Budget Resolutions

Debate between Ben Obese-Jecty and Caroline Nokes

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I wholeheartedly agree. I have spent the last year talking to small businesses in my constituency that have been crippled by the measures in the last Budget. When this year’s measures come in as well, some of those businesses will struggle desperately to keep on lower earners, particularly young people.

My first job as a 16-year-old was working in a supermarket, and I am sure many Members had a similar experience. Those opportunities are going to disappear for young people as a result of these measures. What this Labour Government have not taken into account is that every above-inflation wage increase leads to higher business costs, lower investment and fewer opportunities for those we represent. Many businesses that want to employ people will now find themselves unable to take on staff or to take the risks that the Chancellor mentioned, meaning that businesses cannot grow.

We are very likely to see the wage compression effect, whereby the gap between those on the minimum wage and those in more skilled or experienced roles becomes smaller. That, yet again, leads to a lack of incentive to develop skills and opportunities for those with them. The Government must address that, as it will curtail opportunities for young people and lower earners. Unemployment is now set to peak at 5% and the number of economically inactive people will also rise.

The pay-per-mile tax on electric vehicles will surely disincentivise the switch to EVs before the ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles kicks in, and the OBR estimates that there will be 440,000 fewer EV sales over the next five years because of the tax. How much tax revenue will be lost because those sales never happen? Then there is the plethora of other taxes that are part of the smorgasbord: the tourism tax, the NI raid on pension contributions, the reduction in the tax-free cash ISA allowance and even a milkshake tax.

We have not even touched on the absence of the commitment to 3% of GDP on defence anywhere in the Budget. There is not a single reference to it and I do not understand how. We saw today that the service chiefs will write to the Defence Secretary to tell him that it will not be possible to deliver the strategic defence review. I would love to hear from the Minister how Labour will facilitate defence in this day and age.

The OBR has stated that not a single measure contained in the Budget will improve growth, which has, in fact, been downgraded from the figure forecast in the summer. Taxes on working people have been increased by stealth to pay for welfare. That will be Rachel Reeves’s legacy, and this is quite possibly her last Budget—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. You can refer to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the Chancellor or by her constituency name, but not by her own name.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall draw to a close.

It comes to something when the Chancellor can stand at the Dispatch Box to deliver her Budget, make a boob joke and that not be the most offensive thing she says.

Immigration System

Debate between Ben Obese-Jecty and Caroline Nokes

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

How does the immigration White Paper address the significant number of pull factors currently advertised online? The Government’s own website www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get is there for any aspirational English-speaking asylum seeker to see just why it is worth running the risk of crossing the channel. It states:

“You’ll be given somewhere to live if you need it. This could be in a flat, house, hostel or bed and breakfast… You’ll usually get £49.18 for each person in your household. This will help you pay for things you need like food, clothing and toiletries… Your allowance will be loaded onto a debit card…each week.”

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. Please can we get to the question?

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

What are the Government doing to address the online advertising of this incredibly generous package?

National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Debate between Ben Obese-Jecty and Caroline Nokes

2nd reading
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

You state—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

He!

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member stated that he has spoken to constituents and many small businesses across his constituency, but he quoted the Federation of Small Businesses. Could we hear from businesses that he has spoken to as to how this measure benefits them?

Income Tax (Charge)

Debate between Ben Obese-Jecty and Caroline Nokes

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the increase in employer national insurance contributions will impact charities, as well as businesses and GP surgeries? They include the Children’s Trust in Tadworth, in my constituency, which is a leading charity that provides support to children with brain injury. That charity now needs to find an additional significant—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. Interventions must be brief. I think the hon. Lady has made her point.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

In my constituency, farmers have been left reeling by the Government’s ruinous family farms tax that effectively ends the family farm through their reckless slashing of agricultural property relief, yet the Government repeatedly claimed there would be no tax rises on “working people”. Are the Government honestly suggesting that farmers are not “working people”? Those on the Government Benches made repeated assurances over the past year. The duplicity of the Labour party on this issue is breathtaking. At last year’s Country Land and Business Association conference, the now Environment Secretary stated that

“we have no intention of changing APR.”

The CLA has said that the change could harm 70,000 UK farms, declaring it a “betrayal” that

“puts dynamite beneath the livelihoods of British farming.”

The Prime Minister and the Environment Secretary were more than happy to leverage support from the countryside, with glossy photoshoots of rambling around the countryside in designer wellies. Indeed, the Prime Minister was very eager to make his pitch to rural communities during his Country Life article and photoshoot in September last year, in which he said:

“The need for stability now is urgent: farmers need to plan for the long term more than ever before.”

I doubt farmers were expecting that long-term planning to include being forced to sell 20% of their farms, making them unviable, or taking a 20% loan to cover those costs, potentially saddling the next generation with debts that farming is not profitable enough to repay.

Only yesterday, the Chancellor stated on the BBC that:

“Only a very small number of agricultural properties will be affected”.

A £1 million farm is 100 acres. According to DEFRA’s agricultural facts summary, published the day after the Budget, on 31 October, the average UK farm size is just over 200 acres. How can the Chancellor make her claim when the relevant Government Department has itself contradicted her position?

Given the speed and alacrity with which the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has covered the countryside with solar panels, it should come as no surprise that the Government are so eager to force farmers out of business, freeing up swathes of the countryside to be sold to developers for more of the same. The Government will be forced into rowing back on this policy, whether it be now or after the visual spectacle of demonstrating farmers blockading Parliament Square with tractors. I urge the Government to do the right thing now, rather than being forced to do so in a few weeks.