YouSaid · the spoken record
Liam Byrne
We hold 35 passages that may be Liam Byrne’s. We do not publish them until we can confirm who spoke. See the correction.
On the record 2004–2026
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“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mrs Harris. First things first: I utterly condemn the attacks on 7 October. I utterly condemn the kidnap, torture and murder of hostages by Hamas. I also utterly deplore and condemn the destruction of Palestine and Palestinian life that has ensued. That destruction is now so complete that Israel is at risk of turning Gaza into a desert and calling it peace. The prosecution of the war is now so brutal that the Foreign Secretary himself said on 2 September that any exports of weapons from here lead to “a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” —[ Official Report , 2 September 2024; Vol. 753, c. 42.]”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me come to exactly that argument. The Foreign Secretary was followed by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, who said that there were now “significant doubts” about Israel’s “record of compliance”. In court, His Majesty’s Government said bluntly, in their opening statement on 12 November 2024, that Israel is “not committed to complying with international humanitarian law”. Yet the Government have not cancelled all licences; they have cancelled some, but not all, and they have kept open the licences for F-35 parts.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If there is an overriding risk of the use of those weapons to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law, “the exporting State Party shall not authorize the export.” Now, if there was any question, doubt or dispute about whether F-35 parts that we supply could be used in such a way, perhaps the Government would have a case for keeping the licences open. But there is nodoubt, dispute or question about the Government’s analysis of F-35 parts, because in their opening statement to the High Court on 12 November 2024, they said: “The F-35 carve-out accepts that there is clear risk that F-35 components might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of IHL”. We now have the advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, the arrest warrants and the Government’s own assessment.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They state: “The application of these Criteria”— the selective licensing criteria— “will be without prejudice to the application to specific cases of specific measures as may be announced to Parliament from time to time.” There we have it. However, what Ministers have not explained is the part of criterion 1 that states: “The Government will not grant a licence if to do so would be inconsistent with…the UK’s obligations under the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty”. Of course, the UN arms trade treaty is very clear. Article 7 requires this Government, as a signatory, to assess any items that we may seek to export.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not, because time is so short. Last week, in front of the Business and Trade Committee, a Defence Minister said that although it is technically possible to track the parts, it is contractually impossible. Indeed, Lockheed Martin has supplied me with a letter that states that, if I want to know anything about the parts, I need to address my queries to the Department of Defence in the United States. The Government defend their case by pointing to the 28 words that allow them to make it up as they go along when it comes to weapons exports. Those words were written by the last Government and were published in the House on 8 December 2021.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being characteristically generous. As I understand it, we cannot track F-35 parts because we have signed a contract that basically renders us blind when they leave our borders. Technically, it is possible; the Ministry of Defence has said that. The issue the Minister has to address is that article 7 of the arms trade treaty is very clear that if there is an overriding risk of a breach of IHL, exports should not be made. His Government’s own submission to the courts is that that risk exists. We cannot have it both ways.”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the statement made by this hard-working Minister. I take it from the announcement that Mr Křetínský has cleared the investment screening tests that the Cabinet Office is responsible for. It would be useful to have that confirmed. Let me press my hon. Friend about the universal service obligation. Is it his intention that beyond the initial five years he will seek six-day delivery and a universal service obligation in place for Royal Mail for as long as His Majesty’s Government retain the golden share?”
House of Commons16 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is indeed a hard day for Luton. I welcome what the Secretary of State shared with the House, and the review of the zero emission mandate that he announced. In that review, I hope that he looks again at the perversities of the regime that he inherited, which could involve petrol engine makers in this country transferring credits to companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla, and to Chinese EV makers. If we really want to ensure a level playing field, why do we not reverse the decision of the last Secretary of State, follow the EU Commission and launch anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese EV makers? The Trade Remedies Authority is ready to go—it just needs the Secretary of State to give the green light.”
House of Commons27 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the Prime Minister on the restoration of UK leadership. Lord Prescott, who did so much to lead on Kyoto, would be truly proud of my right hon. Friend’s work and that of his Cabinet. I was very proud to lead the UK Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Baku this weekend, where we heard loud and clear a report from finance experts who say that we need $1 trillion a year in climate finance between now and 2030. The UK has led from the front, but the reality is that we cannot hit that target without building a bigger World Bank. We could lead that charge by recycling some of the £3 billion we get back from the European Investment Bank. Is that an initiative the Prime Minister could look into?”
