Sir Jeremy Hunt
MP for Godalming and Ash · Conservative · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I speak today as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for financial markets and services. I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which states that I accept speaking engagements from financial services companies.”
“Chief executives of banks made very ill-judged decisions to continue paying themselves large bonuses at a time when the rest of the country was suffering, and the country suffered a longer and deeper recession at that time as a result of our exposure to the financial services sector, which was much greater than that of our peers.”
“We are in a much, much better state than we were in 2008.” But I do think that it has gone slightly too far in the other direction. Sometimes we can over-correct.”
“What further action will the Government take to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises and scale-ups, which has been a particular issue in the period since the financial crisis?”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her role in helping to salvage Barings. I did not know that before. She is absolutely right to raise that issue. I do not say this in a party political way, because my party pretty much supported it at the time, but there is no doubt that, in the run-up to the financial crisis, regulation was not as tight as it n…”
“To their credit, this Government have built on those reforms with the Leeds reforms, the Pension Schemes Act 2026 and the forthcoming Financial Services and Markets Bill, all of which are extremely welcome. But, as the hon. Member for Buckingham and Bletchley said, our competitors are not standing still.”
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“The result is that the one thing that needs to happen more than anything else—truthfulness to the bereaved families and learning the lessons so that the tragedy is not repeated—can be the very thing that does not happen at all. Instead, we get a five-year legal process happening and the truth is not established for maybe five, six or seven years after that. So what needs to happen to put it right? We all have our lists of things, and I echo absolutely everything that was said in the wonderful speech before mine. For me, first of all, it is absolutely essential that we get the CQC back on its feet. It went badly wrong, but under new leadership that the Secretary of State has put in place, I believe it is now going in absolutely the right direction.”
“The thing that is so important to remember—I have said this to the House on many occasions—is that if you are in a birthing unit and present at a C-section and something goes wrong, there is nothing as a professional that you want more than to be open, honest and transparent about what happened, so that lessons can be learned and you can make sure that mistake never happens again. But our system makes that practically impossible. We have the CQC, the NMC, the General Medical Council and the trust. Lawyers get involved and people worry. There is jeopardy for clinicians: that if they are honest and open about the ordinary human mistakes that anyone can make, they will be punished for it.”
“The number of maternal deaths has actually increased. As the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen just said, there is big inequality. You are far more likely to die as a black or Asian mum. You are far more likely to die as a black or Asian baby, or a baby from a deprived background, than other babies. Still we have a third of NHS staff, according to the staff survey last year, saying that they are afraid to raise safety concerns, and half saying that they do not think anything will happen if they do.”
“As we reflect in this very sad and meaningful Baby Loss Awareness Week about what has gone wrong, it is also important to remember that progress has been made since then. Since the Morecambe Bay inquiry, the overall number of baby deaths is down by about 20%. That is about 700 fewer a year, or two fewer a day. The NHS is better than it was about being honest about mistakes. There have been a lot of reforms. We have a chief inspector of hospitals and a CQC that is set up to call a spade a spade when there is poor care. We have the duty of candour, which will be further strengthened by the new Hillsborough law. We have medical examiners, we have Martha’s rule and we have “freedom to speak up” guardians. Despite those improvements, there are some warning signs. Since the pandemic, the decline in baby deaths has plateaued.”
“He said no, because he wanted his son to know, for the rest of his life, that he had taken his concerns about what went wrong right to the very top and asked awkward questions. And that was what he did. I owe a great debt to the Morecambe Bay families: to Carl and to Simon Davey, Liza Brady, James Titcombe and many others. The American thinker Margaret Mead had a saying: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” For me, those Morecambe Bay families were that small group of thoughtful, committed people, along with the families from Mid Staffs, Shrewsbury and Telford, East Kent, Nottingham and many other places.”
“I think the most difficult meeting I had when I was doing his job many years ago was with a man called Carl Hendrickson, who came to see me a few days before I stood at that Dispatch Box to give the statement on the Morecambe Bay inquiry. Carl lost both his wife and his son at Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. A midwife mistook some fitting by his wife as just fainting. His wife died an hour later from an embolism. The next day, his son Chester died from brain damage. He came to see me with his 11-year-old son, Conrad. I will never forget it, because it was obviously going to be a very difficult meeting and I asked him whether he would like his son to sit outside with some of the civil servants while we discussed what happened.”
“It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae). I thank him for working with me and the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) to secure the debate, and I thank my many colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety. I would also like to thank the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), for being here himself today. It means an enormous amount to families up and down the country to see that commitment from him. I know it is an issue in which he has taken enormous personal interest.”
