Nick Timothy MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 26 Feb 2025 · Family Businesses · Hansard source

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  Based on Labour’s track record, one would always bet on tax rises rather than fiscal responsibility. The bond markets have taken a single look at the Chancellor’s fiscal plans and increased Britain’s borrowing costs, which means another Labour tax rise for all of us. Not one word in the speeches we have heard from Labour Members today recognised the cumulative damage caused by their Government’s policies. There is the national insurance jobs tax, hiking the cost of hiring staff by £900 for an employee on the average salary and costing businesses £25 billion in total. There is the business rates relief cut, from 75% to 40%, meaning that businesses will spend £2.7 billion extra a year by 2026-27. There is the Employment Rights Bill, which, as I said, will cost businesses £5 billion a year, and probably more once the Government finally get their impact assessments right—normally Governments produce an impact assessment before a Bill is published, not after it has passed through all its stages in the House of Commons. There is the Energy Secretary, who wants to increase the carbon price higher than Europe’s and, according to the National Energy System Operator report that he constantly endorses, up to as much as £147 per tonne of carbon dioxide by 2030. As industry is lining up to tell the Government, that is yet another jobs killer. There are also, of course, the changes to business property relief that we have discussed today, which will cost £1.25 billion in lost revenue and mean 125,000 jobs lost by 2030.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Home Secretary quite conspicuously failed to answer the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) asked earlier, so I am going to have another go. Should it ever be a criminal offence for anybody to desecrate a religious text—yes or no?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Efford, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) on securing this important debate. I hesitate to compete with a Yorkshireman, but it has also been very cold in Suffolk recently, and the stories that the hon. Member told of his constituents will be familiar to all of us in the Chamber today. From the hon. Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson)—who is no longer in the Chamber—to the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), we were reminded that fuel poverty affects urban and rural constituencies alike. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) rightly talked about the reliance on heating oil in rural constituencies, and the hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) was certainly right to say that pension credit take-up is far too low. As the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) said, we cannot ignore the hardship caused by the Government’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment so aggressively for millions of pensioners. Of course there is a case for means-testing that payment, but the Chancellor is cutting it for not just the richest pensioners, but those on very modest incomes. If the winter fuel payment is to be means-tested, surely the proceeds should go to low-income pensioners and the cost of social care, but they do not, because we know that Labour’s spending priorities are to throw the money it is taking from pensioners to the public sector and railway unions that funded it. Let us remember that during the election campaign, Labour repeatedly promised us that it would protect the winter fuel payment, but we know that the Chancellor planned the cut all along, because she had said that she wanted to do it as far back as 2014. Let us be clear: as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) said, this policy is a political choice, not an economic necessity as Ministers claim. The Office for Budget Responsibility has blown up the Government’s claim that they inherited a fiscal hole. Of the report used by Ministers to justify that claim, Richard Hughes, the OBR chairman, said that “nothing in our review was a legitimisation” of that claim. Indeed, the Minister who is with us today must answer this simple question: if the cuts for pensioners and the tax rises were made necessary by fiscal prudence, why did Labour promise in its manifesto to increase spending by £9.5 billion a year by 2028-29, only to actually increase it by £76 billion in its Budget? This was a choice. The challenge of fuel poverty affects people of all ages throughout the country. Rather than just creating new benefits and schemes to address the high cost of fuel, we need to resolve the root causes of energy costs more generally. Here, the Government are taking the country in a very worrying direction. The Energy Secretary promises to decarbonise the grid by 2030, and the Business Secretary wants to ban petrol and diesel cars by the same year. Tough standards on aviation fuel are being enforced; heat pumps are expected to replace gas boilers; expensive and intermittent renewable technologies funded by huge and hidden subsidies are favoured; and oil and gas fields in the North sea are abandoned, left for the Norwegians to profit from what we choose to ignore. The Energy Secretary has made much of the National Energy System Operator’s report on decarbonising the grid. He says that report shows that he can do so by 2030 without increasing bills, but in fact the report does not say that—and even then, its calculations rest on a carbon price that will rise to £147 per tonne of carbon dioxide. It is no wonder that, in reply to a question I asked him last week, the Energy Secretary would not rule out having a higher carbon price in Britain than in Europe. That will be terrible for families struggling with the cost of heating their home, but it will hurt them—and indeed all of us—in other ways. As long as policy runs faster than technology and other countries do not follow our lead on climate change, decarbonisation will inevitably mean deindustrialisation. That will mean a weaker economy with lower growth, fewer jobs, and less spending power to help those who we have been discussing today—those who need support the most. Of course, it is not just the NESO report that shows us the future consequences of the Government’s policies. The OBR says that environmental levies will reach up to £15 billion by the end of this Parliament to pay for net zero policies. As those levies will fall heavily on consumption, they will have a particularly regressive effect, as analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Cornwall Insight has confirmed. It is therefore no wonder that Labour’s election promise to cut bills by £300 by the end of the Parliament has vanished without trace, so I challenge the Minister today to do what she has not done since polling day—repeat that promise very clearly. I suspect she will not because, unlike the Secretary of State, she knows the reality of his policies. The Government are adding complexity and contradiction to our energy system and loading extra costs on to families across the country. There is still time for Ministers to think again and put the interests of decent, hard-working people ahead of the Energy Secretary’s ideological dogma.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Fuel Poverty: England · Hansard source

