Jesse Norman
MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“In view of the new Prime Minister’s spending priorities, it now seems highly unlikely that the ruinously expensive current plans will be put to the House before the end of this year. Seven months have already passed with no action.”
“10 North have real spending powers of its own? If the answer is yes, then this will be a new kind of cross-departmental Ministry—perhaps a territorial Ministry, like a regional Government but with no defined scope or mandate. We will need to see the legal instruments delegating Treasury authority and functions to it.”
“I rather fear that, given our longevity and at least the level of banter on the Government side of the Dispatch Box, we will be seen over time as the Morecambe and Wise, or perhaps the two Ronnies, of British politics.”
“The past few weeks have brought news of the deaths of Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and Wendell Berry. I am sure that many colleagues will share my sense of shock and sadness at the loss of those extraordinary figures, but also give great thanks for their lives. Truly, we live in a world of change.”
“10 North will not have spending power of its own, then ultimately the Treasury and the Chancellor will continue to sign off on its public spending and on any taxing matters. Decentralisation is really important, but No. 10 North will not be a means of decentralisation in this scenario; it will be just another layer of Government.”
“But we are not going to cast nasturtiums, in the words of a friend of mine, on any of this nonsense—not even on Baroness Lloyd and the hopeless Building Digital UK, who have entirely failed to address the issue of fibre broadband in neglected parts of my constituency and simply repeated the same language of incompetence and failure to me…”
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Every one of 5,414 lines we hold for Jesse Norman, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 109.
“Today has a great double significance. As the House may know, it is World Environment Day, when we celebrate the natural world and recommit ourselves as a Parliament to seek to protect it; and it is also the putative date of birth of Adam Smith, one of my great heroes, who did as much as anyone has ever done to explain the world in which we live. If I may move from the sublime to the sublimely incompetent, this week has otherwise been one disaster after another for the Government. On Monday, we had to drag the Leader of the House to the Dispatch Box yet again, and she had to apologise—yet again—for the Government’s flagrant disregard for this House of Commons in briefing out the strategic defence review over the weekend. There is no more important issue than the defence of the realm.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This House and, indeed, the viewing public have just been treated to the very unfortunate spectacle of a Prime Minister who was completely unwilling to answer questions from the Leader of the Opposition—so much so that he entirely changed the subject. Instead of referring to the two-child benefit cap, he started referring to the Kremlin and Russia. I know that you, Mr Speaker, pay careful attention to the content of supplementary questions to make sure that they are within scope. Could you give us some guidance on whether you may be able to control answers when they are wildly inappropriate?”
“When did the Leader of the House know about these announcements, and what steps did she take to prevent the media briefings and ensure that the announcements were made to the House of Commons first? Will she now apologise for yet another high-handed Government decision for which she alone is fully responsible, in this instance, to the House?”
“Journalists have been able to read the strategic defence review since 10.30 am, while the Opposition were prevented from seeing the document until five minutes ago, precisely in order to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. All this is manifestly in breach of the ministerial code, the Nolan principles and, of course, Labour’s own manifesto, demonstrating the Government’s arrogance and complacency and their disdain for the House and for democratic accountability, and this from—the clue is in the title—the Leader of the House, whose job is to protect and safeguard the House and its Members. Unfortunately, her obvious floundering just now made the point far better than I can.”
“Just three weeks ago, the Leader of the House had to be dragged to the House over the Government’s briefing on the immigration White Paper outside the House. That came just days after they had done the same in respect of prisoner recall, the UK-US trade deal and, of course, the Chagos islands. That followed instances involving tuition fees, planning reforms and even the fiscal rules, on which you, Mr Speaker, had to reprove and chastise the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now we have seen the unhappy sight of the Secretary of State for Defence, no less, extensively briefing the media on the decisions to deploy airborne nuclear weapons and build the next generation of submarines, before coming to the House. Perhaps, as I have said, they were not important enough to merit a mention beforehand.”