House of Commons21 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Today is the last day of the Horizon inquiry. I look forward to working with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and with colleagues across the House to explore appropriate sanctions for those who clearly misled us as the scandal unfolded. I look forward to seeing the Minister and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander), before the Committee on Tuesday 19 November to explore how redress payments can be paid faster. It is surely right that we aim to grow the top line of Post Office businesses, which has to mean that high street banks contribute more to the core business. What steps can the Minister take to ensure this happens?”
House of Commons13 November 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On Tuesday, we will hear from Sir Alan Bates and other victims of the Horizon scandal, which continues to deepen. In September, we learned that there will be 100 more convictions quashed than we originally thought, and yesterday the bill for redress went up by half a billion pounds. Have all the victims now come forward, and are there any gaps left in the schemes for redress?”
House of Commons31 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It honours the approach, the compassion, the intelligence and the judgment of the last Budget presented to this House by my good friend, mentor and boss, Lord Darling, in March 2010. Alistair Darling is much missed in this place. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] He was a man of dry wit, patience, tenacity, kindness and compassion. I have no hint of reservation in my mind in saying that this is a Budget of which he would have been proud, because it strikes the right balance. All Budgets are a balance, as we ask Chancellors not only to balance the numbers but, more importantly, to balance the interests of our country. Compared with the Budget in March 2010, the Chancellor’s task today was far harder. Back in 2010, we tried to present a Budget that would remedy a deficit opened up by the greatest financial crash since the 1930s.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate our first female Chancellor on delivering an outstanding Budget. It is a great pleasure to speak in my first Budget debate for 14 years, and I think that period of silence was probably appreciated more by my own party than by any other. When I look back on those debates, which I listened to even though I did not speak, it is striking that the curtain has finally fallen on an economic philosophy, an economic approach and an economic settlement that has fundamentally failed this country. Over the past 14 years, we have witnessed something akin to “The A.B.C. Murders” of the British economy—austerity and a bungled Brexit, followed by chaos. I see clearly how today’s Budget is a very different kind of settlement.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We aimed to get the right balance between spending restraint, budget rises, growth and time. Balancing those four ingredients was at the heart of any Budget judgment, and our judgment would have halved the deficit within four years and seen debt falling by 2016. Our obsession was to avoid the double-dip recession that had been experienced in Japan and to ensure we escaped the perils of widening inequality that we had seen in the United States. Mr Osborne chose a different path, and he was supported by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), to whom it is my pleasure to give way.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He chose to load his austerity programme on public spending cuts. Actually, he eventually arrived at the same settlement that Labour proposed in 2010, but he took four or five years to get there and he put the economy into recession. If memory serves me correctly, he blamed it on some light snow. That austerity programme was followed by a Brexit that was bungled, and then the chaos of the former Prime Minister.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us be really clear about what has been bequeathed to this Government. The right hon. Gentleman is right that back in 2010, at the height of the financial crash, the deficit went up. What happens in a financial crash is that the economy has a heart attack: spending continues, because to cut spending would be to deepen a recession and turn it into a depression, tax receipts fall off a cliff, and the role of Government is to sustain a country through that kind of crisis. The deficit rose to £154.4 billion, yet today how much interest do we pay on the debt we have been bequeathed? We pay £104 billion in interest alone, which is almost the entirety of the deficit we had back in 2010. It is important for the House to recognise that that happened because Mr Osborne chose a balance that was different.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We will make sure you have a workforce that is actually healthy and well, fit for work and well-trained. We will make sure there is investment in the skills you need in your business, and we will make sure your workers stand a hope in hell of getting a home somewhere near their work. We will make sure there is investment in research and development.” Why? Because if we put all of that together, we will have the greatest entrepreneurs in the world. Our entrepreneurs have been making history by inventing the future since the age of the industrial revolution, but they need good people, good ideas and access to capital markets, which they do not have today. This Budget begins to make that available.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Budget forecast shows that over the forecast period, we will now see the rate of fixed investment increase in our economy by between 6% and 7%. That is still probably not enough to catch up with our competitors, but it is a hell of a good start and, crucially, it is a departure from the failed economic philosophy for stimulating investment of the last 14 years. After 14 years of failure, it was time to try something new, and that is what the Chancellor has given us today. That allows us to strike a new bargain with business. We can say to the business community, “Look, we will put £104 billion extra of capital investment into the economy. We will make sure you have the roads, the railway systems and the digital infrastructure that you need for your markets to function.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Over the last 14 years, the approach to trying to stimulate development has relied on tax cut after tax cut after tax cut after tax cut. Today, the Chancellor has ended the insanity of trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. The capital investment delivered by this Budget will see £104 billion extra being surged into the economy. The Chancellor was absolutely right. Last week, at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, we heard a clear message from the IMF that unless we raise the fixed rate of investment in our economy, we are not going to improve living standards or the growth rate, and we are not going to pay down the debt, so the Chancellor’s approach is extremely welcome.