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  The Minister talks about the tough job the Chancellor faces. Does she acknowledge that the job is tough because of the Chancellor’s own choices? The Minister talks about the inheritance but, as I said in my speech, the Labour manifesto said that Labour would increase spending by £9.5 billion a year, while the Budget increased it by £76 billion a year. That is why the Chancellor faces tough decisions—they originate with her own political choices. Does the Minister acknowledge that?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Prevent: Learning Review · Hansard source

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  I echo the Minister’s praise for Sir David, who was a loved friend to so many, including many Members in this House. I welcome today’s statement, which is a sobering reminder of the importance of getting the Prevent programme right. The seriousness of the statement contrasts sharply with the immediate reaction and debate that followed Sir David’s murder, when there was, to be frank, a bizarre and misplaced rush to talk about issues such as online civility, rather than the clear threat that was behind the murder. Will the Minister join me in saying it is time for an end to the denialism we often see around the threat from Islamism, and, recognising what he said about the changing nature of the threat, does he agree that as the major terror threat that we face, Islamist extremism should always be Prevent’s top priority?

• 11 Feb 2025 · Draft Energy Bill Relief Scheme and Energy Bills Discount Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under you bright and early this morning, Mr Stringer. I am pleased to respond to the draft regulations on behalf of the Opposition. Committee Members will be relieved to hear that I shall not detain them long. It was right for the previous Conservative Government to step in during the cost of living crisis to protect families and businesses from rocketing energy bills. The supply shock from the pandemic and a major land war in Europe created a unique set of circumstances. Thanks to the previous Government, we came through the storm. Now that the crisis has passed, it is reasonable to finish the work of winding down the energy bill relief scheme and the energy bills discount scheme. They were always intended to be temporary measures during a time of national emergency. Now we are presented with the challenge of finding our way back to recovery and a long-term path to lower energy prices. As the current Government continue down the ideological decarbonisation route, led by the Secretary of State, we will watch carefully in order to protect the families and businesses who bear the cost of unrealistic clean energy targets. Indeed, experts expect the energy price cap to rise next month. The Manchester-based— not Aberdeen-based—head of GB Energy, Juergen Maier, says it will be “a very long-term project” to reduce bills by £300, which was a promise that Ministers stopped making as soon as their election campaign ended. I note that the Minister is wiser than her boss in not repeating that promise. We support the regulations. We recognise their role in winding down the old schemes, but we remain vigilant about new policies that will surely make lives harder and more expensive because of the unattainable and self-harming decarbonisation goals that the Government are pursuing.

