Rishi Sunak
MP for Richmond and Northallerton · Conservative · United Kingdom
“As a junior Minister, I therefore set about changing building regulations to make it mandatory to install Changing Places facilities in new large public buildings such as shopping centres, cinemas and theme parks. At about that time, I happened to meet Zack Kerr, a young campaigner with cerebral palsy—I am sure the hon.”
“I vividly remember one mum putting in front of me a magazine with all the events and attractions happening across the region in the summer holidays. She had gone through them and crossed out 99% because they did not have the facilities that her child required.”
“After that meeting, I vowed to those parents that I would do whatever I could to raise and highlight the issue, which I began to do as a Back-Bench MP in Parliament. Fortuitously, a year later, I was lucky to be appointed Minister for Local Government.”
“They deserve enormous credit for their co-ordination and campaigning on this issue. So do the tireless campaigners up and down the country—families with severely disabled children and other family members, like dad Andrew Newton and his daughter Aniela, who came to see me all those years ago.”
“I am glad that, when the Conservatives were in Government, we made £4 million available not just to install Changing Places at motorway service stations, but to make a better start on installing them in NHS hospitals. In 2020—fortuitously or not, depending on your point of view—I then became Chancellor of the Exchequer.”
“We should take a moment to reflect that that is three times as many as there were a decade or so ago, when I first became aware of the issue. Now landmark attractions such as Alton Towers, Madame Tussauds and the Tower of London, as well as most Premier League stadiums and cinemas and shopping centres right across the country, all have th…”
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“Yet if we simply got working age welfare spending on people with a disability or health condition back to pre-covid levels, that would free up £30 billion-worth of savings. Whether it is scrapping our plans to shrink the civil service or their failure to control welfare spending, this is not her inheritance, these are her choices. The result: higher spending, higher borrowing, higher taxes. It is broken promise after broken promise, and working people paying the price. Let me turn next to growth, and remind the Prime Minister and Chancellor that they did, in fact, inherit the fastest-growing economy in the G7.”
“The reason the Chancellor has increased borrowing and increased taxes is because she has totally failed to grip public spending. First, she has no meaningful plan to deliver the £20 billion-worth of savings available if the public sector simply returned to its pre-pandemic levels of productivity. Instead, one of the first things the Chancellor did was to hand out inflation-busting pay rises to the unions without getting any productivity-enhancing reforms in return. The Chancellor also scrapped her predecessor’s plan to get the civil service back to its pre-pandemic numbers. She does not seem to think that the civil service can be reduced by a single person. And the Chancellor has no plan to control welfare spending.”
“According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the new measure will not actually even be a constraint on the amount she can borrow. It says it is: “hard to escape the suspicion” that the Government are attracted to this change “by the fact that it would allow for significantly more borrowing…without any need for tough choices elsewhere.” “Fiscal fiddling” is what it has called it. The Chancellor herself actually agrees. She specifically told the British people she would not change the debt target. She said she was “not going to fiddle the figures” to get better results, but that is exactly what she has done. She has gone back on her word and fiddled the figures so she can borrow billions more—broken promise after broken promise, and working people will pay the price.”
“Today, the Chancellor has launched an enormous borrowing spree, saddling our children and grandchildren with billions upon billions of pounds of more debt, pushing up interest rates, leaving our economy more exposed to future shocks and leading the OBR today to now forecast higher inflation in every year of the forecast. Her decision to let borrowing rip makes a total nonsense of her claims on the state of the public finances. If they truly were in such a dire state, as she has said, what we should have seen today is a significant reduction in borrowing to repair them, not the splurge she has just unleashed. Instead, what we see is borrowing higher in every year of the forecast and debt higher in every year of the forecast. Now, the Chancellor has tried to cover up that splurge by fiddling the fiscal rules.”
“This is not the first Government to peddle the “borrow to grow” myth, but time and again we have seen the same ending: not higher growth, but higher debt, higher inflation, and higher taxes. But, Madam Deputy Speaker, whatever you think about the economic arguments surrounding today’s Budget, there is a more fundamental point with which I want to conclude. The Prime Minister has talked relentlessly about trust, yet today’s Budget reveals above all that those in the Labour party did not tell the truth. They said they would not fiddle the figures; they have. They said they would not increase borrowing; they have. They said they would not raise taxes on working people; they have. There has been broken promise after broken promise, and it is the working people of this country who will pay the price.”