“My constituents in Cranleigh have no train service and no direct bus service to the Royal Surrey County hospital in Guildford, which is a big issue for older residents who do not drive. Does the Secretary of State agree that some of the empty rooms in Cranleigh Village hospital could provide a very good opportunity for the expansion of neighbourhood health services, and if he has not been briefed on this pressing issue by his officials, may I brief him, or one of his Ministers, on it in the autumn?”
“I thank the hon. Member for the brilliant job he is doing as our religious freedom envoy, which has support across the House. Does he agree that for all sorts of reasons, including political correctness and a worry about being seen to be glorifying our imperial history, our foreign policy has not done enough on freedom of religion and belief, but that countries that start to erode religious freedoms soon erode other freedoms as well, which is why it is vital that we redouble our efforts?”
“Does the shadow Chancellor agree that, following the welfare U-turns, public finances today are in a far worse state than they were a year ago when the Government came into office? There is a crucial difference: a year ago, the Conservative Government were taking difficult decisions to bring taxes down in order to grow the economy; because this Labour Government are failing to take those decisions, there is only one way taxes can go, and that is up.”
“There is much to welcome in today’s plan, particularly the proposal to bring back family doctors, which I tried to do but frankly did not succeed in doing when I was Secretary of State, so we all wish him well with that, but does he agree that as we seek to transform out-of-hospital care, it is vital that we do not take our eye off the ball and allow another Mid Staffs inside hospitals? Does he also agree that it is essential that the CQC gives overall ratings and calls a spade a spade when it comes to the quality of care in hospitals, so that we know whether the care delivered by hospitals in our constituencies is outstanding or good, and if not—if it requires improvement or is inadequate—that action can be taken, and lives can be saved?”
“What is the difference between the Chancellor’s black hole and the Defence Secretary accepting 62 recommendations from the SDR without committing the funds to pay for them?”
“If the Government end up paying a fee for British companies bidding for European defence contracts, will they charge the EU a fee when its companies want to bid for British defence contracts?”
“The Health Secretary will have been briefed by the Minister for Care about the tragic murder of Christopher Laskaris, the son of my constituent Fiona Laskaris, and the lack of a voice for parents, who know their own children extremely well, in very difficult situations like this. Have the Government considered whether they might table an amendment to make things like Christopher’s tragic murder less likely in the future?”
“Thank you for squeezing me in, Mr Speaker. Is the Secretary of State aware that to access the platform at Ash Vale station in my constituency, people have to go up multiple flights of steps, equivalent to two or three floors, making it all but impossible for many older people and disabled people to use the rail network? Before she decides on how to allocate funding under the Access for All scheme in the spending review, will she or one of her Ministers visit Ash Vale, where we promise her a warm Surrey welcome?”
“That is what needs to happen, because two people are dying every single week, and justice delayed really is justice denied.”
“Can I start by commending the approach that the Paymaster General is taking? I know that he is totally sincere about getting justice and is trying his best. However, I think he knows in his heart of hearts that the system that has been put in place is not working. I have constituents, such as Sue Collins, who are asking why in March IBCA had processed the claims of only 250-odd people out of 4,000 people, when they are known to us and have been on previous payment schemes. Even more worrying is the fact that IBCA is saying that it is aiming to process a majority—that could be just 51%—by the end of 2027. Does he not agree that the right target for IBCA would be to process the vast majority—more than 90%, let us say—by the end of this year, and that it should commit to that?”
“I thank the Minister for building on the work of the Mansion House reforms that I introduced two years ago. Westminster works best when Governments do not automatically tear up the work of their predecessors. Who knows, with this constructive attitude, we may see some tax cuts in the autumn Budget. Does the Minister agree that there is a circularity in the argument that the reason pension funds do not invest in the UK is because returns are lower here? In Australia and America, the stock markets can depend on more than 40% of pension fund assets investing domestically to create bigger returns, compared with just 4% in the UK. Does he agree that if we are really to make these reforms fly, we will need to involve the 28,000 defined benefit schemes as well as the 4,000 defined contribution schemes?”
“On VE Day, I remember the role of Dunsfold aerodrome in my constituency, which played a vital role in the battle of Britain. I thank the Minister for her response. She knows that the proposed expansion of the Surrey hills national landscape will have a huge impact by improving biodiversity and natural protection in villages such as Dunsfold, Tongham, Bramley, Wonersh and Shamley Green in my constituency. Before she makes the final decision on whether to go ahead, will she spare the time to meet me so I can explain to her just how important the expansion is to my constituents?”