• 11 Feb 2025 · US Steel Import Tariffs · Hansard source

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  The attacks on the last Conservative Government might carry more weight if this Government were not planning to equalise our carbon price with the European carbon price, but that is by the by. Given the conduct of China over the years, measures to hold down production costs in other countries and now President Trump’s tariffs, will the Minister accept that, if international free trade was not always a myth, it certainly is dead today, and will he commit to abandoning the theories and policies that follow his logic? Comparative advantage is used as intellectual cover for outsourcing production jobs and prosperity to countries that cheat the system. So can we see some trade realism and a strategy—a real strategy—to cut industrial energy costs, keep us making virgin steel, and get us manufacturing and exporting more?

• 10 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source

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  The Home Secretary asked earlier why we oppose this Bill. The answer is that it weakens the law and it allows illegal immigrants to claim asylum, live off benefits and become British citizens. It hinders enforcement by stopping scientific age checks for illegal immigrants and it allows the courts to further restrict immigration detention. No wonder the Home Secretary was yet again unable to say which metric we should use, and when, to judge whether she has succeeded in “smashing the gangs”. Once more she revealed her party’s true self by arguing that the problem with the crossings is not the crime of illegal immigration, but the risk to the illegal immigrants. Much of this Bill is fanciful. New offences for facilitating the channel crossings apply in other jurisdictions. The idea that the state, even working with other countries, might identify, arrest and extradite the criminals involved, when it fails to prosecute elementary immigration crimes committed on British soil, seems far-fetched. Some measures are pathetically weak. For example, the Bill requires the Border Security Commander to produce a “strategic priority document”, to which partners agencies must have “regard”. Even measures that supposedly toughen policy have glaring loopholes. The new offence of “endangering another during sea crossing” excludes the parents of children on the boats from prosecution, obviously encouraging migrants to put more children on to the boats. But it is all a sham, because we know that the Government’s real policy is to rush asylum claims through, accepting the vast majority before hiding immigrants in the welfare and local authority housing budgets. A Government impact assessment last July admitted that in black and white, stating that 44,000 illegal immigrants who Ministers were choosing not to deport would be granted asylum instead. That cohort alone will cost the taxpayer up to £18 billion over their lifetimes. So opaque was the Home Office about the true costs of its policy choices that the UK Statistics Authority rebuked it, in a letter to me, for being insufficiently transparent. That should prompt an urgent question about what we are going to do with the huge numbers of low-skilled and high-cost immigrants who have come to Britain in recent years. According to the Centre for Policy Studies, more than 2 million visas have recently been issued to immigrants who could soon get indefinite leave to remain. That gives them the right to live in Britain indefinitely, and grants them access to the NHS, social housing and benefits. Even cautious estimates suggest that the net lifetime fiscal cost to the taxpayer could reach £234 billion. That brings me to my final point: those immigrants who entered the country illegally should never be allowed to stay here, and those who came here legally on time-limited visas and have not contributed enough should be expected to leave. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is right to say that ILR should be conditional on someone’s respect for the law and their contribution to our economy. That would go some way to making up for the failures of immigration policy in the recent past, and it would mean a different system, in which we think of immigration as a temporary stay, not a permanent right. It would increase the outflow of migrants as we also control the inflow, and ensure that both the law and the state are in a condition to deliver that policy. Civilisations that are unable to control their borders die, and ours is no exception. The future of immigration policy must be not just about who comes here, but about who we decide must leave.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill · Hansard source

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  I have asked the Home Secretary this before and she has not given an answer yet: which metric should we use, and by which date, if we are to ascertain whether she has succeeded in smashing the gangs?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Thoroughbred horses are high-health, high-welfare animals, and they should be treated as such to allow cross-border travel without physical border checks. Can the Minister commit today to recognise their high-health status, put welfare first and reduce this barrier to trade?

