Speeches by Glen.

“My constituent Kate Szymankiewicz’s daughter, Ruth, tragically died in a mental health in-patient unit. She has been told by the Government that the law as it stands already provides adequate protections to ensure that family contact and visits can happen, but that plainly did not happen in this case, with tragic conse…”

“I was not going to say that.”

“What, you don’t get the same productivity from a younger part of the workforce but you are obliged to pay them the same amount as everyone else?”

“Chancellor, what I am trying to get at is this. We have about 5.5 million small businesses that say the combination of the national insurance increases, the doubling—broadly—of the rate of inflation, the increases in the national living wage, and the uncertainty over the effect of the Employment Rights Act, given that …”

“You had it as decreasing labour supply by 50,000 in ’24.”

“Can I just interject there briefly? I do not think anyone would dispute the potential for those things to make a meaningful difference, but we have to address the immediate context that the country faces, which includes the cost of employing people and the behaviours that we see on the ground. The OBR has talked about …”

“Chancellor, could we turn to growth? You are 20 months into a five-year term—a third of the way through. You have talked about the National Wealth Fund, planning reform and a new industrial strategy as some of the things that you have done to drive growth, but if we look at some of the OBR’s assessments, obviously ther…”

“Could we turn to unemployment? Professor Miles, you mentioned in a previous answer that we have seen high unemployment. For certain age segments, particularly young people, it has reached quite worrying levels. What are your thoughts about the labour market and what is happening structurally? Some people would posit th…”

“It’s hardly likely to be positive, is it?”

“Thank you.”

“That was nearly 30 years ago. We have seen youth unemployment at record levels now, in these first 20 months of your Government.”

“My last question, before I pass over to Mr Murphy, is on this AI business. There is quite a wide discrepancy of predictions, as you have just said, but also a discrepancy across different economies—between the US and the UK. Would you like to say something about how relatively well the UK is placed with respect to AI?”

“I will pass over to my colleague in a moment, but can I just challenge you? In fairness, there are significant measures out there that suggest that there is greater positivity in some sectors of the economy. The PMI surveys in manufacturing and services were at significant highs in January. Does that not suggest that y…”

“Yes. It is also the impact on growth. It is very marginal in 2027 and ’28.”

“0.1% next year and 0.1% the following year?”

“What does it do for an employer who is anxious?”

“Between your forecast in late November and last week, growth for this year went from 1.4% to 1.1%. Can you explain the main drivers of that?”

“The answer the Chief Secretary tried to give me this morning was about the value of efficiencies. Have we seen efficiencies on a scale to deal with a 4.4% deficit?”

“Could I ask a question about the presumptions of spending? I think the Government say they want a real-terms increase of 0.3% in ’29-30. If you assume that they spend on health at the average level, they spend on SEND as per the proposals and they make their 3% on defence by ’29-30, I think it has been calculated that …”

“That is, in any terms, quite a challenging situation for any Government in terms of the presentational reality of a cut of over 4% in those unprotected Departments. It leads one to draw the conclusion that all these numbers are loaded to get through the immediate term but are not very realistic. What are the scenarios …”