“T2. The chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives has said that the axing of the maternity safety ringfenced pot would be a “wrecking ball” to the efforts being made to improve maternity safety. Just a single or a small group of babies being spared lifelong disability would pay for the cost of that ringfenced pot many times over. I know that the Secretary of State cares about this matter deeply, so will he reconsider?”
“If the Secretary of State is not going to visit Farnham, can I tempt him to visit Fountain Beauty Therapy in Hurtmore, a much-loved business in my constituency? The owner, Clare Porter, talks about the extreme pressure caused by the Employment Rights Bill, the hike in employers’ national insurance and the withdrawal of business rates relief, leading to a crisis in the hair and beauty sector. What measures is the Secretary of State planning to alleviate pressure on this very important sector?”
“The Minister can see that the whole House has filled up out of concern at the atrocious mobile phone signal in Godalming and Cranleigh high streets and in Bramley, Shamley Green and Peaslake. Now that spring is in the air, will he visit Cranleigh to see for himself just what a problem this is?”
“2. What recent discussions he has had with Ofwat on encouraging water companies to increase investment in sewage discharge reduction measures.”
“I wish you a happy World Sparrow Day, Madam Deputy Speaker. In Bramley in my constituency in 2023, sewage was spilled into the local river for 59 hours. In Godalming, the figure was 83 hours; in Chiddingfold, it was 410 hours; and in Cranleigh, it was 691 hours. That is the equivalent of nearly two hours every single day—it is totally unacceptable. As a result, last year, after pressure from me and others, Thames Water agreed to invest £400 million by the end of next year. Will the Secretary of State meet me and the chief executive of Thames Water to see whether that money is actually being spent?”
“If that is the case, and we are going to decentralise the NHS, does the Secretary of State agree that there remains a vital role for a reformed Care Quality Commission to call out poor care whenever it finds it?”
“May I commend the boldness of today’s announcement? If the NHS is to be turned around, it will need radical reforms. If the result of today is to replace bureaucratic overcentralisation with political overcentralisation, it will fail. But if we move to the decentralised model that we have for the police and schools, it could be the start of a real transformation. Will the Secretary of State give the House more detail about the changes he has in mind? Are we going to get rid of the central targets that make the NHS the most micromanaged system in the world and make it impossible for managers to deliver real change on the ground because they are working to about a hundred operational targets?”
“I also strongly support the Prime Minister’s considered approach to dealing with a powerful US President with whom he might not always agree, but with whom we can and must work very closely. Does he agree that one of the best ways to persuade the US that any security backstop is temporary is not only for us to ramp up defence spending, but for European NATO countries to agree to a new 3% target within a specified time period—a new target that shows the President that the backstop would not be forever? Has the Prime Minister had any discussions with Secretary-General Rutte along those lines?”
“Does the Prime Minister agree that our biggest single foreign policy priority is the preservation of NATO with America at its heart? If so, following his welcome announcement yesterday, is the next step to talk to our European allies and for all of us to agree to spend 3% of GDP on defence within a specified timescale, so we can look the President in the eye and say that Europe is finally pulling its weight on defence?”
“I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing forward this debate and the excellent and persuasive way that she is making her case. On burnout, does she agree that one of the biggest issues is that when a tragedy happens, midwives and obstetricians often feel that if they speak out the risk is that they or their institution will get sued, or that they could get fired from their jobs? Does she agree that litigation reform to try and change the rules of the game, so that people are able to be open when they think they have made a mistake and learn from those mistakes, is one of the most important ways that we could improve the record on patient safety, which is as much a concern to her as it is to me?”
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for the robust and bipartisan approach he is taking to this crisis. In that spirit, may I say to him that if the Government came forward with plans to reduce the number of adult welfare recipients just to 2019 levels, that would save £40 billion a year? It would mean that on Thursday he and the Prime Minister could say to President Trump that we are increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP, or even to 3.4% of GDP, which is what the United States itself spends. That would secure not only the future of Ukraine, but the future of NATO, which is one of the most important challenges facing the Government.”
“Is the Minister aware of the brilliant work done by Mersey Care NHS foundation trust in reducing in-patient mental health suicides to zero, which is an extraordinary achievement. Under a former Health Secretary, who may be standing not a million miles away from where I am standing now, that became an objective for all mental health in-patient units across the NHS. Will the Minister look into whether that objective still stands? If not, can it be reinstated?”