• 4 Feb 2025 · National Wealth Fund: Opportunities for Industry · Hansard source

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  The Government policy to decarbonise the grid by 2030 rests on the National Energy System Operator’s assumption of a £147 per tonne carbon price, but manufacturers are lining up to tell the Energy Secretary that it would destroy British industry. Will he guarantee today that for the remainder of this Parliament, we will have a lower carbon price than Europe?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Extremism Review · Hansard source

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  The Security Minister recently told me that it remains Government policy not to engage with the Muslim Council of Britain. Last week, the Minister for Social Security and Disability attended the MCB annual leadership dinner. Did that Minister breach Government policy, or is engagement with the MCB now tolerated after all?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  There are serious questions about the transparency of the police, the CPS and the Government in the days and weeks following the Southport attack. In written answers to me, the Government have refused to provide the dates when the Prime Minister was told that Rudakubana possessed ricin and an al-Qaeda training manual. Can the Justice Secretary tell me why?

• 27 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Children’s Commissioner says that the Government are “legislating against the things we know work in schools”. Katharine Birbalsingh says the schools Bill is “catastrophic”. Sir Dan Moynihan asks: “Why are we doing this?”. Why does the Education Secretary think that she knows more about education than the Children’s Commissioner, the head of the best school in the country, and the head of the best multi-academy trust?

• 27 Jan 2025 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this evening, Mrs. Harris, and a pleasure to speak to the draft order on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. We welcome the clarity provided by the draft order and will continue to scrutinise the details of the emissions trading scheme implementation under this Government. It will be important to observe how aligned we are with Europe on carbon pricing. Regardless of the many policy decisions we face in the years ahead, as a matter of principle we should always make sure that we are competitive and not naive in our carbon pricing, because the cost of energy affects our economy and people’s standard of living in fundamental ways. Without secure and affordable energy, industry cannot compete, jobs are lost, and living standards fall. We have experienced unacceptable deindustrialisation in the years since 2008, and the trajectory of policy under this Government means that we will suffer a further loss of competitiveness in the years ahead, making the imbalances in our economy—sectoral and geographical—as well as a huge trade deficit and all the consequences of that, far worse. That is why I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister about the assumption in the National Energy System Operator report that the carbon price will rise to £147 per tonne of carbon dioxide by 2030 to meet the Government’s clean power target. That is an incredible number, but the feasibility of the Government’s whole plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030 is entirely based on that number. When asked about the £147 carbon price by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove during a recent Select Committee hearing, the Secretary of State said: “I will not endorse these assumptions”. Yet he also said: “We work hand in glove with NESO, not just on modelling but on all of these questions”. He insisted that the NESO report proves that his Department’s clean power plan can be delivered. The Government cannot have it both ways. Either Ministers must be honest and admit that the carbon price will increase to £147 per tonne of CO 2 because of Government policy, or confess that the 2030 target for clean power will never be reached and that the many claims they have made while citing the NESO report are utter nonsense. Earlier today, representatives of Britain’s energy-intensive industries including steel, glass, ceramics, chemicals, paper and mineral products wrote a public letter to the Minister responsible for industry to express their frustration with being held back by “high electricity costs, policy uncertainty and risk of carbon leakage”. Energy-intensive industries know what that means for their survival, saying that they “will not be able to bear these carbon costs”. We should be clear about what the £147 figure would mean: the destruction of industry in this country and the death while such opportunities are in their infancy of British artificial intelligence. How many Members of the Committee have consulted the NESO report and its technical annexes? If they have not done so already, I strongly urge them to ask themselves whether they accept this projected carbon price figure and how business might respond to such a drastic increase. How many jobs will this cost? How much higher will bills go? Let us be clear. Increasing the cost of carbon will be destructive for the economic wellbeing of the country. Ministers and supporters of the Government should be up front with the British people and with British industry about this fact. I implore members of the Committee, because they will be asked to keep voting for this mindless Milibandism, to read up and listen to industry and the technical experts—I do not mean Dale Vince—before lending their support and credibility to this destruction. If they go along with it, history will be most unkind to them. We should remember that the Government were elected on a solemn manifesto promise that their policies would cut household energy bills by £300 per year by 2030. The Secretary of State and Ministers in the Department have studiously avoided repeating this promise time and again since July. The Government know that this promise was nonsense, and whatever his outward zeal, so does the Secretary of State, but he is too afraid to admit it. Following the Government’s Budget spending spree, the Office for Budget Responsibility made it clear that environmental levies will have to increase to as much as almost £15 billion, thanks to the Secretary of State’s policies. That means households will each pay £120 more in environmental levies, and that is on top of all the hidden costs in the system—the subsidies, balancing costs, new interconnectors and massive upgrades to the grid and distribution networks that Ministers pretend do not exist while they tell the public that renewables are cheap. The news gets worse for British business. The UK was once a net exporter of energy, with internationally competitive energy prices. This is no longer the case. We have been a net importer of energy since 2004, and our import dependency has increased from 13% in 2005 to 41% in 2023. Industrial energy prices have increased from 4.56p per kWh in 2005 to 25.46p per kWh in 2023. Industrial energy prices in the UK are now on average 50% higher than prices in in other advanced economies. Our industrial energy prices are four times higher than those in China and three times higher than those in America and Canada. They are also higher than prices in France, which has significant nuclear energy capacity. We are artificially driving up costs with a misguided drive to decarbonise before the technology is ready. To be clear, I know that my party played a part in this, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged, but we are looking at the evidence and being honest about the mistakes we made. The Government are denying the evidence and driving us faster and faster towards the abyss—

