Welfare Spending

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Danny Kruger

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order! May I please urge people to make interventions short and pithy and not pre-prepared and read out.

[Danny Kruger]

I will come in a moment to the matter of child poverty, and I recognise the point that the hon. Gentleman is making.

I was just referring to the fact that all the parties except ours—indeed, it is unclear what those on the Government Front Bench think—seem to support lifting the two-child cap. The Liberal Democrats cannot seem to see a spending opportunity without grabbing it with both hands. Their spokesman, the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), spent £4.5 billion just in his speech earlier this afternoon. Then we have the SNP Government, who have presided over higher economic inactivity and lower employment than in England, have missed all their targets for child poverty, and still clamour for more money for welfare.

Then there is the Reform party, which is sadly absent today. I do quite like the Reform party and I agree with its Members on lots of things, but there is a problem: they would spend money like drunken sailors. I can see what is happening and I am very worried about it—they will end up in an electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats with a joint ticket to protect welfare spending. I do not know how hon. Members feel about the anticipated alliance.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) and others, particularly Members on the Government Benches, have cited widening poverty rates over the past decade or more, and they repeatedly raised the issue of 4.5 million children, but they are talking about relative poverty. The fact is that relative poverty increased under the previous Government because, overall, the economy grew, as more people became more prosperous. As the median income rises, more people come under it; that is how it works. If relative poverty goes down under this Government, it will be because they shrank the economy. That is highly likely, but it is not an achievement to boast about.

Relative poverty is not a measure of anything except the operation of the law of averages. Therefore, what we need to look at is real poverty, absolute poverty. As we rescued the public finances and grew the economy, absolute poverty went down under the Conservatives.

On children, the percentage of children in absolute poverty after housing costs fell between 2010 and 2024. We pulled 800,000 people out of absolute poverty and averted over a million more people falling into absolute poverty. We had more people in work, a higher employment rate, and fewer workless households than since records began. We should thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for that. Mention was made of Wilberforce and Disraeli. One day they will add the name of Duncan Smith to that great record.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. That should have been “the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green”.

[Danny Kruger]

It just doesn’t flow as well, but yes, apologies Madam Deputy Speaker.

UK-EU Summit

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Danny Kruger

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I will start with a few words about the context of the debate. Clearly, the accusation—as though it were a negative—is that the campaign for Brexit had a sort of nostalgic, backward-looking spirit, and that those of us who supported it did so in that spirit. There is something in that, because we were talking about restoring British sovereignty; there was a sense that something good had been lost and needed to be brought back. All good revolutions are in a sense backward-looking; the bad revolutions are the progressive ones, while good revolutions restore what was lost. That is what Brexit was about.

Nevertheless, despite that point, which I do concede, fundamentally the case for Brexit was forward-looking. It was about putting this country in the best possible position to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This century demands agility, and the independence that sovereignty can allow. Obviously, there must be co-operation and close working in partnership—Britain has always been an outward-looking country—but nimbleness and agility will be needed in the highly contested new world that we are in. That is what Brexit was about, and on a number of hugely significant occasions since Brexit, we have already seen why our independence was so necessary. We saw it in our covid response, and in the context of Ukraine and our defence policy, and we see it now in our trade. Indeed, we have done since Brexit. We have seen it in the UK’s negotiations with the US, which we can compare with those undertaken by the EU in recent months.

On trade, as I said in an intervention, the challenge is often made that Brexit has harmed our GDP because it brought about a loss in productivity. The reverse is true. Trade with the EU has grown since Brexit, and it is not the case that we have suffered detriment because of that. Trade is growing between the UK and the whole world, including the EU, but it is growing more with non-EU countries, which makes the point about why it was so necessary to reclaim sovereignty over our trade policy. I echo the concerns raised by Conservative colleagues about what is being planned for next week, in terms of dynamic alignment on trade, and I call on the Minister to rule out a back-door alignment arrangement with the EU. We have seen worrying hints of that. I look forward to his response.

The case for Brexit was not primarily about trade. Of course, that is a very important matter, but let us acknowledge, as I think we all do, that really people were voting to take back control of our borders and our laws. Those two vital issues remain contested because this Government never believed in Brexit and do not understand the call of the people for independence and sovereignty in those two key respects.

On borders and immigration, I recognise the case for a youth mobility scheme. In principle, the abstract case for a reciprocal arrangement in which young people can spend a few months or a year working in another country is a good thing. The hon. Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) said that it was a nice thing to do. Nevertheless, we see the value of such schemes only when there is a reciprocal arrangement and comparable numbers are coming and going. The same argument applies to the Indian trade deal and its reciprocal arrangement on national insurance. The fact is, many more people will take advantage of the so-called reciprocal arrangements by coming to the UK than will go either to India or to the EU, so we would not have a level playing field. As with free movement, this youth scheme would be another way for many more people to come to this country, undercutting British workers and continuing the stagnation of wages that we have suffered from for so many decades.

On laws and taking back control, I am concerned about the threat of European Court of Justice oversight of the trade arrangements, and potentially of the new veterinary agreement and deals on meat and dairy. I very much hope that the Minister will definitively rule out any extension of ECJ oversight. The fact is—we see this in the Government’s rather mealy-mouthed amendment to the motion—that Labour does not believe in Brexit.

I really honour the Green party for its amendment, because in that we hear the true voice of the pro-European movement. It is almost a parody. It suggests that free movement and rejoining the EU are what the country needs and would be in the national interest. Indeed, it suggests that it would be a way to counter the hard right. Have Green Members seen what is going on in Europe? The extension of the principles of ever closer union, deeper alignment and concentration of power at the European level is stoking the far right across Europe. The fundamental reason why the Conservative party has always been so successful, historically, is that we have spoken for those people who otherwise would be outraged. Reform has been doing well—by the way, I do not associate Reform with the far right—because it speaks for those outraged members of the public, many of whom used to vote for us and for the Labour party, who feel that their Parliament has let them down and politics has left them behind. That has happened across Europe in a much more dangerous way, so if we are serious about countering the danger of the right, we should be absolutely clear about there being no suggestion of any return to the EU.

Let me finish on Reform. Its Members are not here any more, but there we go. They have a rather amusing amendment to the motion, which simply replaces the words “Conservative party” with the words “Reform”. They are piggybacking somewhat on our good work, in a desperate search to be relevant and to catch up with the Conservative party, which is leading the way on this agenda. It is a bit of a problem, and two things occur to me: first, that they cannot even write an amendment of their own and they have to rely on us—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Member might reflect on the fact that the amendment to which he refers was not even selected, so he should not even be speaking to it.

[Danny Kruger]

I will therefore end just by saying that the amendment tabled by Reform, which I appreciate was not selected, demonstrates that we are on the same page and I deeply regret their opposition to what we are trying to do.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Reform Members are not here, so I will answer that point. They are not on the same page as us because their amendment, which was not a proper one, did not fit on the same page of the Order Paper!