“When the UK persuaded NATO to spend 2% of GDP on defence in 2014, just two other countries did so; now, 23 countries do. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is time once again for the UK to play a leadership role in Europe by persuading NATO to spend the money it should and keep America part of the alliance?”
“Given that the Office for Budget Responsibility refused to endorse the £22 billion black hole figure—in fact, it refused to say that there was any black hole at all—will the Secretary of State tell the House what possible justification there can be for the removal of agricultural property relief, which will do untold damage to the growth prospects of family farms in my constituency and across the country?”
“Can I add to the Minister’s list of beautiful villages to visit the wonderful villages of Cranleigh, Shamley Green, Peaslake, Gomshall and Bramley? They are all having big problems with 4G and 5G mobile phone reception, not least because apps need to be used to pay for parking there. Can he meet me to discuss what more can be done to help those beautiful, but also economically important, places?”
“I welcome the Secretary of State’s plans to reform the NHS, but may I caution against the idea that the answer is to fire more incompetent managers? The problem is not bad management: it is micromanagement from the centre that sees hospitals managed with more than 100 targets by NHS England, making ours one of the most micromanaged healthcare systems in the world. Will the Secretary of State’s plans allow managers more autonomy, helping them to innovate, save money and improve care for patients?”
“It was cover not just to raise national insurance, but to impose countless other tax rises on working people: capital gains tax up; energy taxes up; stamp duty up; and taxes on family farms up—something we will oppose, for the sake of farmers up and down the country. Working people whose wages the Chancellor promised to protect will see them go down; businesses whose profits fund new investment will see them raided; markets to which she promised stability are absorbing the biggest tax-and-spend Budget in a generation; and all of us on the outside are left wondering which is worse, the damage to the economy or the damage to trust.”
“When we said in the election that taxes would go up by £2,000 per household over four years, the Leader of the Opposition at the time accused the then Prime Minister of a deliberate lie. Three months on, they will go up not by £2,000 over four years, but by £2,000 every year. Paul Johnson called it a “straightforward breach of a manifesto commitment”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has today said: “The continued pretence that these changes will not affect working people risks further undermining trust.” The OBR said that 76% of the impact of the national insurance rise would pass through to lower wages. And because the Government planned this all along, we now know why they rushed so fast to concoct the fiction of a black hole—something that was not corroborated by the OBR yesterday.”
“Without remorse and without hesitation, a triumphalist Government have ripped up the pre-election promises that they made in the biggest ever assault on our economic competitiveness since the 1970s. Let us look at the promises cast aside so casually. The Chancellor said that she would not change the debt target, because she was “not going to fiddle the figures or make something different to get better results”. Yesterday, she did exactly that. In May she said that Labour policy “will be fully costed and fully funded. No ifs, no ands, no buts”— and no additional tax rises. A total of 30 times this year, she promised not to do exactly what she did yesterday. She even said that she wanted to bring the burden of tax down. Ordinary families, small businesses and working people believed her. Yesterday, they were betrayed. It went further.”
“It is a pleasure to open this day of the Budget debate with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, for what will be my last contribution as shadow Chancellor. I am aware that may be a relief to Members on the Government Benches, and possibly to those on the Opposition Benches as well. Yesterday’s Budget was the biggest tax-raising Budget in British history. It was a huge tax on business and takes our tax burden up to German levels for the first time. After the pandemic, the previous Government also put up taxes, but we started to bring them down, because higher tax leads to lower growth. Indeed, the Office for Budget Responsibility said that yesterday’s £40 billion of tax rises would lead to lower pay, lower living standards, higher prices and more expensive mortgages.”
“As Health Secretary, I negotiated an increase in the NHS budget of £20 billion a year, and, in this year’s Budget, I increased it by a further £6 billion. Many times I said as Chancellor that I wanted to avoid austerity cuts to public services. We would have done so this time, not by using tax rises that harm working families and businesses, but by taking difficult decisions on welfare reform and productivity—decisions that were ducked yesterday.”
“I thank my hon. Friend—I say “my hon. Friend” because he is a great friend to us—for what he has said and I could not agree with him more. When we talk about stability, anybody who has run a business knows that the most stable businesses in the country are family businesses that are passed from generation to generation. This is not just about farms, but about any small businesses that are passed down through the generations. This is a hammer blow to their plans to invest for the future. I wish to move on, because the main argument that the Government make—I am sure that we will hear this from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—is that all this is necessary to improve public services. We on the Conservative Benches want to say, right up front, that it is absolutely right to prioritise public services.”
