Stamp Duty Land Tax

Debate between Gregory Stafford and Antonia Bance

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

Here we go again, Madam Deputy Speaker—always the promise of tax cuts to come, never the proper plans to ensure it is affordable. This motion tells us everything we need to know about the modern Conservative party; once again, its first recourse is to reach for the austerity button instead of making a serious plan to invest, grow the economy and strengthen our public services. Reckless with the public finances and reckless with our public services, the Conservatives are not a serious party.

I was going to make this point specifically for the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), but I see that he is not in his place, so everyone else can enjoy it instead. Yes, it is time for the greatest hits of austerity—the 14 years in which the Conservatives talked and did this country down, when day-to-day spending on public services fell by nearly 17%, stripping away nearly £46 billion every year from the services our residents rely on. Members should remember that figure as I talk about austerity, because the Conservatives would fund the tax cut we are talking about today with £47 billion—a larger number than that figure from the austerity years. Look at the back-of-a-fag-packet plans that they have to make it add up.

Let us remember what austerity did to our country. It left our NHS with a £10 billion repairs backlog. It left nine in 10 of our schools in urgent need of repair, with more than 230 schools with Swiss cheese for roofs, including reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in the roof of Wood Green school in my constituency. Those pupils deserve so much better; they deserve a decent place to learn. We will make that happen—the Conservatives did not.

When the pandemic struck, our public services were critically understaffed and had received critical under-investment. The result, thanks to the Conservatives’ austerity and cuts, was more than 170,000 excess deaths, putting the UK among the worst in the developed world.

In that period, our precious public sector workers who give their all—nurses, teachers, carers—had their pay frozen or capped for years, leaving the average nurse more than £4,000 worse off than in 2010. The Conservatives left one in 10 workers in insecure employment, including the better part of a million on zero-hours contracts.

The Conservatives’ cuts to social security pushed more families into poverty, which has resulted in 50% of children in my constituency living below the poverty line. That is every second kid—every second door when I walk around the estates that I have the honour to represent. Some 117,000 people are now living in temporary accommodation because of the money the Conservatives took out of the affordable housing building fund that today they seem so very pleased to speak in favour of.

[Gregory Stafford]

I just wondered if the hon. Lady had any views on stamp duty land tax.

[Antonia Bance]

I am speaking today about the other part of the motion before us—the part about the unspecified cuts that would pay for the tax cut—and the implications of that. As the hon. Gentleman would expect of a responsible member of my party, I am not going to speculate with plans about how we fund things for which there is no plan.

Going back to the record of austerity—remembering that austerity cost and took out of our economy less than the Conservatives propose taking out in their motion today—it left the bottom fifth of households £517 poorer, while the top fifth gained £174. Austerity did not just deepen inequality; it entrenched it. It led to the longest pay squeeze in 200 years, with growth anaemic, productivity absolutely flatlined and public investment slashed.

My friends at the TUC have worked out—[Interruption.] Yes, they are my friends. I was proud to represent millions of working people. Conservative Members speak about those working people with disdain, but it was an honour to represent them in their workplace and negotiate for better wages on their behalf. Good Conservatives in the past used to understand social partnership and the importance of responsibility and working with workers and bosses to get the best outcome; it is a shame those lessons have been forgotten, with the baying calls of the mob at the mention of trade unions. My friends at the TUC have worked out that if wages had risen in the past decade by the amount by which they rose between 1997 and 2010, the average worker in my constituency would be £93 a week better off—that is nearly five grand a year more in people’s pockets. Instead, we got the longest pay squeeze in 200 years.

Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Gregory Stafford and Antonia Bance

Report stage
Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Stafford]

I return to what industry leaders are saying. They have shared their fear about

“union influence slowing down decision making and hindering flexibility”,

making it harder for companies to remain competitive in global markets. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s survey found that 79% of organisations expect measures in the Employment Rights Bill to increase employment costs, placing further strain on companies that are having to grapple with increases to national insurance contributions and the rising national minimum wage. It is also likely that the measures will lead to

“more strikes, more disruptions, and ultimately less productivity.”

[Antonia Bance]

The hon. Member has referred a number of times to yesterday’s proceedings. I am sad that he was not able to join us in the Division Lobby in voting against the amendments and in favour of the Bill, given that 73% of his constituents in Farnham and Bordon support statutory sick pay for all workers from day one, and 67% of his constituents support banning zero-hours contracts.

[Gregory Stafford]

I am sorry that I am such a disappointment to the hon. Lady, but maybe she will get over it.

The Bill is a roll-back of the most important changes that we made when we were in government. It is no surprise that trade unions have warmly embraced the legislation, over 200 amendments having been hastily shoehorned in to satisfy those who line the Government’s pockets. Perhaps it is purely coincidental that their wishes have been granted, although one might wonder if the £5.6 million in donations the Labour party has received since July has something to do with it.