Budget Resolutions

Debate between Judith Cummins and Pat McFadden

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

I note the right hon. Gentleman’s request for more public expenditure and I am coming on to the growth and skills levy in a moment. What we will do with that is tilt it more towards young people and towards more short courses, and this Budget puts a further £725 million into that, which will enable the full funding of apprenticeships for the under 25s for small businesses. That is good for young people and good for employers. It is important, because no matter where they are from, what their background is or who their parents are, every young person should have the chance to make the most of their life. I want the country’s young people to know that through our youth guarantee, the apprenticeship support and the other measures outlined in the Budget and outside it, we will support them, we believe in them and we want them to succeed.

Even after that, I know that we need to go further, and that is why I have asked former Health Secretary Alan Milburn to report in the new year on the issues of young people, work and inactivity, looking across departmental boundaries and recommending policy responses that will offer young people more opportunity and a better chance in life.

After the Conservatives either neglected all that or opposed that which they did not neglect, what have they got left? Arguing that instead of our approach, people’s wages should be lower. We saw where that led during the last Parliament. The shadow Chancellor talked about living standards—during the last Parliament, living standards declined more than at any time in living memory. Now living standards are rising in this Parliament and wages have risen more in a matter of months than they did in 10 years when the shadow Chancellor’s party was in office.

As people sometimes remind me, I have been around for quite a while. I am proud to have served in the last Labour Government, which lifted 600,000 children out of poverty—and almost all the measures delivered were opposed by the Conservative party. In fact, the Conservatives’ record was a rise in child poverty of 900,000. Their argument was that the two-child limit would force people to make different choices about the number of children that they would have, but that is not what happened; it simply forced more children into poverty.

The real indictment goes deeper, because, as the right hon. Member for Central Devon knows, the two-child limit was not really a welfare policy at all. In the end, it was not even about saving the money. The truth is that it was about political dividing lines. It was a device used by the Conservative Government, in which children were the weapon of choice. That is what it was about, but not any more. Tackling child poverty is an investment in the future of those children and in the country, because children who do not grow up living in poverty will have a better life. This policy is not just about the distribution of money; it is an investment in opportunity. That is why the Chancellor announced the abolition of the two-child limit in the Budget. As my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) said, the clear majority of households that will gain from this measure already have someone in work. The policy will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, and that number will rise, thanks to other measures, such as the expansion of free school meals, help with energy bills, and the expansion of free childcare so that more parents can take up work.

This will be the largest reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since records began. As the Chancellor spelled out, it can be funded by a combination of tackling fraud and error in the system, the Motability and other changes, and the changes to online gambling taxation that she announced yesterday.

We understand that the health and welfare systems are deeply connected, so we will continue to get waiting lists down, and to treat more patients. We announced 250 new neighbourhood health centres in the Budget. Waiting lists and waiting times rocketed when the Conservatives were in office, and that was not just a health issue; it was an economic and benefits issue. A system that treats people more quickly, rather than having them wait in pain, is good for the economy, too. Through the reforms that we are making on incentives and support in the system, and on opportunity and tackling poverty, we are beginning to change the welfare state from a passive distributor of benefits to a platform of opportunities to get people back into work. However, we need to go further, and we will.

No one on the Labour Benches underestimates the scale of the challenges we face. There is no escaping the fact that the OBR’s decision to downgrade its assessment of productivity is the official verdict on the Conservatives’ years in office. They left this Chancellor with a £16 billion hole to fill. That hole is not because of the decisions she took, but because of the scarring effects of the Conservatives’ time in power. A botched Brexit deal, austerity that impoverished the public realm, and cuts to capital investment—the OBR is clear that they all caused long-term damage to the UK’s productivity and economic growth. That has to be owned by the Conservatives.

The shadow Chancellor attacked the Budget in the strongest terms, and he is right that it is a contrast with the Conservatives’ record, because they took the country to the very precipice of economic disaster. They used the British public as a test bed for a giant ideological experiment that saw mortgages go through the roof. The Bank of England had to launch an emergency rescue package for the country’s pension system. The Conservatives shook international confidence in the UK economy and destroyed whatever economic credibility they had by their own hand. There is a difference in our approaches—a very welcome one.

We have trade agreements with the world’s biggest economic powers—agreements that eluded the Conservatives. We have a reformed planning system, which will get the country building. Public investment is at its highest level for four decades, and inflation is coming down faster, as a result of the measures that we are taking. It will come down by a full 0.4 percentage points next year, according to the OBR. Borrowing is down in every year of the forecast. We are keeping corporation tax at the lowest level of any G7 country. We have help for high streets, and permanently lower tax rates for 750,000 businesses. We are doubling eligibility for our enterprise tax incentives, so that new businesses can not only be created, but can grow and scale up here in the United Kingdom.

We are cutting energy costs for 7,000 businesses to make manufacturing more competitive. We are providing help with the cost of living through the first rail fare freeze for 30 years. We are freezing prescription charges. Energy bills are being cut by £150 per year. We are raising the national minimum wage for millions of workers, as recommended by the independent Low Pay Commission. We are expanding free breakfast clubs, and there are free school meals for all children in families on universal credit.