“A Government can foster growth, but they cannot magically conjure it up. We need businesses, workers, investors and entrepreneurs to all back this country and build our economy. It does not matter whether your income comes in a pay packet, from investments, in dividends or in profits. It is a poor politics that is so focused on what people receive that it fails to see that what matters is what people put in. The only way to grow the economy and to create wealth is for people to put in more, so when you create a negative environment for business, when you undermine confidence in our country, when you vilify and penalise people for doing exactly what we need them to do, which is to invest, take risks and work hard, you do not create growth; you hold back growth—and more than that, the promise of growth tomorrow does not pay the bills today.”
“I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench were wanting to explain to the young couple in their constituencies saving to buy their first home that their taxes are going up, and to the family wanting to pass on their farm or their business to their children that their taxes are going up. The parents sacrificing to give their kids the best start in life: your taxes are going up. They are taxing your job, they are taxing your business, they are taxing your home, they are taxing your savings. I said during the election campaign: “You name it, Labour will tax it”, And that is exactly what the Government have done, with broken promise after broken promise and working people paying the price. For the final time from this Dispatch Box, let me deliver some basic truths.”
“I join the Prime Minister’s words of tribute to Alex Salmond and the Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, and thank him for his kind words about Sir David Amess, whom we remember fondly. We are thinking of all their families at this moment. This week, China has carried out unwarranted, aggressive and intimidatory military exercises in the Taiwan strait. Our allies are rightly concerned. After worrying reports that the Government may have intervened to stop a visit to the UK by the former Taiwanese President, will the Prime Minister confirm that the Foreign Secretary will use his meetings in Beijing this week to condemn China’s dangerous escalatory acts in the strait?”
“I join the Prime Minister’s words of tribute to Alex Salmond and the Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, and thank him for his kind words about Sir David Amess, whom we remember fondly. We are thinking of all their families at this moment. This week, China has carried out unwarranted, aggressive and intimidatory military exercises in the Taiwan strait. Our allies are rightly concerned. After worrying reports that the Government may have intervened to stop a visit to the UK by the former Taiwanese President, will the Prime Minister confirm that the Foreign Secretary will use his meetings in Beijing this week to condemn China’s dangerous escalatory acts in the strait?”
“Given what the Prime Minister said—I agree of course that we must engage and should use that engagement for our national interest—I hope that the Foreign Secretary will unequivocally condemn this military escalation and stand up for democracy in Taiwan. The whole House will be concerned about the fate of the democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai. He is a British citizen who has been wrongly imprisoned in Hong Kong for four years. The previous Government pressured China for his release. Does the Prime Minister agree that this is a politically motivated prosecution and that it is a breach of China’s legal obligations to Hong Kong under the Sino-British declaration?”
“I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. As he knows, China has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine, now supplying the vast majority of Russia’s imported military micro-electronics and components and worsening the suffering of the Ukrainian people. Will the Prime Minister confirm that he is prepared to sanction any Chinese business or individual involved in aiding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including imposing secondary sanctions on financial institutions?”
“Yes, I assure the Prime Minister of our support. It is something that the last Government began. The United States recently expanded their sanctions and I hope the new Government will continue to look at doing the same. The last Government also established a new system of registration and monitoring to protect the UK from interference from foreign states, including China, Russia and Iran. The foreign influence registration scheme was described as essential by MI5 in the fight to help to keep Britain safe, but since the Prime Minister took office, he has halted its implementation. Why?”
“That is very clearly what the Government have said. Only last week, the Prime Minister said at the Dispatch Box that he would give the security forces “the powers that they need”. —[ Official Report , 9 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 297.] If he is to fulfil that promise, I urge him to get up to speed on this issue and implement the scheme. Furthermore, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee has warned that British universities are increasingly a rich feeding ground for China to exert political influence over us. That is why we passed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, with new powers to help to defend universities from that threat, but the new Education Secretary has since blocked it. Can the Prime Minister tell us how, without that tool, the Government will prevent Chinese influence over our universities?”
“I know that the Prime Minister will agree with that too, so this week will the Foreign Secretary in his meetings not just raise the issue but tell the Chinese Government to lift those sanctions on our colleagues?”
“The FIR scheme and the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act were new tools—new sets of powers—that the previous Government passed in order to give our universities and security services the powers that they need to tackle a growing threat. The Opposition will of course continue to support the Government in protecting our national security, but we believe that those tools are needed, and we are concerned by reports that the new Government have paused their implementation or indeed scrapped them. Finally, the Chinese Government have sanctioned multiple Members of our Parliament for championing human rights. As a result, they have faced intimidation, abuse and surveillance. I commend you, Mr Speaker, for your defence of the right of every Member of this House to speak out on crucial issues without fear of retaliation from foreign states.”