“Is that really the best that the Leader of the House can do—an “I speak your weight” autocue recitation of points that she has made in her three previous attempts to deal with occasions when the House has been embarrassed and disregarded over the last three weeks alone? It was a hopeless miscue of a response that bordered on a contempt of Parliament itself—yet another attempt to change the subject, blame others and distract attention from the latest fiasco. Evidently the defence of the realm is not important enough to merit making its way up the list of priorities in the Government’s media handouts. Lord Robertson himself, as you have said, Mr Speaker—and I am amazed that you had to intervene on the Leader of the House during her own remarks—would be ashamed and embarrassed to think that this was being done in his name.”
“I do not know whether any colleagues would like to be involved, but each could be, in their own area and their constituency, leading on the creation not just of a campus, but of a new university designed for local people, local businesses and national economic opportunity. That is the opportunity. I invite the House and the Government to consider it.”
“The first cohort are going into jobs at a rate of almost 100% in companies such as Balfour Beatty, Kier, Cadbury, BAE, AWE, Safran and local companies at an average salary of £34,000, drawing national needs and local needs together. It is the small modular reactor of British higher education. I raise this example because I want to invite the Government and Members from across the House to consider whether we could not do it elsewhere. There are at least 50 small cities and large towns in this country that lack higher education and higher economic growth. There is a huge need for specialist science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills. We have vast amounts of talent deprived of opportunity, and this can be part of the solution.”
“It aims to build the right habits and prepare those students, not just for the world of work, but for a world of work that is constantly changing. Above all, the university seeks to keep the benefits of being small in size—something we have lost in so much of higher education—with agility, accountability, personal engagement, teamwork and friendships and a sense of belonging and community, so that our students grow as morally serious human beings who can readily and resiliently deal with complexity and uncertainty, and who are deeply aware of the power and responsibility that comes with being an engineer. Does it work? These students are studying for a masters in engineering, certified independently as being of very high quality.”
“I mention that university now because it highlights what could be considered a lack of ambition in the way that we as a country have thought about higher education over the past 50 years, or possibly even longer. NMITE is an institution that is not just focused on marginal educational gain, but on transformational improvement. It aims to take a person—male or female, young or old—who might never have thought of going to university at all and help them to find their passions, head, hands and heart, and take them as far as they can go. It aims to reinvent not just what students learn, but how they learn, with theory and practice tied together in real-world challenges, forging professionals through immersive and intensive work with a sense of mission and purpose.”
“I do so in relation to a personal interest of mine—indeed, a mini-obsession, as the House probably knows—which is growth, development and innovation in higher education. This week, we saw the graduation of the first students at our new university in Hereford, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering. It is the first greenfield university in this country for 40 years, a specialist, technical engineering university teaching students of every age and background —especially those from less well-off families—in a very intensive and immersive way. It teaches them the hand-on skills of an apprenticeship, but also the rigour of a master’s degree. Its students work in teams, building work habits and working closely with partner companies in defence, security, energy, construction, food and agriculture.”
“That announcement came just hours after the Leader of the House had to be dragged to this Chamber to answer questions on this very topic. She failed to apologise to this House yesterday; I wonder whether she will take the opportunity to do so today. Whether she does or not, I hope that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as well as Mr Speaker and all the Deputy Speakers, will insist on maintaining the primacy of our parliamentary democracy and demanding that Governments are held to account. Today, I come to the Chamber not to ask about a particular item of policy, but to offer a positive policy idea; not to focus on what may be passing from day to day in the Government’s policies, but to focus on the longer term and to celebrate.”