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The reality is that for the last 14 years, the Conservative party has been trying to patch the roof by ripping out the foundations of our economy. That approach has drawn to a close today. We have only got through the last 14 years because of the ingenuity, fortitude, kindness and compassion of the people we represent. Those people deserve a better approach and that is what they got from the Chancellor today. We have an approach that Alistair Darling would have well appreciated: a Budget balanced not simply in the numbers, but in the balance of interests. If we look at the numbers in the Red Book, we can see the guts of that different approach. Everybody knows—we might as well be honest in the House today—that the original sin of the British economy is a failure in the investment rate.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Correct. In a way, that is the point that I am gently trying to make to the House, with a very brief and, everyone will be pleased to hear, soon-to-conclude lesson in the fiscal consolidation of the last 14 years. Austerity, a bungled Brexit and chaos left us with a growth rate that fell from an average of 3% in the Labour years down to 1.6% over the last 14 years. We had tax forecasts that failed time and time and time and time again; living standards that simply did not rise in the last Parliament; productivity growth that collapsed from about 2% a year to about 0.5% a year; inequality that soared; and, as I have just rehearsed, debt that multiplied to an extraordinary £2.7 trillion. In the old days, we used to have debates about whether the roof had been fixed while the sun was shining.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She had to fix the foundations, because, as all of us in this House know, if we get that job done well, the best years for this country truly lie ahead of us.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the changes to the non-dom and inheritance tax regimes, but I would have proposed other changes as well. If we had truly restored fairness to the tax system, we could have raised money to increase the national wealth fund and opened the opportunity, for the first time, of paying dividends into a universal savings account for every young person in this country. That would have helped them get a foot on the housing ladder, repay their student debt, invest in their training, or kickstart savings for their pension. That would have helped us to create a universal basic capital system in this country. We will need a system like that if we are to fix the scandalous inequalities of wealth that now bedevil our country. None the less, I accept that the Chancellor had to put first things first today.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course, people in the top 1% will own assets and will have seen a windfall gain, yet the rate of tax they pay on those capital gains is just half the top rate of marginal tax. I am sorry that the Leader of the Opposition is no longer in his place to hear me say this, but he did a good thing a couple of years ago, which was to publish his tax return. I am sure that all hon. Members will have read it—it does not take long, as it is only a page long. It declares an income of £2 million and a tax rate of 23%. At a time when so many people in our country are paying a top marginal rate of more than 47%, I do not think that it is morally right that those with broader shoulders are paying much lower tax rates. I would have liked to have seen the Chancellor go further on capital gains tax.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have a moral emergency in Britain: sales of superyachts, luxury cars and big mansions are at an all-time high, but, at exactly the same time, the queues for food banks have never been greater. There is no mystery to that. Over the past 14 years, the combination of easy money and low taxes on capital income has meant that the top 1% in our country—the luckiest 1%—are 41 times richer than everybody else. Did they work 41 times harder? Are they 41 times cleverer? Did they win the lottery? Well, in a way they did, because £850 billion-worth of quantitative easing held interest rates in our country down by about 1%. That triggered three quarters of the rise in asset prices that we have seen over the past 14 years.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why we have to get the balance right between ensuring that businesses are more profitable and ensuring that workers are getting their share of national income. Getting the balance right is difficult. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my Committee and I will scrutinise that in detail. We will begin that work when we see the Secretary of State for Business and Trade in front of our Committee in just a couple of weeks’ time. My final point is about where I wanted the Chancellor to go further. Among the worst of her inheritance is the yawning gulf in inequality that scars our country.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Business and Trade Committee looks forward to scrutinising the detail and ensuring the Government have got the balance right, because, goodness knows, it is hard enough to get the balance right in a Budget, never mind translating it into legislation. That bargain for business has to consist of two sides: on the one hand, we will create a better business environment through higher capital investment, but on the other we have to give workers a pay rise. The labour share of income in this country has fallen precipitously since the 1950s. If the labour share of national income was as high today as it was in 1955, on average a worker would be receiving a pay packet this year that was over £7,000 bigger.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree 100%, but I say gently to right hon. and hon. Members across the House that that is not free. If we want to ensure that there are good transport links and digital links, that the workforce is healthy, well and trained, and that there is a rich ecosystem of ideas, the money has to come from somewhere. The sensible decisions that have been made to increase borrowing in order to fund a higher level of fixed capital investment are wise. Investment in public services is wise too. I very much hope that that will benefit the hon. Lady’s constituency. An increase in investment on the scale we have seen today will improve the profitability of businesses in this country.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am incredibly grateful to the Father of the House for giving way, which is characteristically generous. I think we would both agree that his inspiration and mentor, Nigel Lawson, was not a hoary old socialist, but, of course, he was the one who equalised the top rate of tax and the rate of capital gains, and I did not see people fleeing the country back then.”