This is a Budget for the whole country. It helps with living standards and helps people to meet their monthly bills. It fixes some of the problems of the past, and gives the country strong foundations for the future. It is a Budget that believes in maintaining the public square, and it continues the progress that we have made on the NHS. That progress is, for us, not just a social goal, but an economic goal. It is a Budget that protects the state pension and raises its value by £575 next year. It is a Budget that continues with welfare reforms, reduces child poverty and offers hope to young people for the future. That is the difference, and that is why we should support the Budget today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill

Debate between Judith Cummins and Pat McFadden

2nd reading
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for the Bill. I will come on to the timetable that, by necessity, we have had to adopt.

Legislation of this kind is not always preceded by a consultation. Some hon. Members may remember our late friend David Cairns, whose position in this House was facilitated by legislation removing barriers on ordained priests being elected to the House. As I understand it, that particular piece of legislation did not have a consultation before it either.

I turn to Lady Elish Angiolini, whose appointment as the Lord High Commissioner for this year will be facilitated by the passage of the Bill, if it proceeds. Lady Elish has a distinguished background in law, justice and academia. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the administration of justice in 2011. In 2022, she was appointed by Her late Majesty the Queen to the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, and in that role she participated in the coronation in 2023. Lady Elish has also been principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford since 2012 and was made a pro-vice chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2017.

The announcement Lady Elish’s appointment as Lord High Commissioner has been widely welcomed in Scotland. The appointment would make her the first Catholic to undertake the role of Lord High Commissioner and would be a significant symbol of unity, good will and collaboration between the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland. It builds on the spirit of the St Margaret declaration, signed at Dunfermline abbey in 2022. That was a historic declaration of friendship between the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland, and the legislation before the House builds on the spirit of that.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) referred to the circumstances and the timetable. I say to the House that the Bill is on an accelerated timetable, which is necessary to ensure that Lady Elish’s appointment can be finalised ahead of the General Assembly in May. We hope to have all the parliamentary stages completed by the end of next month when, subject to Royal Assent, the formalities of the appointment can begin. That process will include a formal commission for the office, accompanied by a royal warrant, and the speedy passage of the Bill is to allow the formalities necessary to enable Lady Elish to act as Lord High Commissioner and address the General Assembly at its opening and closing sessions in May.

Were the appointment not able to proceed, that would be a setback to recent progress and an outcome that I do not believe anyone wants. I therefore hope that the Bill can proceed today with the support of all parties in the House. While the Bill relates to the reserved matter of the Crown, I have spoken to the First Minister of Scotland and to representatives of both the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland about the Bill and the desire to facilitate the appointment of Lady Elish. I thank them all for their constructive and collaborative approach. I have also had the pleasure of discussing the matter with Lady Elish directly, and I have no doubt that she will be an excellent Lord High Commissioner.

Moving on to the Bill itself, there are two clauses. Clause 1 makes provision to allow a person of the Roman Catholic faith to hold the office of the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and clause 2 sets out the territorial extent of the Bill and its commencement, including that the Bill will commence on Royal Assent. It is a small step to remove a religious barrier. Without it, neither Lady Elish nor any other Catholic could take up the appointment by the sovereign. The Bill changes that and ensures that the announced appointment can go ahead. It is short and simple, but still in its own way an important Bill. I hope it will receive a broad welcome, and I commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Covid-19 Inquiry

Debate between Judith Cummins and Pat McFadden

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)]

I would like to make a statement on the Government’s response to module 1 of the covid inquiry. In July last year, Baroness Hallett published her report from the first module of the inquiry. It concluded that the UK was not as prepared as it should have been for the pandemic and that more could and should have been done. In my statement to the House immediately following the publication of her report, I committed to responding in full within six months.

Before I turn to the Government’s response, I want to place on record once again my thanks to Baroness Hallett and her team for the work they have done so far in the inquiry. I also pay tribute to the families and friends who lost loved ones during the pandemic, some of whom are with us in the Gallery. Earlier this week I visited the national covid memorial wall just across the river from here. I am grateful to the friends of the wall who have so lovingly cared for it and maintained it over the past few years.

As I said in my statement in July, the Government’s first responsibility is to keep the public safe. That is why since we were elected, we have taken steps to strengthen the UK’s resilience. I announced a review of national resilience. Work on that review is proceeding, and I will update the House on its conclusion in the spring.

The Prime Minister has established a single Cabinet Committee for resilience, which I chair, which meets to ensure clear and rigorous ministerial oversight. We have adopted the 2023 biological security strategy to protect the UK and our interests from significant biological risks.

In April, the new UK Resilience Academy will be launched. It will train over 4,000 people in resilience and emergency roles every year and help them plan for and manage a range of crises, including pandemics. I should also acknowledge, as I did in my first statement back in July, that in some areas these improvements build on work carried out by the previous Administration.

The improvements that we have made to our resilience have been put to the test over the last six months. Those include the Prime Minister chairing a number of emergency Cobra meetings to address the violent disorder that occurred over the summer and working across our four nations to anticipate and contain clade 1 mpox cases in the UK.