“We have also had an immigration policy launched with echoes of Enoch Powell, and a Prime Minister who appears not to know the difference between capital and current spending in relation to hospices that are seeking to support people day to day across this country—people who are literally at death’s door. I would have moved on from the politics of the week at this point in my remarks, but for the extraordinary series of interventions by Mr Speaker only a few minutes ago on the Government’s failures to announce their policies in the House. Mr Speaker rightly sought—and was eventually given—an apology by the Minister, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin), for their latest failure, but the irony is absolutely extraordinary.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for her remarks. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, this week saw the tragic and untimely death of Sir Roy Stone. We had a brief moment of recognition of him earlier in the week, but I am keenly aware that many Labour colleagues were not in the House at the time of his flourishing. As such, I wanted to mention in the Chamber today how much we all respected him, and give the Leader of the House the chance to say something about him if she wishes. More widely, we have had a week of mixed economics, with growth slightly up, weak wage growth, a spike in unemployment—as everyone had predicted in the case of national insurance—and fiscal strains highlighted just today by a former Treasury civil servant.”
“Lady encourage the independent adviser to make an inquiry, and will she look to the Cabinet Secretary to do the same with civil servants? Will she and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, look to Mr Speaker for adequate enforcement of the present rules, which are being widely flouted?”
“It does not say, “Judgments are to be made.” It says, “The first announcement must be made to Parliament when the most important announcements of government policy are made.” It does not say, “By the way, you can prioritise these things.” Does anyone seriously think that an announcement on trade, on planning, on tuition fees or on the global combat air programme would not be of the first importance to this House? No, because every single one of those would be vital. It is not just a matter of the ministerial code and ministerial accountability. These decisions are made in breach of the Nolan principles of openness and the requirement for accountability, and they are made in breach of Labour’s own manifesto promise to “restore confidence in government and ensure ministers are held to the highest standards.” Will the right hon.”
“I would highlight the Secretary of State for Education announcing tuition fees to the press before Parliament in November, the Deputy Prime Minister announcing planning reforms before the final national planning policy framework update was publicly available, and a Ministry of Defence leak on the global combat air programme in December. As we all know, the ministerial code—the Government took great credit for seeking to strengthen it on entering office—makes very plain what the rule is.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) for raising this urgent question. As she has highlighted, there is a consistent pattern of failure to report first to this House, as is required by the ministerial code. She has rightly drawn attention to the farcical scenes that we had with the Trade Minister being required to deliver a statement, then having to be UQ’d the following Monday. He tried to give the same statement, without any recognition, and was rebuked by Mr Speaker for not knowing the difference. Back in October we had the embarrassing sight of the Chancellor announcing intended changes to the Government’s fiscal rules to the media before informing Parliament, and having to be publicly rebuked by Mr Speaker for doing so. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North has mentioned a number of other cases.”
“The fact that he has been taken from us so quickly, so prematurely and so early into his long-deserved retirement is, I am sure, a source of the utmost sadness for every Member of this House. I am sure that I speak for all members of His Majesty’s Opposition. We will remember him with great fondness for a very long time.”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. You have said much that was true and good, and it is hard to improve on what you said as well as the Chief Whip, but may I add a few words? Roy Stone went into the civil service at the age of 16 and served his entire life there and in this House. Twelve Chief Whips across extraordinary moments were the beneficiaries of his sage counsel and advice. I think the House will be aware that there were several occasions on which I was able to benefit from his advice in somewhat tumultuous times, having offended various senior politicians. I did not always get a meeting with the Chief Whip with coffee—as hon. Members know, that is the key test—but Sir Roy and his team were the models of professional expertise, diligence, discretion, care and candid advice throughout.”
“I hope we can agree now that this is an extremely serious national issue and that no one, whether or not they hold public office, should be deflecting or denying its seriousness. I hope that in her response now, the Leader of the House will put aside party politics, avoid criticising others and speak from the heart. So I ask her: has she now watched the Channel 4 documentary, and if so, how does she feel about it? Does she agree that the dismissal of these entirely valid concerns has been one of the factors behind what even today remains a huge continuing national scandal. Will she now back the call of many victims for a comprehensive national inquiry into grooming gangs. Finally, would she like to take this opportunity to speak directly to the hundreds of vulnerable women involved, and say sorry?”
