Oral Answers to Questions

Mel Stride Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This is about Government responsibilities, not the Opposition. I call Sir Mel Stride.

[Sir Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to stand opposite the right hon. Lady. Despite what many may think, we have a great deal in common, not least that we both viscerally disagree with the Chancellor’s tax policies. It is also great to see the right hon. Lady standing in temporarily for the Prime Minister for the second week running—although I know that many sitting behind her wish that this was a permanent arrangement. Indeed, we will find many of their names among the 122 who have signed up to oppose the Government’s welfare Bill. They say that the Bill is dangerously rushed and ill-thought-through. Will the right hon. Lady explain why she thinks that she is right and 122 of her colleagues are wrong?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

First, it is nice to face the latest wannabe at the Dispatch Box. I will tell the right hon. Member why we are pressing ahead with our reforms: it is because we are investing a billion pounds in tailored employment support, in a “right to try” in order to help more people back into work, and in ending reassessments for the most severely disabled who will never be able to work. We will not walk away or stand by and abandon millions of people trapped in the failing system, left behind by him and his colleagues.

[Sir Mel Stride]

The right hon. Lady completely sidestepped my question. She cannot even defend her own Government’s policy. Can she at least assure the House that the vote on Tuesday will actually go ahead?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman listened to what I said, because he was reading off his script—I do not need a script—but I can tell him that we will go ahead on Tuesday.

[Sir Mel Stride]

There you have it: there will be a vote in this House on Tuesday on the welfare Bill, although many on the Back Benches could be forgiven for thinking that they have heard this before with the winter fuel payment, where they were marched up the hill, and we all know where that story ended. On the Conservative side of the House, we are absolutely clear that we will help the right hon. Lady get their Bill through if the Government can commit to actually reducing the welfare bill and getting people off benefits and into work. Can she make that commitment right now—yes or no?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If ever we needed a reminder of the Conservatives having no shame, it is their demands for this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman demands a programme to help people into work—exactly what this Bill does—after he left one in eight young people out of the economy. He demands no new taxes—from the party that raised taxes to record levels. He demands welfare savings—from the man who was in charge as the welfare bill absolutely ballooned. They say cut the welfare bill; they failed. They say put people in work; they failed. They say no tax increases; they failed.

[Sir Mel Stride]

I am afraid that the right hon. Lady has clearly not read her own legislation. The Bill will see the number of people on welfare rising for every single year going forward. There is no commitment from her to cut the number of people on welfare. Even if the Government manage to deliver these reforms, almost every respected economist now says that tax rises are all but inevitable in the autumn. But after the Budget, the Chancellor said,

“I’m not coming back with…more taxes.”

British businesses have been hit again and again by Labour’s economic mismanagement. They are desperate for certainty. Can the right hon. Lady give them that certainty now and repeat to the House the Chancellor’s promise not to raise taxes at the Budget?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

This is a bit rich—unbelievable. With inflation above 11% and the biggest tax rises, I will take no lectures from the Conservative party. On this issue in particular, they cannot make up their minds. First, they said our reforms were taking too long, then they said they were rushed, then their Front Bench said our measures were too tough, and now they say they need to be tougher. No plan, no idea—I wonder why their party was left in such a mess.

[Sir Mel Stride]

The whole House will have heard that the right hon. Lady did not repeat the Chancellor’s promise not to raise taxes. Britain’s businesses have today been put on notice: tax rises are coming. Specifically, in the right hon. Lady’s own area, despite Labour’s promises to freeze council tax, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the spending review will mean the biggest council tax increases in a generation—a £7 billion tax rise. Yet the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have repeatedly claimed that the Government will not raise taxes on working people. Why does the right hon. Lady think that council tax is not paid by working people?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Again, the Conservatives have an absolute nerve when council tax rose ever single year under their Government. In fact, I had to turn down the Tories on the Local Government Association who wanted me to take away the precept to ensure that they could raise taxes above the 5%. We have kept it there while delivering money for local government, while they had austerity, put taxes up and ruined the British economy.

[Sir Mel Stride]

When you cut out the blather, is not the reality that this Labour Government have condemned us to higher taxes, more debt, fewer jobs and more pain for businesses up and down our country? Borrowing, unemployment and inflation are up, yet the right hon. Lady tells us that the Government’s plan is working. It is not just me who is not convinced; the Members behind her are not convinced either. Nor are the public. In fact, I am not even sure whether the right hon. Lady herself is convinced. Is she not just a little embarrassed to defend policies that she does not even agree with?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am embarrassed every week that an Opposition Member comes here who does not apologise for the mess they left this country in. One party crashed the economy and left families to pay the price. We are putting working people first. I am proud that we have got a huge boost to the minimum wage, the biggest uplift in affordable housing in a generation and that we have expanded free school meals to half a million children. The Tories’ choice: billions of pounds in unfunded tax cuts for the very wealthy—we know where that gets us. It is the same old Tory failed approach. They have not listened, and they have not learnt a thing.