Since July, we have also sent two emergency alerts to provide advice to the public in life-threatening situations. During Storm Darragh, because of a very rare red—danger to life—warning, an alert was sent to over three million people in affected regions. More recently, we issued a very localised warning over flooding danger. The Government will carry out a full national test of the emergency alert system later this year. That will ensure that the system is functioning correctly, should it need to be deployed in an emergency.

The covid module 1 inquiry found that years of under-investment meant that pandemic planning was not a sufficient priority, that our health services were already suffering and beyond capacity, and that there were high levels of illness and health inequalities. All of that meant that the state was ill-prepared to manage a crisis on this scale. Therefore, apart from the specific recommendations, delivering on the Government’s missions—particularly in this context, building a national health service fit for the future—will contribute in important ways to the UK’s resilience.

Pandemic planning and resilience are about not just specific resilience measures but ensuring the underlying fundamentals of our country are strong. I thank the devolved Governments for their co-operation in preparing our response today. We will continue to work together for the safety of the communities we serve.

I turn to specifics. There are three new commitments that I wish to highlight. First, the inquiry recommended that the UK Government and devolved Governments should together hold a regular UK-wide pandemic response exercise. We agree and will be undertaking a full national pandemic response exercise later this year. It will be the first of its kind in nearly a decade. It will test the UK’s capabilities, plans, protocols and procedures in the event of another major pandemic. It will be led by senior Ministers, involve thousands of participants and run across all regions and nations of the UK. Alongside the Health Secretary, I have written to all Cabinet Ministers to ask for their commitment to full participation. The exercise will take place in the autumn over a number of days. The Government will communicate the findings and lessons of the exercise as recommended by the covid-19 inquiry.

Secondly, the inquiry found that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups and continues to affect many people in those communities. A new national vulnerability map created by the Cabinet Office with the Office for National Statistics will geographically map population numbers of those who may be vulnerable in a crisis. It will do that by sharing data including age, disability, ethnicity, and whether someone is receiving care. The map will improve the Government’s understanding of the scale and location of disproportionately impacted populations ahead of and during crises and enable targeted local support when required.

Thirdly, as the inquiry reminds us, the risks we face are changing more quickly than ever before, and we live in an increasingly volatile world. It therefore recommended a better approach to risk assessment across the board, which we accept. Today, I am publishing an updated national risk register: the public-facing version of the national security risk assessment, which provides businesses and the voluntary and community sectors with the latest information about the risks they face to support their planning, preparation and response. We will ensure that it continues to be updated regularly. A significant proportion of the risks will be subject to reassessment over the next few months, and we will publish a further updated risk register as needed once the process is complete.

I want to mention two further recommendations where the Government accept the underlying objectives and propose to take them forward in specific ways. First, the inquiry recommended Cabinet Office leadership for whole-system civil emergencies in the UK. We agree with that, as for whole-system emergencies such as a pandemic, the centre of Government needs to play a lead role. But for lower-scale emergencies, we believe that the lead Department model still has value. It remains important for Departments with the day-to-day responsibility for an issue to lead the work to identify serious risks and ensure that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place. Therefore, in some circumstances we will retain the lead Government Department model, because, in those cases, responsibility and oversight should sit with the body with the best understanding, relationships and mechanisms for delivery to identify and address risks. There will be an enhanced role for the Cabinet Office to improve preparedness and resilience for larger-scale catastrophic risks.

Secondly, on the question of independent input into whole-system civil emergency preparedness and resilience, we agree with the need for independent strategic advice and challenge, including the use of so-called red teams. We are establishing eight expert advisory groups to combat group-think in our understanding of risks. Alongside that, through the crisis management excellence programme we will increase training in red teaming. We want to work with the local resilience forums that exist around the country who provide critical knowledge and expertise.

The Government are also committed to introducing a duty of candour on public authorities as a catalyst for a changed culture in the public sector to improve transparency and accountability. We also welcome and will draw on the expertise of multidisciplinary pandemic science institutes that provide world-leading academic and scientific expertise such as the excellent Pandemic Institute in Liverpool, which I was pleased to visit yesterday. In the end, the Government must remain responsible and accountable for the policy and resource allocation decisions they take, but we believe that the external input of those bodies can add value to that decision making.

The impact of the covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in modern memory. It caused the loss of far too many lives. My thoughts, and the thoughts of the whole Government, continue to be with all those who lost loved ones during the pandemic. Many of them feel not just grief but anger that, as Baroness Hallett’s report sadly confirmed, the country was not as prepared as it should have been.

My Department will monitor the implementation of the commitments made in response to the covid-19 inquiry. In all this, we must remember that the next crisis may not be the same as the last. There is a need for flexibility in our planning and learning, and we will build that into what we do. The Government also remain committed to engaging fully with the inquiry, and await Baroness Hallett’s findings and recommendations in subsequent module reports as she continues her important work. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat McFadden]

That will all be tested in the exercise we have planned. Past planning exercises have sometimes planned for the wrong thing—that is the danger. That is why I say all the time that we have to make sure that we learn from what happened throughout the pandemic of a few years ago, but not make the assumption that the next pandemic or the next crisis will be exactly the same. That is what we have to do.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.