• 27 Jan 2025 · Draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (Amendment) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I certainly will, Mrs Harris, but this is relevant to the ETS, because there is nothing more important for the future of energy policy. Getting policy right means being straight about the trade-offs. The energy trilemma has not been resolved. We must choose how best to prioritise. We must do what other countries are doing and put cost and security ahead of decarbonisation.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Certificate of Common Sponsorship · Hansard source

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  I was slightly surprised by what the hon. Lady just said. Can she just repeat, so I understand correctly, that the Liberal Democrat policy is to reinstate the ability for people coming on the health and social care visa to bring dependants, knowing that that on average each person on that visa brought more than one dependant and the ratio was more than 1:1 throughout its operation?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Southport Attack · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister’s denial in August that Rudakubana was being investigated for offences under the Terrorism Act 2006 did not protect the trial, because we found out the facts anyway when Rudakubana was charged in October. The same disclosure did not cause other trials, such as that of the Parsons Green tube bomber, to fail. I am not talking about the detail of Prevent referrals, which the Home Secretary has mentioned in answers to similar questions, but about the information that was disclosed in October. If a jury knew that before the trial, why could the Prime Minister not have told the country the truth in August?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Community Engagement Principles and Extremism Definition · Hansard source

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  I will have a go at getting an answer from the Minister, even if he did not answer the questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson). Yesterday, the Department confirmed in answer to a freedom of information request that there is internal Government correspondence about the Muslim Council of Britain that it refuses to publish. Can the Minister overturn that decision, publish the papers and confirm that there have been no discussions and no correspondence within Whitehall proposing re-engagement with the MCB?

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Many residents of West Suffolk who live in new build homes put up with management companies that fail to do the basic things expected of them, from sorting out roads and planting trees to maintaining shared spaces. They often pass the buck to the developers, who pass it back again. What plans have the Government to get to grips with these cowboy companies?