“We all want a just and rapid energy transition, but does the Leader of the House not think that the words of Tony Blair and Gary Smith are simple common sense? There is one other issue that I think we should highlight. The Leader of the House has received universal condemnation for dismissing concerns about grooming gangs as “dog-whistle politics”. In response, she put out a tweet that conspicuously did not contain an apology for what she had said. The Secretary of State for Health said that her remarks were “indefensible”, but the truth is that she has talked in the same way about grooming gangs from the Dispatch Box, when she accused people of jumping on bandwagons on 9 January this year in business questions.”
“Gary Smith said that “climate fundamentalism”—that is the Secretary of State for Energy—would “accelerate the decline of domestic oil and gas production and increase our dependency on gas imports”, directly contrary to the Government’s supposed growth strategy. As he pointed out: “Across society, bill-payers will question why they are subsidising a domestic clean power sprint that is offshoring UK jobs and value.” Only today, we have had the news that Ørsted is mothballing its giant new offshore wind farm, as it has made it clear it is holding out for even greater subsidies, knowing that the Secretary of State has no choice, and has in effect said that he has no choice, if he wants to hit his targets.”
“Meanwhile, the somewhat unlikely pairing of Tony Blair and Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB trade union, have both denounced the Government’s decision to ban offshore licences in the North sea. Blair described it as an “irrational” policy “doomed to fail”, the backlash to which threatened to “derail the whole agenda”. He said it was caused by Ministers afraid of being cast as “climate deniers”. He is not talking about the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, of course; he is talking about all the Ministers and MPs on the Government Benches who know better, but are too frit to say so.”
“The financial facts of life have not changed: growth is stagnant, as a nation we have to raise defence spending rapidly and the Government have made themselves a prisoner of their fiscal rules. Before the Leader of the House starts in on the local election results, may I remind her that, for all the horrors of last week, the Opposition still ended up with three times as many council seats as the Government? Let us look at those cost pressures a bit more closely. Just eight months after a 22.3% increase in pay for junior doctors—an increase described at the time by the British Medical Association as “a good enough first step”, the House will recall—the BMA has now announced it will ballot its members to strike for more pay.”
“This is of course the 80th anniversary of VE Day, when all Britain rejoiced at the defeat of fascism and the end of the war in Europe. I am sure I speak for the whole House in putting on record once again our profound thanks and our celebration of the immortal memory of that extraordinary generation who—through their courage, their selflessness and their sense of duty—made victory in Europe possible. Let us all pray that we can be worthy of their memory. If I may turn back from the sublime sweep of history to the mundane business of our politics, the Government have made valiant efforts to crowd the airwaves on trade this week, but the unfortunate truth is that they have had another dire week in office.”
“The extra revenues that would have helped fund the transition will now be lost to the many other countries that welcome such investment, while the Government turn their back on a sector that still employs 200,000 people and contributes billions in tax revenue. I ask the Leader of the House whether she shares my view that we badly need some common sense here. We all want an effective and just energy transition, but that starts with one principle: control what we can and use our own resources responsibly and transparently while building the clean energy system of the future. Instead, the Government have chosen a path that will increase emissions, raise costs, weaken the economy and tie Britain’s future to foreign powers and volatile markets. That is not leadership; that is an abdication.”
“The idea that a major economy should voluntarily give up control of its energy supply before alternatives are well advanced is not progressive—it is reckless. The problem goes somewhat wider. The Government talk about a green industrial revolution, but the more expensive imported energy we have, the harder that will be to achieve. Not just steel but chemicals, ceramics and fertilisers all require large amounts of gas and will do for years to come. If energy is unreliable or unaffordable, those industries will continue to struggle whatever the fond imaginings of the Secretary of State. Worse still, the Government’s policy will squander capital and skills that might have gone into safely managing the UK’s remaining hydrocarbon assets.”
