Speeches by Smith.

“My hon. Friend speaks of intergenerational fairness. Does he agree that the status quo hinders older householders who may be asset-rich and cash-poor, because the value of their property has increased—fortunately for them—but not necessarily their income? Stopping this policy in its tracks would stop older people who m…”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that when the policy was announced at our party conference in October, it was the first solid political idea to have come forward from any political party since the last election that genuinely offers aspiration for hard-working families? We are talking about not just hard-working families who…”

“I am just perplexed as to where the hon. Lady is going with this. Ultimately, the statistics that she has just quoted would have saved her constituents £5,000, but if the Government do not scrap stamp duty, anybody who aspired to buy a slightly bigger house with that increased income would not be able to afford to do s…”

“Every Member in this Chamber shares a commitment to lifting people out of poverty, especially children; we just have different views on how to go about it. Children in workless households are nearly four times more likely to live in poverty than those in households where adults work. We know that work pays, yet we on t…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) for so competently introducing the debate, with an excellent speech, and I thank everyone else who has contributed to it. I was particularly struck by the comments made by the hon. Member fo…”

“On what the Leader of the Opposition said, I am not 100% sure of the quote, so I am not going to comment on that. I think it was taken quite significantly out of context. On the Bill Committee, I will continue saying it—[Interruption.] At the end of the day, I am the one here speaking this afternoon, so I am at least i…”

“I will keep making progress, if I may. [Interruption.] It is not because I do not want to take the intervention, but because I am on a time limit. We introduced the biggest expansion of childcare in England’s history—it is heartening to see that Labour has continued our roll-out, despite its criticisms at the time. We …”

“I will keep going, because I have quite a lot to say. Those measures rightly honour the contributions of parents who open their heart and home to children in need of a loving family; 4,500 people claimed statutory adoption pay in 2024-25. In England alone, 2,940 children were waiting for adoption as of September this y…”

“There is obviously a growing push towards work experience post-16. We all suffer from the invitations to do that and have to figure out how to have year 10s follow us around, let alone 18-year-olds. To what extent do you think manufacturing companies and colleges are able to provide post-16 students with useful and mea…”

“What you are saying about those numbers is really interesting, Jamie. I represent a constituency that includes Plymouth, so obviously I am fully aware of the skill shortage. If you have 50,000 already, the defence cluster in Plymouth thinks it needs 25,000, so we are talking really big numbers of people who potentially…”

“We have already discussed the fact that the skills requirement for the transport manufacturing sector are not unique—that they are cross-departmental—but there is a question around whether it is realistic to believe that we can make better use of overlapping skills between transport manufacturing and other manufacturin…”

“Do you think business can do more to look at how one manufacturer could be supplying into more industries? I am thinking about Babcock, for example: it is often doing the defence piece. Is there a way that business could be even more creative? Maybe they are already doing that.”

“One of the things I have experienced in the south-west is that often with skills, particularly in FE colleges, the large employers effectively contract the college to provide all the skills that they need, which can then squeeze SMEs out. We obviously know that they are part of the ecosystem, particularly for manufactu…”

“Thank you for humouring me on that; I thought there was something to be said. We have touched on this a little in terms of Government Departments working together to support the skills needed for transport manufacturing. How welcome is the Government’s recent move to share skills policy between the Department for Educa…”

“To be fair, by the sounds of it you are being incredibly kind if you are giving all that money and they are not able to spend it. A lot must sit somewhere in the Treasury.”

“You mentioned how we could make Skills England more effective. If you have any comments around that in terms of the changes with DFE and DWP, please feel free to suggest them at this point as they would be welcome.”

“Are you effectively saying that a young person has no passport if they are not successful with one apprenticeship but might have some of the skills for another, and they need to know about the SMEs to be able to apply directly to them? There is no option for them to move around and say, “I have five of the six skills, …”

“Because of things like GDPR you are not able to share.”

“I want to open it up to anybody else before I hand back to the Chair.”

“Benjamin, you said that one of the challenges you have when transferring skills between industries is the difference between a recruitment process based on qualifications and one based on competencies. Is that something set in statute or something business could lead the way on and recruit based on the competencies the…”