Richard Fuller MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Apr 2026 · Pension Schemes Bill · Hansard source

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  Then why worry?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Charter for Budget Responsibility · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I think his issue with the Barnett consequentials is one for the Minister to reply to, but the Conservative and Unionist party, as he knows, has very strong support for and kinship with our citizens in Northern Ireland. On his comment about the revenues that the Government received in January, I would just point out that that in large part was due to self-assessment returns and capital gains returns filed in that year. When we tease through the data, we will see that a lot of that came from people making economic decisions that, in the long run, were not in their interest, because of the uncertainty brought into the economy by the Chancellor, who has confused people for an entire year. To illustrate the chaos of the last year, let me remind the House what the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), said in the equivalent debate on the charter last year: “Growth is the primary mission of this Government.” —[ Official Report , 29 January 2025; Vol. 761, c. 344.] But since then, comparing the OBR forecast from 2024 and 2025, growth is down in each year of the forecast period. In 2026, it is down to 1.3% from 1.8%. It is down in 2027, 2028 and 2029. The then Chief Secretary also said that the autumn 2024 Budget “put the public finances back on track, and we will keep them there.” —[ Official Report , 29 January 2025; Vol. 761, c. 345.] But since that statement the Chancellor has brought forward proposals to cut £5 billion from welfare. Then she reversed them. She said that she would stick to the two-child benefit cap, but then she caved in to Labour Back Benchers. The Chancellor has been forced to U-turn on her removal of winter fuel payments to pensioners. She has U-turned on her plans to tax our pubs out of existence, and she has U-turned on her damaging plans on the family farm tax and family business tax. After having said that she would not be coming back for more taxes, she did indeed come back to whack the British people again with tax increases amounting to over £26 billion. When this Government came into office, the forecast was that they would need to borrow £77 billion this fiscal year. But under this Chancellor, that level of borrowing has ballooned to £112 billion so far and is forecast to reach £138 billion by the end of the year. According to the OBR in November 2025, public sector net debt will continue to rise over the forecast period, despite Labour raising taxes to record levels, and debt will rise from 93.6% of GDP to 97% by the time of the next general election in 2028-29—if the Government last that long. Given the wreckage that they have caused in the general economy, Labour’s spin doctors have started to claim that the Government have the fastest deficit reduction plan in the G7. But that is only because this Government have spent so recklessly in their first years. Achieving this remarkable reduction rests on the credibility of the Government’s plans to raise taxes ahead of a general election and on their ability to rein in public spending in the out years—plans which, surely, their skittish Back Benchers will stymie, if the Government last that long. There are two changes in this revised charter that I would like to note. The first is the decision to change the definition of the current Budget being “in balance”. Paragraph 3.6 of the previous charter said that “balance is defined as a range: in surplus, or in deficit of no more than 0.5% GDP.” The current charter does not include that condition. Can the Minister tell us why the decision has been made to remove that flexibility? I would also be interested in what he thinks of the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ recent report, which stated: “The UK’s fiscal framework is based around a set of pass-fail, numerical fiscal rules. The fiscal debate is overly fixated on the amount of ‘headroom’ the government has against the most binding of those rules. The system incentivises the government to operate with the smallest amount of ‘headroom’ possible, with policy often fine-tuned according to the central point estimate of a highly uncertain forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility.” The IFS report recommended that “the UK would be better served by a new framework based around a set of ‘fiscal traffic lights’”. The Government appear to have gone in the opposite direction to the recommendations by stressing the importance of pinpoint accuracy, and I would be interested in the Minister’s views on that. I turn to the most significant change: the removal of what was paragraph 4.27 in the previous charter, which said: “At the same time as the forecasts, the OBR will produce its assessment of the extent to which fiscal policy has delivered, or is likely to deliver, the fiscal mandate.” The Government have, at a stroke, removed the opportunity for an independent assessment by the OBR ahead of the Government’s spring statement, yet last year the OBR significantly revised many of its previous assessments ahead of the spring statement. The OBR wrote that it was expecting GDP growth of 1%—half the rate of the October forecast—and that “CPI inflation is forecast to rise from 2.5 per cent in 2024 to 3.2 per cent in 2025, 0.6 percentage points higher than forecast in October.” [ Interruption. ] I have not been called “kiddo” for a while. I hope the Whip on duty, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), understands that this is an important point to make. It may have taken me some time to get there, but this is an important point. The issue here is: why make this change now? The Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011 is clear that the OBR must prepare fiscal and economic forecasts and assessments at least twice a year. Clause 251 of the Finance (No. 2) Bill retains the requirement for the OBR to prepare forecasts twice a year, but it seeks to remove the requirement in the 2011 Act for the OBR to provide its assessment twice a year. Perhaps the Minister—the wannabe Chancellor—can confirm that the reason we are today debating a revised charter, which now excludes an OBR forecast just ahead of the spring statement, is specifically to preclude the OBR from doing its own assessment on the imminent spring statement. We support tonight’s measure, but not with any confidence in this Government’s handling of the economy. In lacking that confidence, we are not alone. According to the latest Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales survey, business confidence fell again in the last quarter of 2025, with record concerns about the tax burden on business. In its December 2025 survey, YouGov found that 80% of the British people thought the Government were handling the economy badly. It is a sorry, sorry state for our great country.