“I remind the House that, for example, importing liquefied natural gas involves cooling gas to 160° below zero, shipping it thousands of miles from Qatar and regasifying it at a port in this country. The net emissions are up to four times higher than those from North sea gas. Crucially, UK territorial emissions go down, but overall emissions, including imports, are higher than they would be. This is not an honest policy. Labour’s manifesto talked about the importance of energy security, but refusing to allow new exploration does not reduce our vulnerability; it increases it. Energy, after all, is national security. It is industrial strategy. It is heating our houses and fuelling our cars.”
“Most recently, the situation with British Steel in Scunthorpe has underlined the deeper incoherence of their overall approach. By banning new oil and gas licences and preventing new exploration, the Government are committing the UK to greater dependency on imported oil and gas at higher cost, with higher emissions and under less democratic control. In so doing, they are not advancing environmental justice or economic resilience; they are accelerating a decline in energy sovereignty that will leave this country more polluting, less secure and, ultimately, poorer. If we do not produce our own oil and gas, we will have to buy it. The difference is that it will come from overseas, and imported energy is not only more expensive but has a far higher carbon footprint.”
“A few weeks ago I talked about how the Prime Minister was steadily being mugged by reality, and we have seen this again in the last few days with the Government’s U-turn on the ban on sourcing photovoltaic cells built with slave labour in China. The same can be said for the Government’s energy policy as a whole. It is important to put before the House the fact that Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised to cut bills, boost energy security and create cheaper, zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero by 2050. It tried to allay public concerns by promising “a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea that recognises…the ongoing role of oil and gas in our energy mix.” Nine months on, we can see how that is going. The Government have already had to U-turn on their infeasible commitment to zero carbon electricity by 2030.”
“Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), replied that “the Secretary of State for Education and the wider ministerial team visit a wide variety of education settings, including private schools. The Secretary of State for Education prioritises visits to our state schools, which serve 93% of pupils in England.” All that is no doubt true but it is not an answer to the question that was put. All ministerial visits are logged by the Department, so it would have been and remains easy to compile the numbers. The Leader of the House has made clear on many occasions her commitment and belief that Members of this House should receive proper answers to their questions. Will she take up the matter with the Secretary of State for Education and see that a proper answer is given?”
“Could there be a local election coming up? I very much hope that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and everyone here had a perfectly spectacular Easter. I am sure I speak for the whole House in recording my sadness at the death of His Holiness the Pope, who was, in his work and in his life, the embodiment of faith, hope and charity. If I may, I would like to start with something small but important. My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) recently asked the Secretary of State for Education, in a written parliamentary question, whether she had visited any private schools since July last year. The junior Education Minister, the hon.”
“What will that do to cost control and productivity, to public spending and inflation? I would be grateful if the Leader of the House reflected on those issues in her remarks.”
“My worry, however, is about not the past but the future. Labour consistently backed public sector union strikes when they were in opposition—a point the Prime Minister conveniently forgot to mention yesterday—but now they are in power they have thrown money at the unions hand over fist with little or no negotiated improvements. Let us not forget that Northern Rail negotiators have even said that their agreements with the union require them to use fax machines. There is a very serious point here, Mr Speaker. At this moment, the Government are abolishing NHS England and taking direct control of the NHS. Does anyone seriously think that a Government who are incapable of calling out their union donors over bin collections will have any ability at all to withstand pressure from the same and other union donors on the NHS?”
“294.] However, neither the Minister nor the Prime Minister has yet offered any criticism at all of Unite, whose action is the cause of all this rotting refuse in the streets. Unite was Labour’s biggest union donor before the general election, giving £553,900 to a total of 86 MPs—although not to the Leader of the House, I am very pleased to say. Does she think there could be any relationship between the Government’s reluctance to call out Unite on the disastrous situation in Birmingham and the half a million pounds in donations their MPs have just received? Some Members of the House may see this whole situation as eerily reminiscent of the 1970s, especially Labour’s winter of discontent in 1978-79, when striking binmen caused refuse to pile up across major cities, including in Birmingham.”