“Tomorrow, the Government will publish their anticipated changes to employment law. Given the weekend’s events, when did the Prime Minister first become a convert to fire and rehire?”
“Tomorrow, the Government will publish their anticipated changes to employment law. Given the weekend’s events, when did the Prime Minister first become a convert to fire and rehire?”
“When the Prime Minister talks about security at work, once again it is one rule for him and another rule for everyone else. I know that not everything or everyone has survived his first 100 days in government, so can he confirm that when he promised not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, that commitment applies to both employer and employee national insurance contributions?”
“I don’t think that even Lord Alli is buying any of that nonsense. I am not asking about the Budget; I am asking specifically about the promise that the Prime Minister made to the British people. So let me ask him again just to clarify his own promise: does his commitment not to raise national insurance apply to both employee and employer national insurance contributions?”
“I am very happy to welcome investments that my Government negotiated, but when it comes to the Prime Minister’s answer on tax, businesses across the country would have found his answer just about as reassuring as Sue Gray found it when he promised to protect her job. It is no wonder that confidence is plummeting on his watch, which he did not mention. Turning to another commitment, before the election his Chancellor said that changing the debt target in the fiscal rules would be tantamount to “fiddling the figures”. Does he still agree with the Chancellor?”
“As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, it is “hard to escape the suspicion” that the Government are attracted to this change because “it would allow for significantly more borrowing”. The Chancellor previously said that this change would be “fiddling the figures”, so I have a simple question: does the Prime Minister still agree with the Chancellor?”
“I can assure him of our constructive support on these vital questions of national security, in the same spirit that he provided that support to me.”
“It is clear that the Prime Minister has opened the door to raising employer national insurance contributions, including on pensions, and fiddling the figures so that he can borrow more. He talks about what he has achieved, but economic confidence is plummeting, growth is now stalling and the UK’s borrowing costs are rising on his watch. Can I close on another important topic? Yesterday’s intervention from the head of MI5 will have been sobering for the whole House, not least his warning that Britain faces the most complex and interconnected threats in our country’s history. I know the Prime Minister will agree that our security services are owed a debt of gratitude for what they do to keep us safe, but can he confirm that the forthcoming terrorism Bill will give our security services the powers they need to tackle evolving threats?”
“On this sad anniversary, I finish by saying that the United Kingdom stands with Israel against this terrorism today, tomorrow and always. I say to the Jewish community here in Britain that I know that at moments like this, when the Jewish people are under attack in their homeland, Jewish people everywhere can feel less safe. I know that the Prime Minister will agree with me that, across this House, we will always stand against the evils of antisemitism.”
“On this sad anniversary, I finish by saying that the United Kingdom stands with Israel against this terrorism today, tomorrow and always. I say to the Jewish community here in Britain that I know that at moments like this, when the Jewish people are under attack in their homeland, Jewish people everywhere can feel less safe. I know that the Prime Minister will agree with me that, across this House, we will always stand against the evils of antisemitism.”
“Turning next to the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly, which he mentioned, I fully endorse his reaffirmation that the United Kingdom will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Events in the middle east, and indeed Ukraine, are another reminder that the world is increasingly becoming more dangerous. If we wish to be able to continue to deter our enemies, defend our values and stand up for our interests, we will need to invest more in our military. The Prime Minister and I have discussed previously my view that we should increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030, and in our previous exchanges in this House he has said that a trajectory for future defence spending would be set out at the coming fiscal event. I ask that he reconfirm his commitment to that timetable.”
“Turning to the situation of British nationals in Lebanon, I know that the Government have rightly been urging them to leave for some time now, but it is clear that difficulties in obtaining tickets on commercial flights mean that a number of our citizens are still there. I welcome the Government’s chartering of planes to help British nationals to return home, and know very well the logistical challenges involved. I pay tribute to all the Foreign Office and other teams who will be working hard to make sure that that happens. Can the Prime Minister assure the House that any British national who wishes to leave Lebanon will be able to do so on a Government-chartered flight?”
“This country should support Israel in pursuing those goals, but can the Prime Minister expand on what he said about what role the United Kingdom is playing in providing humanitarian support to those Lebanese citizens who have been displaced because of this conflict? I welcome his announcements on some financial support to that end. The medium-term question that we must help to address is what happens once the Israeli operation has finished. I ask the Prime Minister to update the House on what steps this country, along with our allies, is taking to help to build up the capacity of the Lebanese state so that Hezbollah cannot simply re-establish itself in southern Lebanon. We must never forget that Hezbollah does not represent the interests of Lebanon or its citizens; it represents those of its paymasters in Tehran.”