“We heard some warm words about that, but delivering it requires difficult negotiations with the unions. That was too difficult for the Government, who cancelled plans to reduce the civil service to pre-pandemic levels, increased the salaries of train drivers by £10,000, and gave junior doctors a 22% pay rise—all without asking for a single productivity improvement in return. It was no strings for the unions, but no help for 2.5 million pensioners in poverty. The Government should be ashamed. Picking the pockets of businesses, which do not vote, is the easy path, but when it damages economic growth, the result is less money for the NHS, less money for schools and less money for the armed forces, which is why, in the end, Labour Governments always run out of money.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but there was an even more basic difference between our Budget earlier this year and this one: as a result of measures in our Budget, the growth rate went up, whereas as a result of measures in Labour’s Budget, the growth rate went down. Reducing the number of working-age people claiming health-related benefits back to pre-pandemic levels would save £34 billion a year. It would bring more people into the workforce and improve the wellbeing of the individuals concerned, but welfare reform was dropped from the King’s Speech, and yesterday’s Budget saw the welfare bill rise by an average of £13 billion a year. According to the OBR, increasing public sector productivity—another area that we did not hear much about—to pre-pandemic levels would raise £20 billion a year.”
“I always listen to the IFS, and indeed to the Resolution Foundation, very carefully. I think that the IFS was right— [ Interruption. ] Let me answer the point, if I may. The IFS was right to say that it would be very challenging to hold to 1% spending assumptions, but in the Budget earlier this year I explained exactly how we would do that. I asked the NHS, “How are we going to improve efficiency so that we can live within tight spending limits?” The NHS said, “We need to overhaul the IT systems.” We gave the NHS £3.5 billion to do so, and in return it was able to deliver 2% productivity savings.”
“If the public finances were in the same state today that they were in back in 2010, the deficit would now be £160 billion higher, which is the entire budget of the NHS. Instead, we left behind a deficit that had been halved, and was lower than that of France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.”
“The hon. Member shakes his head, but yesterday the Chancellor said that she was going to roll that out to the whole of the public sector. I think that it is possible to do so; my concern is that doing so involves difficult decisions, and the track record of this Government is that when those decisions involve a conversation with the unions, they run a mile. The final spurious claim from the Chancellor was that yesterday’s draconian measures were necessary because she had received the worst economic inheritance since world war two. Not a single independent economist supports that claim, and it is not hard to see why. Inflation is at 1.7%, around half what it was in 2010. Unemployment is at 4%, nearly half the 2010 level.”
“Let me tell the hon. Gentleman exactly what happened to business investment under the last Government. Since 2010, we attracted more foreign greenfield direct investment than not just anywhere in Europe, but anywhere in the world apart from the United States and China. That was foreigners voting with their dollars as to where they wanted to invest in the world, and they said, “Outside the United States and China, there is nowhere that we want to invest more than the United Kingdom.” Compare that with what the OBR said about yesterday’s Budget: business investment will not just fall, but fall by even more than the amount of the extra investment caused by public investment going up.”
“Higher public investment is more than offset by lower business investment because of huge tax increases. Lloyds bank said that the increase in employers’ national insurance is a “handbrake” on investment. UKHospitality said it is a “tax on jobs” and “makes it harder to employ people and to take a risk on recruitment and expansion.” The Federation of Small Businesses says it will shrink small business employment, and the Institute of Directors has likened it to the poll tax.”
“We see the sharpest decline in consumer confidence since the beginning of the pandemic. Lloyds bank, KPMG and the Institute of Directors all saying that business confidence has plummeted. The former chief economist of the Bank of England says that the Chancellor has generated “fear and foreboding” and uncertainty among consumers, among business, and among investors in UK plc. And we see higher bond yields, leading to higher debt interest payments. Careless talk costs jobs and money, and this Government have been careless. What every economist does, however, agree is that if we are to increase our living standards to German or American levels we need higher productivity, and that means more investment. But according to the OBR, yesterday’s measures will mean lower investment overall.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that for decades we have had lower business investment in the UK economy than our peers. That was why, in the autumn statement a year ago, I introduced full expensing, which was the big business tax request, to make it more attractive to invest in new factories, capital, machinery, here than anywhere else in the OECD, and that was widely welcomed. The other part of our legacy—the so-called worst inheritance since the second world war—was the fastest-growing economy in the G7, and one that the IMF said would grow faster than Italy, France, Germany or Japan over the next five years. The Government probably thought it was a clever political trick to rubbish their inheritance, but trash-talking the British economy has real- world consequences.”