“The Minister for Local Government let the cat out of the bag in his statement on this topic on Monday, when he said: “Birmingham’s waste service has been in urgent need of modernisation and transformation for many years… Practices in the waste service have been the source of one of the largest equal pay crises in modern…history, resulting in costs of over £1 billion to the residents of Birmingham. This situation simply cannot continue.” —[ Official Report , 31 March 2025; Vol. 765, c. 45.] The Prime Minister went further in his own remarks yesterday, saying: “The situation in Birmingham council is completely unacceptable”. —[ Official Report , 2 April 2025; Vol. 765, c.”
“First, the athletes’ village in Perry Barr was built by the city council to host competitors during the Commonwealth games in 2022 but was never used, and has been sold at a reported loss to taxpayers of about £320 million. Secondly, Birmingham city council tried to install a shiny new Oracle IT system, resulting in a disaster whose costs are set to reach £216-odd million by 2026, according to a report by academics at Sheffield University. As a city, Birmingham is technically bankrupt. It has been controlled by Labour for well over a decade, but my point is not about the council—it is about the Government.”
“My question, however, is this: what on earth is happening in Birmingham? As the House will recall, Birmingham city council is now in the fifth week of a strike with the union Unite over bin collections. Apparently this matter concerns just a few dozen out of some 9,500 city council employees. As the House has heard, 17,000 tonnes of rubbish has piled up so far, growing by a reported 900 tonnes a week. Let us not forget that Birmingham’s bin collections were reportedly three and a half times worse than the worst of other councils even before this strike. The public health implications are now so dire that the council has declared a major incident. The strike comes on top of two other recent fiascos.”
“It is some weeks away yet, but this is the last moment I will have to wish you, Mr Speaker, and all Members of this House and staff a very happy Easter; I hope I may do so. Easter is a joyous occasion, full of families and possibly inappropriate amounts of chocolate. I will be making the shadow Leader of the House’s legendary hot cross buns—not very much of the mix actually makes it into the oven, but that is part of the joy. It is lucky, however, that we have several weeks to look forward to Easter, because this week has not been one of joy. We will be debating tariffs later, and we have also had the impact of the national insurance rises, which have pushed up costs, raising inflation, making it harder than ever to hire a new employee and blocking routes into work for young people.”
“My right hon. Friend is giving an important and telling speech on a very important topic. As he rightly says, these soldiers were subject to well-defined rules of engagement. He has described the IRA as a terrorist organisation, but what he has not said is that at the time, it was the most sophisticated terrorist organisation in the world. The soldiers he talks about were operating under orders, in a chain of command and on the Queen’s business, and could not respond. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a grotesque double standard here, and that not only is this an injustice, but the Government’s position is potentially deeply corrosive of morale, as well as deeply unjust to the veterans?”
“Could the Secretary of State not simply say now to the House that he has a deep understanding and awareness of the trauma that has been caused, and that he takes the side—not judicially, but politically, in his own mind as a matter of human sympathy—with the poor people affected by these decisions and how they are playing out in the public realm? Could he not say that now, so that veterans and their families understand that a Government Minister in a senior position gets it and is on their side in his own mind, even if not judicially?”
“Even so, she may have to impose tax rises, and those tax rises could come even sooner than anticipated if the US decides to go ahead with the tariff it has suggested. As such, my question is this: what will the Leader of the House feel in her own heart, and what will she say to her Cabinet colleagues over the next few weeks, as the full effects of these terribly damaging decisions become clear?”