“It is right that this country continues to play its part in defending Israel against Iranian attacks, but we should not forget the base cause of all these events: Iran’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist, and its desire to destabilise the region through arming and funding its terrorist proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. The current conflict in Lebanon is a result of Hezbollah’s determination to use this territory to launch rocket attacks on Israel. Let me be clear: Israel has a right to defend itself, it has a right to eliminate the leadership of Hezbollah, and it has a right to restore security for its citizens.”
“I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. Today is the anniversary of 7 October. This modern pogrom—the worst loss of Jewish life since the second world war—was a horrendous reminder of the antisemitism in our world and the existential threats that Israel faces. Over the past year, many of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October have been raped, sexually abused, murdered, and mutilated beyond recognition. Today, a year on, many still remain held by Hamas and other terrorist groups. I think particularly today of the British citizen Emily Damari, who has endured a year in captivity. Across this House, I know that we join in saying, “Bring them home.” The situation in the middle east is grave. Too many innocent civilian lives have been lost.”
“With that decision debated and made, it is now important that the House understands the full consequences of the Government’s choice. May I specifically ask the Prime Minister this: will he now publish the impact assessment before the House rises?”
“With that decision debated and made, it is now important that the House understands the full consequences of the Government’s choice. May I specifically ask the Prime Minister this: will he now publish the impact assessment before the House rises?”
“I join the Prime Minister in his words about Her late Majesty the Queen and in his words about the Princess of Wales. She has been in the thoughts of everyone across the country, and I know that everyone in the House will be delighted and relieved at the progress she has made. May I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to Nicholas Howard? This is his last Prime Minister’s questions after supporting eight consecutive Prime Ministers through these sessions. It was never my favourite part of the week, but his commendable service made it far more manageable. Yesterday, Labour MPs voted to remove the winter fuel payment from more than 10 million British pensioners, including those with just £13,000 of income.”
“When I was in government, I delivered record increases in the state pension. We protected the winter fuel payment, and we gave pensioners cost of living benefits. The Prime Minister is the one who is taking money away from pensioners on £13,000. This has got nothing to do with the public finances. Just this morning, his own Chancellor—his MPs may not have been listening to her—admitted that she would prefer it if this policy did not even raise any money. Obviously, the Government would not have made this decision without an impact analysis. Yesterday, the Energy Minister confirmed that. So I ask very simply again: why will he not publish the assessment now?”
“They are shouting now, but those arguments did not even convince 50 of the Prime Minister’s own MPs, who suddenly found yesterday that they had urgent business elsewhere. We know why the Prime Minister is hiding the impact assessment: the Labour party’s own previous analysis claimed that this policy could cause 3,850 deaths. Are the numbers in his impact assessment higher or lower than that?”
“Pensioners watching today will have seen that the Prime Minister has repeatedly refused to admit or to publish the consequences of his decision. We will continue holding him to account for that. Changing topics, today is Back British Farming Day, when we recognise that British farmers produce food that is of higher quality and has higher welfare standards and higher environmental standards than imported food. At a time of increasing global volatility, it is also crucial for our food security and national security. Will the Prime Minister therefore confirm whether he will be adopting the National Farmers Union’s recent proposal to enshrine a national food security target in law?”
“I am not sure I heard a specific answer, but farmers also do great work to preserve the beauty of the British countryside—something I am sure the Prime Minister will appreciate, given his new-found preference for landscapes over political portraiture. When it comes to land use, protections are currently in place to ensure that the most productive farmland is used for food production rather than alternatives like solar. Does he agree that it is not appropriate or right that developers with a vested interest grade the quality of that farmland themselves? Will he look at making that process independent?”
“As a glimpse, in Wales, the Labour Government hammered farmers, hitting them with top-down eco-targets. Labour’s own assessment of those plans said that it would lead to thousands of job losses, less food security and would destroy rural incomes, while farmers described it as bleak and damaging. Will the Prime Minister reassure English farmers that he will not threaten their livelihoods, and will he rule out imposing those same top-down targets here?”
