Autumn Budget 2025

Lord Rook Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rook (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour to speak in this debate, and to welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth to your Lordships’ House. As someone who grew up in Portsmouth, I can say that it is great to have more of Pompey in this place, and some of the remarks from the right reverend Prelate’s excellent maiden speech will probably be echoed in my speech.

Growing up in Portsmouth afforded me many pleasures and privileges. Among these were my first attempts at youth work at a Salvation Army youth club in Southsea. I say that for a reason. This Budget marks a welcome shift toward us valuing young people in this country, and the Chancellor deserves recognition for that. Two decisions in particular provide hope. The first is the abolition of the two-child limit. This is not an expansion of welfare spending. It is fully funded, through commitments to reform Motability, reclaim waste, tackle fraud and error, and close tax loopholes. Most importantly, it is an investment in our long-term prosperity. It is quite clear that a child growing up in poverty is less likely to work, will earn far less as an adult, and will rely longer on the state for support. Child poverty is costly to us as a country. Poverty today reduces productivity tomorrow. Less support now results in a higher welfare bill in the future. Ending the two-child limit is both a morally and an economically responsible choice to make.

The second decision is the creation of the youth job guarantee. By replacing benefits for young people who have been unemployed for 18 months with a guaranteed job, apprenticeship, or training programme, we reduce the welfare bill, promote work over dependency and help young people into good work. Given the success of the future jobs fund under a past Labour Government, I ask my noble friend the Minister only whether young adults might become eligible for the programme slightly earlier, perhaps at 12 or six months out of work.

While this Budget provides a way forward, we should not ignore the reasons why we are here. Successive Governments have rightly protected and invested in greater security for older people but, at the same time, we have quietly dismantled services for children and young people. Sure Start closed, youth services were stripped back, and statutory youth work disappeared. When the pandemic struck and experts told the Government that £15 billion of investment was needed to support pupils who had fallen behind, only a fraction was provided. The current crisis is not accidental; it is the result of a continual and considerable disinvestment in our young people, and the consequences are there for all to see: a youth mental health crisis; hundreds of thousands of young adults struggling to find work; more young families relying on food banks than ever before; fraying social cohesion and fractured communities; and a generation increasingly disengaged from civic life.

A country that disinvests in its future citizens cannot expect the next generation to invest in their nation. While these Budget measures are welcome, we can all do more and better, and we must, because it takes a society to raise a generation. It takes schools and colleges, yes, but it also takes charities and employers, volunteers and youth workers, faith communities and millions of good neighbours. Today I want to argue for something ambitious and necessary: a grand coalition of the youthful, not defined by age but by all of us who have a youthful spirit and an unswerving commitment to the next generation. It should be a coalition of institutions, leaders and citizens who believe that Britain’s national renewal depends on a new deal for young people, where: no child grows up in poverty; every young person has a route to work; every community has safe spaces for young people to gather and belong; mental health care and housing are available when needed; and every young person can discover their vocation—not just a job, but a purpose. The future belongs to those who can give the next generation something to hope for. I hope that we will be a grand coalition that will give the next generation a reason to hope.