Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

As we mark Armistice Day, may I join the Prime Minister in honouring the incredible sacrifices made by all those who paid the ultimate price as they served our country? We will remember them. May I also welcome the announcement of new offshore wind farms, and remind the Prime Minister that they are coming in through a Liberal Democrat policy that we brought in when in government?

Our politics has been affected by poisonous ideas, such as the idea that people born and raised in England cannot be English because they are not white. Shamefully, even some in this House have argued for that racist ideology. We must reject it, as the Conservative leader, to her great credit, has done. We should start with the census; when it asks about ethnicity, the only English option is “White English”. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), a proud Englishman, introduced a Bill yesterday to change that, and to create new options such as “Black English” and “Asian English”. Will the Prime Minister support his Bill?

[The Prime Minister]

I echo the right hon. Gentleman’s comments at the start. We all pay tribute to our armed forces today. I also echo him in praising the Leader of the Opposition, as I did from this Dispatch Box a few weeks ago. On some issues, we should rise above party politics; we should recognise when things are completely unacceptable and make common cause against them. I have not looked at the detail of the Bill, but I stand here thinking that I would want to support it, to directly take on the poisonous politics that we have seen from some in this House who are seeking to divide us. We must move on from a decade of division and drift in this country. We must bring people back together. I am interested in working with anyone in this House who shares that aim.

[Ed Davey]

I thank the Prime Minister for that reply, and I hope it means that he is inviting my hon. Friend for a meeting to discuss his Bill. Turning to welfare, we cannot leave young people without the dignity of work and the chance to get on, and we need to bring the welfare bill down, but the blame does not lie with young people. It primarily lies with the Conservatives, who tanked the economy and sent the welfare bill soaring—and Labour has made things worse with its jobs tax. Businesses cannot hire young people in the UK while they are battling unfair taxes and tied up in Brexit red tape, so will the Prime Minister do the single biggest thing to cut welfare and help young people into work: grow the economy by joining the single market?

[The Prime Minister]

No is the answer to that, today. We are honouring our manifesto pledge to have deeper ties. There is the prospect of a deal with Europe that could add up to 0.4% to GDP—[Interruption.] The Opposition laugh at growth in our economy. This is the Conservative party! Any growth on that scale is worth taking, and we will take it. We will seek that deal. On young people, I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Young people need support to get into work. To cut their benefits without that support is wrong. I mentioned a statistic a moment ago: a quarter of a million young people were NEET in the last three years of the last Conservative Government. That is because that Government rejected the report from Sir Kevan Collins that would have given young people better mental health support and other support. That is why we saw the huge rise in the number of young people not in education, employment or training. We need to grow our economy. We need to rethink the support we give to our young people. We need an education system that is both academic and technical—that is balanced between the two—and my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary will set out those reforms as we embark on our response to the Milburn report next week.