“It has been suggested that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing expecting a different result. So far, we have seen minimal fiscal adjustment at the statement, and meanwhile the Chancellor has managed to recreate the same constraining conditions that existed beforehand. This is a situation entirely of the Government’s own making. It was the Chancellor’s decision to choose these fiscal rules, and it was her decision then to take measures that undermined economic growth. She has staked her own credibility and that of the Government on those decisions. The result is that we will now have endless uncertainty and avoidable speculation about the fiscal position every week, through the comprehensive spending review and into the autumn Budget. The Chancellor has refused to rule out making more cuts to spending.”
“The Chancellor suggested that this idea was somehow obvious and conventional wisdom, but that is very far from true. The Nobel prize-winning economist Bob Solow famously said that the effects of the IT revolution could be seen everywhere except in the economic numbers. Other countries are scaling and deploying artificial intelligence with massive speed, and many experts believe that AI could increase unemployment and inequality, and raise the costs of retraining people and reintegrating them into the workforce. Far from creating economic growth, the advent of AI could end up forcing a Government—possibly this Government—into even more spending than they presently contemplate. Finally, we get to the vexed and much-discussed issue of so-called fiscal headroom—or, to use a more technical phrase, the goolies-in-a-vice problem.”
“What do we see if we look more closely? The spring statement is not really about work at all; it is about moving people from welfare into lower-paying welfare. The cut to universal credit announced last week has been followed by a freezing of universal credit—why? It is because that appears to hit the Chancellor’s own fiscal headroom number to the decimal point. Last week we heard all the rhetoric about the moral case for nudging people back into work, but now it seems that this is actually an accounting exercise, and the economic and moral justification for the policy has been lost sight of. The second point is the question whether artificial intelligence, which the Government have greatly emphasised, will actually have the effect of increasing growth.”
“It has never been included in an OBR estimate before, and it is very doubtful and unlikely that it will happen in any case, even at those levels—the target has already been downgraded from 1.5 million houses to 1.3 million houses—because of the planned upheaval in local government. Meanwhile, the immensely damaging Employment Rights Bill goes entirely unscored economically by the OBR. We will see what it says about that piece of legislation next time around. The brutal fact is that although the Government claim to prioritise growth, growth has halved since they came into power. They have talked about little else, but even their own forecasts do not show growth getting back even to 2% by the end of the decade, and every major independent expert forecast of the economy’s future growth is lower than that of the OBR.”
“This week we have seen that the Chancellor’s own growth forecast just four months later has been halved, and she has increased cuts to welfare benefits. That follows the interesting strategy of abolishing NHS England, having just fired all the team running it. The tax burden is on track to hit a record high in 2027-28. We should give credit where credit is due—the Chancellor has protected capital investment, which is a very important and correct decision—but there have also been wheezes. I am sorry to say that she has somewhat pulled the wool over the eyes of the Office for Budget Responsibility in relation to housing growth, which is the Government’s new “get out of jail free” card.”
“May I start by thanking the whole House for their wonderful messages of condolence during last week’s business questions? I could not be more grateful. I single out, in particular, the Leader of the House for her very gracious remarks. I turn from fathers to mothers, as this Sunday, of course, is Mother’s Day. The infant shadow Leaders of the House have been instructed—not that they needed it—on how to manage the occasion. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in celebrating mothers at the weekend, and expressing ourselves in all kinds of ways to thank our mothers and the mothers we have among us for all the work they do. This has been the week of the spring statement. The House will recall the October Budget in November of last year. It was described as a once-in-a-generation Budget, with no tax rises to follow.”
“Those are crucial questions that we, as a House, will need to continue to develop and discuss over the next few years. I want to ask the Leader of the House whether we and other Members of the Modernisation Committee cannot expand our thinking about those long-term issues and try to push for more scope for co-operation between the parties on them, more consultation and debate on key legislation before it is brought to the House, and more ways to develop closer personal engagement between Members, so that we can build respect and co-operation across the House for the longer term. One of my father’s maxims—you will have discovered that he had many—was, “The secret to success is to take a large bite and then chew it.” I think that we could perhaps do that more as a House and as a country.”