The reason this Government have failed can be distilled to just two words: one is “deceit” and the other is “incompetence”. In the run-up to the last general election, the Labour party said that it would not put up taxes left, right and centre, and yet, within a few short months, they were to roll out £40 billion-worth of tax increases, including £25 billion by way of increased national insurance contribution taxes on employment.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  I think the less said about the socks the better, Madam Deputy Speaker.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes excellent points, and I will come to the issue of the market-moving effects of some of the comments made by the Chancellor. On the point that he rightly raises about the impact on people’s lives, these are real jobs. These are people struggling with real businesses. These are farmers getting up early in the morning, going out, working and doing what they know to be right, yet they are weighed down by the decisions taken by the Government. Labour said that it had no intention of means-testing the winter fuel payment. There was no mention of it in its manifesto during the last general election, yet within a very short period of time, that is precisely what it did. Before Labour Members get excited about excluding millionaires and multimillionaires from those payments, the reality is that about 80% of pensioners living below the poverty line were impacted by that decision, which would have only entrenched and driven up poverty.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right. There is another change to the inheritance tax regime that will be equally as destructive as the agricultural property relief changes, and that is the business property relief changes—the tax changes relating to family firms up and down the country. I have met many of them. These are sometimes substantial businesses that have gone from having a bright outlook under the last Government to suddenly being concerned about the provisions they will now have to make to avoid being broken up as a consequence of the ruinous changes to the inheritance tax regime for those businesses. This is destroying investment, jobs and growth. That is the story of the Labour party.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

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  Three times might be a bit too much—we will come back to the hon. Gentleman later.