“I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the Grenfell community. We will rightly discuss that important issue shortly after Prime Minister’s questions. I also join him in congratulating our record-breaking Olympians and Paralympians on everything that they have achieved. Lastly, I pay tribute to the hard work, bravery and dedication of our police. This summer, in challenging circumstances, they served our communities commendably and kept us all safe. Government is about making choices, and the new Prime Minister has made a choice: he has chosen to take the winter fuel allowance away from low-income pensioners and give that money to certain unionised workforces in inflation-busting pay rises. Could I ask the Prime Minister, why did he choose train drivers over Britain’s vulnerable pensioners?”
“The mission to ensure that no such tragedy can ever happen again is one that I know the whole House supports, but more than that, it is part of a legacy that we must create and maintain, so that our actions meet the full meaning of our words.”
“I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the Grenfell community. We will rightly discuss that important issue shortly after Prime Minister’s questions. I also join him in congratulating our record-breaking Olympians and Paralympians on everything that they have achieved. Lastly, I pay tribute to the hard work, bravery and dedication of our police. This summer, in challenging circumstances, they served our communities commendably and kept us all safe. Government is about making choices, and the new Prime Minister has made a choice: he has chosen to take the winter fuel allowance away from low-income pensioners and give that money to certain unionised workforces in inflation-busting pay rises. Could I ask the Prime Minister, why did he choose train drivers over Britain’s vulnerable pensioners?”
“The Prime Minister also inherited inflation back at target, interest rates being cut, low unemployment and, indeed, the fastest-growing economy in the G7. But that is not the point, because the Prime Minister now has to start taking responsibility for his own decisions. If, as he says, the public finances are a priority, it was his decision, and his alone, to award a train driver on £65,000 a pay rise of almost £10,000, and it was also his decision that a pensioner living on just £13,000 will have their winter fuel allowance removed. Can the Prime Minister explain to Britain’s low-income pensioners why he has taken money away from them while at the same time giving more money to highly paid train drivers?”
“The Prime Minister talked about the public finances. The UK’s public finances are more robust than those of almost any other major advanced economy. Here we have it: he inherited a lower deficit than France, America, Italy— [ Interruption. ]”
“Can the Prime Minister tell the House very specifically, and the pensioners who are watching, how much less support a pensioner on £13,000 will receive this winter?”
“The UK currently has a lower deficit than France, America, Italy and Japan; it has the second-lowest debt in the entire G7. The Prime Minister opposed every difficult decision that we took to deliver that, so I certainly am not going to take any lectures from him on that score. He talked about protecting ordinary people; last year, under the Conservative Government, a low-income pensioner with just £13,000 received not only the winter fuel payment, but hundreds of pounds of additional cost of living support, both of which he has now scrapped. Age UK has said that cutting the winter fuel allowance is “the wrong policy”, and only this morning we have learned that the vast majority of the poorest pensioners—pensioners in poverty—will see that vital support removed.”
“The Government do not have to choose to take money off low-income pensioners in order to give it to highly paid train drivers. That is a choice that the Prime Minister has made, and it will be clear to any pensioners watching that he simply cannot explain why he has made that choice. Turning to another important issue, the Government have suspended 30 of the UK’s 350 arms export licences to Israel. It is a decision that the Chief Rabbi says “beggars belief” and will “encourage our shared enemies”. Can the Prime Minister therefore explain how his decision will help to secure the release of the 101 hostages still being held by Hamas?”
“I appreciate the Prime Minister’s answer, but he will know that decisions like this also have important and broader geopolitical implications. He mentioned allies. It is essential that we maintain transatlantic unity in the face of terrorist threats and avoid any perception of splits between our two nations. Can he therefore update the House, or tell it what engagement he had with the United States prior to taking this significant decision?”
“These decisions have not only geopolitical consequences but emotional ones. The Prime Minister took that action on the very same day as the funerals of Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas—something that the Board of Deputies of British Jews described as “a terrible, terrible message to be sending”. I hope the Prime Minister understands the hurt that has been caused. Will he take this opportunity to reassure Israel and the Jewish community that the United Kingdom and this House stand behind Israel and its right to self-defence?”
“The mission to ensure that no such tragedy can ever happen again is one that I know the whole House supports, but more than that, it is part of a legacy that we must create and maintain, so that our actions meet the full meaning of our words.”
“I know the Prime Minister will agree that we must approach those questions with the honesty and directness they deserve. Let me conclude. At the time, the former right hon. Member for Maidenhead apologised to the victims for what she described as failures at a local and national level in response to the fire. I share in those same words still. I think today, however, demands more. As a Prime Minister, current or former, you are a custodian of the state. Its failures, whether on your watch or not, are something that you feel deeply. To that end, I want to extend my deepest apologies to the families and victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. The state let you down, and it must never do so again.”