House of Commons30 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I utterly condemn this decision by the Israeli Parliament. Tens of thousands of people have died as a result of Israeli firepower, and now thousands more will die as a result of an Israeli-induced famine unless the world acts. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if this decision is put into effect, it will be a breach of international humanitarian law? A track record of honouring international law is required if we are to keep arms export licences open.”
House of Commons29 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I, too, congratulate the Government on an extraordinary achievement in securing £63 billion-worth of investment, which is a tremendous vote of confidence not only in this Government but in this country. My hon. Friend is right to say that a big part of this is the stability dividend, but she is also right to say that resetting our relationship with our closest neighbours in Europe must also be a big source of appeal. Did she hear that feedback at the investment summit?”
House of Commons17 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman gives way with characteristic generosity. The truth is that the International Monetary Fund forecast growth for this year at about 0.5%, that families were about £1,200 worse off on average at the last election than in 2019, and that since 2010 the national debt has more than doubled, to £2.3 trillion. I suggest that those three metrics represent not a good inheritance, but a bad one.”
House of Commons17 October 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This country pioneered steelmaking; now we need to reinvent its future.”
House of Commons11 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am not yet Chair of the Committee, Mr Speaker, but fingers crossed. I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. I hope the whole House will recognise that what he has brought us today is not a set of sound bites but a strategy. In the long term, that strategy will benefit from a stronger cross-party consensus, so I hope that it can be the subject of a future Select Committee inquiry. The Secretary of State puts his finger on the key issue: to safeguard the future of the steel industry, we need to de-risk the demand for steel in this country. What reassurance can he give the House about how we will use procurement and, crucially, the creation of a bigger offshore wind industry in this country to drive demand that will keep the furnaces going at Port Talbot and elsewhere?”
House of Commons11 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This whole House agrees that justice delayed is justice denied.”
House of Commons9 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I add my congratulations to Sir Alan Bates and Lady Suzanne on what looked like a very happy day. I welcome what the Secretary of State has set out for the House this afternoon. When our Select Committee reported back in March, we said that trust in the Post Office was fundamentally broken and that the appeals scheme needed to be independent. This is an important step in that direction, but sub-postmasters have told me this morning that there is still a problem with the time it takes to get offers back when an offer is contested. The claimant’s lawyers have a fixed amount of time to put in a claim; when that claim is contested, it is taking far too long for Addleshaws, in particular, to come back and provide a second offer. What comfort can sub-postmasters take from the Secretary of State’s announcement today?”
House of Commons9 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What thought has the Secretary of State given to attending the Williams inquiry? The Post Office scandal is unfinished business. It is now vital that we not only learn the lessons, but accelerate redress for the innocent and, crucially, punish the guilty fast.”
House of Commons5 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“President Biden has just vetoed the foreign acquisition of US Steel, because he understands that it is vital to have sovereign capability in ensuring the manufacture of virgin steel. The reality is that at the end of the last Parliament we were unable to establish clarity around that objective from the last Government. Can the Minister tell the House today whether it is the policy of this Government to seek to ensure that this country carries on with its ability to make virgin steel?”
House of Commons5 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Council funding in Birmingham is inadequate because of a set of sadistic directions based on speculative estimates of equal pay liabilities. No one believes those estimates, not even the lead commissioner, so will the Minister revisit those directions quickly and meet with Birmingham MPs to help us to get them right?”
House of Commons2 September 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the answer provided by my hon. Friend. He will remember that, when the Select Committee reported just four or five months ago, we noted that 80% of the budget for redress had not been paid out. We suggested to the now shadow Secretary of State a number of measures to put into the Bill to speed up the process. Those amendments were rejected. Can the Minister now assure us that he has a grip on this and that we will now begin to see cheques in the post much faster?”