• 15 Jan 2026 · New Towns · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the point about making brownfield sites a priority, and I think he is giving the Minister some very good advice. The first question that will be asked by people in Tempsford and the villages, who may see so much more housing come upon them, is, “Well, why haven’t you built in areas that are already developed? Have you maximised the potential in those areas?” It will be to the Government’s benefit if they can demonstrate, as I am sure the Minister will from the Dispatch Box shortly, that they will push existing urban areas as hard as they can to maximise housing potential and avoid some of the artificial blockages to which my hon. Friend is referring.

• 17 Dec 2025 · National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  For a Bill that proposes to raise taxation on working people by such a large amount, this has been a remarkably brief debate. But I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), who correctly said that this was yet another anti-aspiration measure from this Government, and the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter), who made it clear that this was yet another example of Labour breaking its manifesto pledge not to raise taxes on working people. He also asked one of the key questions, which I hope the Minister will address in his reply: as this measure is due to come into force in three years’ time, what assessment have the Government made of behavioural changes, and can the Minister be assured that the amount in the OBR forecast is robust on a dynamic accounting basis? This is the final economic Bill of the year to be voted on in the House of Commons, and it is another Bill that targets people who are trying to do the right thing. The Bill is a bad measure. It is an anti-savings measure and it is an attack on prudence, so of course the Conservative party will oppose it. This final Bill, at the end of this full-on year of Labour government, leaves me with one fundamental question: why do the Labour Government hate the private sector so much? If you are a family farmer, the Labour Government will snatch your farm away from your children when you die. If you believe in private education, the Labour Government will put up a barrier at the school gate. If you save for your retirement, Labour will tax your every effort to achieve security in retirement. Why do the Labour Government take every opportunity to punish people who are trying to do the right thing? The Bill makes a mockery of the Government’s own Pensions Commission, set up in July this year, when it wrote: “Put bluntly, private pension income for individuals retiring in 2050 could be 8% lower than those retiring in 2025—undermining a central measure of societal progress.” Back in June, the Government recognised the problem of a secure retirement. Now, they are adding to the problem. I have a question about the numbers. It is interesting that this measure is scored by the OBR in that crucial year of 2029-30 at £4.845 billion, falling the following year to £2.585 billion. That is an important year, because that is when the Chancellor says she has put in all this headroom—how interesting. Does the Minister agree with the director of Willis Towers Watson, one of the world’s biggest advisers on pensions, when he said: “While earlier introduction would be unwelcome, the change appears to have been timed to maximise revenue in 2029/30—the year that counts for the Chancellor’s fiscal rule. £1.6 billion of revenue in that year is a temporary gain which will be returned to taxpayers who pay employee contributions instead and claim back part of their tax relief”? On the £4.845 billion—the full amount—is any of that actually a fiction that will be returned the following year, as experts suggest it will be? The Bill makes it less attractive for employers to contribute to private sector pensions. We all know that there is less certainty in the private sector, because that is where defined contribution schemes predominate, whereas in the public sector, greater certainty is given by a defined benefit scheme. In the public sector, there is also benefit because the contribution from the employer to employee pensions is much higher than in the private sector. In the public sector, employer contributions are equivalent to 27% of earnings, on average, according to research by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, but in the private sector the average contribution is only 8%. Why are the Government proposing to make it harder for private sector employers to contribute to the pensions of their employees? The Bill actively exacerbates the differences. By the way, it does nothing to tackle the unfunded £1.5 trillion liability of unfunded public sector pensions, which will fall on taxpayers. The Bill is yet another example of the lack of private sector experience on the Government Front Bench. This Government are the least business aware Government in our country’s history. They are taxing and regulating growth out of our economy. Labour Ministers are punishing workers who want to save more for their retirement, and making it harder for their employers to help them to do so. While they can rely on their cushy, gold-plated public sector pensions, private sector workers are worse off.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady needs to recognise that people are struggling because of decisions made by this Government. The people do want better public services, but they do not understand why, after the Government handed out a 15% pay hike to train drivers, more trains are running late this year compared to last year. People are striving to make ends meet as prices rise, perhaps putting a little aside to create a better future for their children, and they say that this Budget will make their lives worse, not better. The verdict is in: by more than two to one, the public think that this Budget is unfair, and only 2% think it will make them better off. They are right. This Budget attacks the strivers in our society—the engines of our economic growth. It confirms the devastating attack on family farms when we need greater food security, increases taxes on dividends when we need to encourage risk taking, discourages saving for retirement, and widens the division between pension protections for public sector and private sector employees. It deals a blow to start-up businesses that want to share their success with their employees, and raises taxes on working people, breaking the Labour party’s own manifesto promise. This Budget makes it clear that the Labour Government do not believe in personal responsibility, do not understand the spirit of enterprise, will punish aspiration and are too weak to make the hard choices that our economy so desperately needs if it is to get back on the right track.