• 20 Jan 2025 · Family Visas: Income Requirement · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Responsible Gambling · Hansard source

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  The Minister will not be surprised to hear me raise the issue of the disproportionality of affordability checks on those betting on racing, and the reform of the betting levy. I am grateful for the positive tone taken so far, and the constructive engagement from her and the Secretary of State. Talks between the gambling industry and the racing industry about the betting levy continue, but I think ultimately Ministers will be required to make a decision. We need the betting levy to be increased overall, and applied to races held overseas that people are betting on here. We think there will be not just a fiscal forecast but a mini-Budget in March. Can those industries start working with the Treasury now to make sure that there are plans to reform the betting levy in the Finance Bill?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Health and Social Care: Winter Update · Hansard source

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  Research shows that ambulance response times in Haverhill in my constituency are twice those in Cambridge. We would like a new, co-located and purpose-built blue-light facility; the police and the ambulance service could use it to serve the town effectively, and it would hopefully save money. May I invite a Minister from the Department to come to Haverhill to meet me, the East of England ambulance service, Suffolk police and local councillors to discuss those plans?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Employment Rights Bill (Twentieth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Despite the differences of opinion expressed during these weeks in Committee, we all believe that the rights of workers are essential. In that spirit, I hope that Members across the political divide can see the merit in what I am proposing today. The labour abuse that the new clause seeks to address is the use of substitution clauses to flout labour laws and fuel the employment of illegal workers. Transparency is essential to guarantee fairness and justice in the labour market, and the unlawful labour of undocumented migrants and others who might be paid less than the minimum wage or be given no legal protections is obviously not good for the workers themselves, for our society, for taxpayers, or for anyone who wants a law-abiding society. It is my understanding that Ministers will be consulting on employment status, and that they are considering moving to a two-part legal framework that identifies people who are genuinely self-employed as part of their work in the gig economy. That is obviously worth doing, but the new clause addresses a narrower issue that is clearly causing significant abuse and exploitation right now. I want us to take the opportunity to act swiftly and decisively. There are 4.7 million gig economy workers in the UK, including 120,000 official riders—and many more non-official riders—at Uber Eats and Deliveroo, two of the largest delivery companies in the country. For years now we have heard stories of the rampant abuse and fraud committed under the auspices of these companies. In late 2018 to early 2019, there were 14,000 fraudulent Uber car journeys, according to Transport for London. In addition to Uber and Deliveroo, Amazon and Just Eat have been caught up in accusations of related labour market abuses. Some of these examples have related to the legal loopholes created by substitution clauses. With its substitution clauses, Amazon tells couriers that it is their “responsibility to pay your substitute…at any rate you agree with them”, and “you must ensure that any substitute…has the right to work in the UK”. It is a dereliction of duty on the part of these big employers to pass the responsibility for compliance with criminal and right-to-work checks on to their workers. They clearly have an interest in maintaining the status quo where undocumented migrants are taking the lowest fees in the delivery apps. Data from the Rodeo app shows the impact of this abuse on riders’ order fees. Just Eat riders saw their fees drop by 14.4%, from £6.53 in 2021 to £5.59 in 2023. There was a 3.4% drop for Uber Eats order fees during the same period, and Deliveroo has blocked its order fee data from being published. Although those numbers are not adjusted for inflation, it is clear to see how pay and conditions have worsened for riders. By undercutting domestic workers and exploiting those with no legal right to be here, companies are privatising profits and socialising costs. Promises from the companies to introduce tougher security checks have not made this problem go away, and nobody should be above the law. Action is sometimes taken by the authorities, but progress has been too slow. In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers are employees and entitled to statutory rights. As a result, VAT was added to Uber journeys that year, but Uber accounts are still being used for journeys by unauthorised drivers, despite a temporary licence removal in London. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Deliveroo drivers are independent freelancers, not employees entitled to certain labour rights. My argument is that we cannot wait for judges to act; it is our job as parliamentarians to legislate when there are clear abuses of power and clear social problems caused by behaviour that the law currently allows. The evidence of a serious crisis in our labour market is there and growing. The Home Office found that two in five delivery riders stopped during random checks in April 2023 were working illegally. That same month, 60 riders at Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat were arrested in London for immigration offences, including working illegally and holding false documentation. Insurance companies have also encountered problems with unauthorised riders involved in motor and personal injury cases. This is happening because undocumented migrants are renting rider accounts for between £70 and £100 per week. In some instances profiles have been bought for fees as high as £5,000. The i P aper found that over 100,000 people were in Facebook groups in which identities have been traded over the past three years. One group gained around 28,000 members in less than 18 months. This is clearly a significant problem. There is plenty of evidence that this is acting as a magnet for illegal migrants, and obviously it has an incredibly negative effect on the illegal migrants themselves. The Observer has reported that 30 migrants, mostly from Brazil, had been working for Uber Eats and Deliveroo while living in caravans in central Bristol. Working for less than the minimum wage, they were unable to rent a proper home. The Home Office raided the encampment in October. The undocumented migrants who find themselves in these situations are being exploited for profit by some of the country’s biggest and richest companies. People working legally have reported problems to the police and the Home Office, but this has helped to fuel tensions as riders compete for orders. It sometimes even leads to violent clashes between those working legally and those working illegally in places such as Brighton and London, including physical beatings and damage to some riders’ bikes. It is shameful that riders who are working legally and following the rules are being intimidated for reporting on illegal working. They should not be punished for helping to tackle a problem that Parliament itself has been negligent in failing to address. A spokesman for the App Drivers & Couriers Union—we like to listen to unions in this Committee—has said publicly “there is this loophole that allows some bad people to come through. They are not vetted so they could do anything.” For example, undocumented workers have been found to commit sexual harassment and violence against women, but they cannot be tracked by the authorities because they have been using other riders’ accounts. Riders are getting away with very serious crimes. We have been aware of this problem for a number of years now, and it has been growing. In May 2024, it was reported that a delivery driver forced his way into a young woman’s home where he sexually assaulted her. Last June, ITV reported on a woman being sexually assaulted by a Deliveroo rider who lured her out of her home by claiming to be lost. ITV has found further examples of inappropriate texting, verbal abuse, indecent exposure and even rape involving Uber Eats and Deliveroo drivers. A freedom of information request discovered that, between 2020 and 2023, 12 cases of sexual harassment in the west midlands and seven cases of indecent exposure in Devon and Cornwall involved delivery riders. Sadly, most of the forces did not record this data, so they were unable to give the researchers a national picture. I appreciate that the new clause will not solve the problem completely, but it can surely act as an important part of the solution in helping the police to catch criminals by creating a documentary chain for them to investigate and by stopping these criminals from hiding behind anonymity. I will now talk about the practicalities of enacting the new clause, which proposes the abolition of substitution clauses from workers’ contracts outright. Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo and the rest would have to do their due diligence just like any other company, and ensure that all their riders are who they say they are and have the right to work in this country. Introducing such a change would reduce labour abuse, protect our communities, and deliver a fairer system. It also fits within the internal logic of the Bill.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Employment Rights Bill (Twentieth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his constructive reply. If he is willing to have further conversations with me about what solutions we might be able to bring to bear on this problem, I will be happy to withdraw the new clause now. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 13 Rates of statutory maternity pay, etc “(1) In regulation 6 of the Statutory Maternity Pay (General) Regulations 1986 (prescribed rate of statutory maternity pay) for ‘£184.03’ substitute ‘£368.06’. (2) In the Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay (Weekly Rates) Regulations 2002— (a) in regulation 2(a) (weekly rate of payment of statutory paternity pay) for ‘£184.03’ substitute ‘£368.06’; and (b) in regulation 3(a) (weekly rate of payment of statutory adoption pay) for ‘£184.03’ substitute ‘£368.06’. (3) In regulation 40(1)(a) of the Statutory Shared Parental Pay (General) Regulations 2014 (weekly rate of payment of statutory shared parental pay) for ‘£184.03’ substitute ‘£368.06’. (4) In regulation 20(1)(a) of the Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (General) Regulations 2020 (weekly rate of payment) for ‘£184.03’ substitute ‘£368.06’.”— (Steve Darling.) This new clause sets out rates of Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Paternity Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay, Statutory Shared Parental Pay and Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay. Brought up, and read the First time.