House of Commons30 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the Prime Minister on his flying start on the world stage, and on his determination to build not simply a rules-based order, but a rights-based order rooted in what Churchill called the great charter and we call the European convention on human rights. We want its freedoms and liberties to be enjoyed by the people of Ukraine, but that will take victory over Russia. It will need more than courage; it will need resources. Did he discuss with international colleagues the need not simply to freeze Russian assets, but to seize and put them to work in defeating once and for all the tyranny of President Putin?”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I conclude with this: on the Government Benches, we have long known that we only deliver and maximise freedom and opportunity for people in this country, and make those freedoms and opportunities real, if there is security. There is no security without wealth, which is why the ambition that my right hon. Friend set out not simply to build a wealthy democracy but a democracy of wealth, is the right one.”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The last Government made some pretty strange investments during covid, including, I understand, buying shares in Bolton Wanderers, shares in a bespoke boutique whisky company, and even, it is said in some newspapers, shares in a strange firm that organises international sex parties called Killing Kittens. I say to my friends on the Government Front Bench that it is time we had a Domesday Book that consolidated assets in this country. Let us look at what we need and what we do not. Crucially, let us look at how we maximise dividends going to ordinary working people in this country to help them build wealth for themselves.”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why the changes to the housing market that my right hon. Friend proposed are so important. We can underpin that and maximise investment into the infrastructure of this country by ensuring that there is a national wealth fund, but I would go further, and I ask her to look at how we can put together not just the national wealth fund but the Crown estate fund, which is set for reform under a Bill in the King’s Speech. We could go a step further and review the whole portfolio of investments held by the Government and by UK Government Investments.”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend said, there has not been growth in living standards for more than 14 years. That is why we need to ensure that there is a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Alongside that, the draft equality Bill is extremely important, and I urge my right hon. Friend to go further and to use the consolidation of pension funds to inaugurate an era of civic capitalism in this country, where we use the combined £2 trillion-worth of pension savings to encourage businesses that are good, not businesses that are bad, such as those that she revealed when she was a brilliant Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, or the scandals that we exposed in the last Parliament with McDonald’s, Asda and other firms behaving in a way reminiscent, frankly, of Victorian capitalism. Once we have begun raising incomes, we must help people build well.”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Chancellor was right to say that there has to be a revolution in wealth creation in this country—not just for some but for all. The measures that my right hon. Friend has set out are the right ones: a plan for growth and a plan to devolve economic power out of the paralysis of Westminster and Whitehall and down to mayors and local councils. Alongside that is a revolution in planning law, infrastructure law and skills finance. I urge my friends on the Government Front Bench to maximise the amount of power held locally, because it is local people and local leaders who know best how to grow our economy. If we have a growing economy, the key is then to ensure that growth is fairly shared. That is why the employment rights Bill is so important. As my right hon.”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We could go next door to a restaurant Aragawa, where they serve steak for £900 apiece. Some, if they were lucky enough, could book a night at the Raffles hotel for £25,000. These are extraordinary prices, but not unremarkable in a country that now has the highest sales of Rolls-Royces, superyachts and private jets. This absurdity of affluence sits alongside a country where, on the last figures, more than 1,000 people died homeless, tens of thousands of people are dying from the diseases of poverty, and 2.1 million people can put food on the table only because of the tender mercies of food banks. That is the inequality of wealth bequeathed to this Government. It is best illustrated perhaps by one figure: the wealth of the top 1% has grown by 31 times the wealth of everybody else over the past 14 years. That is why my right hon.”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an honour to speak in this King’s Speech debate, and a privilege to have heard the first female Chancellor in our history deliver such a remarkable opening salvo. I will say a word not just about the King’s Speech itself, but the strategy behind it. When the Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched our manifesto, there was a clear ambition at its heart to ignite a revolution in wealth creation in this country not just for some, but for all. That strategy was absolutely right, because among the worst of our inheritance is the scandal—the moral emergency —of the inequality of wealth that now scars our country. Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I could take a walk this afternoon down to a coffee bar called Shot in Mayfair, which would serve us coffee for £265 a shot.”
House of Commons22 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very grateful to the right hon. Member, my constituency neighbour, for giving way and I am delighted to see him in his place—on the Opposition side of the Chamber. Can I take it from his remarks that he subscribes to the view that we need not only a rules-based order, but a rights-based order? Here in our country, and indeed in Europe, the framework for those rights is the European convention on human rights. Are we to take it from his remarks that it is the policy of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition that we should remain a member of the ECHR?”
House of Commons18 July 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Haltemprice and Howden and others to ensure that we have got that beyond doubt.”
House of Commons8 May 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