Autumn Budget 2025

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, I have a lot of personal regard for the Minister, and I listened to his speech carefully, but I did not hear a single word about unemployment, so allow me to help him.

Many of us, sadly, are old enough to remember the Government of Harold Wilson. He came in promising “white heat” and left with more people out of work, which I suppose was unfortunate for a Government formed by the party of the workers. It was even more unfortunate when Labour next got in. It was Wilson and Jim Callaghan—Sunny Jim, a decent man whom I liked very much—but once again, when Labour left office, unemployment was up. Then came Blair and Brown and—surprise, surprise—after 13 years of the Chuckle Brothers, it was up again, at nearly 8%. How can it be that every time in living memory that Labour has got into power, it has left with more workers out of jobs than when it started?

And now, dear Keir: after just a year, and an avalanche of election promises about growth and new jobs and not taxing workers, can you guess it? Unemployment is up. “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough. They all blew up; I know not how. And when I look into the sky, all I see are pigs that fly”. I hope for Santa’s sake, this Christmas, that the reindeer are going to be able to find it past all those squadrons of flying pigs.

It is really all the fault of the OBR, of course, and so its boss joins the growing list of all those who are losing their jobs under Labour. And he will not be the last. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that, by this time next year, unemployment will be lower. I ask him for that assurance, but I fear he will not give it—he cannot; that is why he did not mention it in the first place. At the last Budget, we were promised that things were sorted. “I’m not coming back for more”, the Chancellor said. Well, I bet she wishes the BBC had done one of its special editing jobs on that one and left great chunks of it on the cutting room floor.

“Those with the broadest shoulders must carry their fair share of the burden”. It is a good phrase, but those with the broadest shoulders also have the fastest feet. They are leaving, and so are the young. Almost all emigration from this country is made up of people under 35, taking their future, and ours, with them. Every time Labour gets into power, it puts more people out of work. That cannot all be the fault of Brexit, can it? The working men and women of this country deserve better than they are being given.