Joshua Reynolds MP: speeches

Speeches

• 27 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  New clause 25, which I hope to press to a Division, would require the Government to undertake a report to consider a number of issues pertinent to the loan charge settlement scheme outlined in the Bill. The Liberal Democrats are clear that the settlement opportunity should be fair to everybody affected, including those who have already paid or settled, so as to ensure that people outside the loan charge years are not treated differently without clear reason. Unequal treatment can create the perception of unfairness, even if the policy is technically and soundly legal. It seems to us that if perceived unfairness in the system could be reduced, we should strive to do so, in order to protect the public’s trust in HMRC and the wider tax system. Is it right that someone who has already settled should be ineligible for the loan charge settlement? Surely, that tells people that in future they should just hold off and not settle or come to agreement, because that will leave them in a better position.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is completely correct. The place we are in now is that someone who settled and came to an agreement with HMRC is excluded from the opportunity laid out in the Bill. That means that when something like this happens again—and we all know that it will—those individuals will not want to come to an agreement with HMRC. They will know that if they hold off, a better solution and a better agreement will come through. The report required by new clause 25 would outline a range of things, including whether the loan charge settlement opportunity is available to individuals who have settled, which is really important and something that we need to ensure; whether the settlement opportunity applies to individuals with disguised remuneration outside the loan charge years; and the extent of the impact of differential treatment between those two groups and those who are eligible. The extent of the impact is the most important thing, because for those individuals it will be severe. The report would also include an assessment of whether extending more favourable settlement terms to excluded groups would improve fairness and consistency with HMRC overall.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  We can look into whether to support new clause 3 in a few weeks’ time. There seems to be very little in the new clause that we as Liberal Democrats would not support. Let us face it: we need to review the impact of the 2027 expiry date. We do not believe that the allowance should expire in 2027; it needs to be extended significantly further, so we would certainly consider supporting a review of whether 2027 is the right place. That is my question for the Minister, really: why are we saying that the expiry date will be in 2027? Will we all be sitting here excitedly after the next Budget, looking at a 2028 expiry date, and so on for 2029 and 2030?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Clause 21 will increase unfairness. Those required to work from home are currently divided into two groups: one group who receive reimbursement for costs without incurring income tax but are not reimbursed by their employer, and another group who take that via a taxation route. This measure will exacerbate that split and create a greater divide between the two. Where two employees hold exactly the same position or role, but in different companies, one may receive the payment and the other may not. The figures suggest that about 300,000 people will be affected by this measure. Can the Minister comment on how we can be in a position whereby two employees in the same job, but with different employers, are treated differently for tax purposes?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrats share the concerns of the SMMT. Given that the sector is struggling with severe uncompetitiveness across the country, anything that undoes the progress that the Government are seeking to make would not be welcome. Nissan tells us that its plant in Sunderland is the most expensive for electricity of any of its plants worldwide. That is not good for British business or for British car manufacturers. The SMMT worries that these proposals will not be good for British car manufacturers either. On clause 18, we would like some draft guidance on proposed new section 116A to be published this year and consulted on. A number of the definitions could be clarified to give the industry some certainty about what will and will not be included.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, on what is not only my first Finance Bill Committee, but my first Bill Committee—a nice, simple one to start me off. The Liberal Democrats welcome the changes made by clause 13. We need to support our British start-ups and British start-up culture to grow and develop. We would of course like the Government to go further than clause 13 in what they promise. We need to ensure that we have a British start-up culture where start-ups do not, after five or 10 years, head off to the United States, taking that capital and leaving the UK with a brain drain. I have only one question to the Minister: how can we go further to ensure that once we have implemented the Bill, we will be in a position to say that fantastic UK companies will not head overseas, taking that capital and culture with them?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Liberal Democrats wholeheartedly support electrifying our vehicle fleet. It is a shame that some other political parties and politicians have stopped at a red traffic light when it comes to electrification. [Hon. Members: “More!”] I will not make any more traffic jokes—apologies. That is why it is quite concerning to see the 2027 expiry date for the capital allowance. When potential EV owners are surveyed, their biggest concern is charging their vehicles, and it is the same for big employers. We all know that businesses need long-term security and a long-term commitment. That is why businesses were not doing well under the last Government, and why they retreated when the 2024 Budget brought in so many changes for businesses. Long-term security is clearly what businesses need to invest. One-year extensions on top of one-year extensions do not give the certainty that businesses need to invest in the electrification of fleets—they need to do it this year or not at all. Once we take away that capital bid, it is very difficult to get back, so I would like to see that changed.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  I have raised multiple times with the Government the harassment of a constituent of mine, Carmen Lau, by the Chinese authorities. This has included bounty letters, deepfake pornography and her family being interrogated by national security agents in Hong Kong. Every time I am told that the safety of Hongkongers is of the utmost importance to the Government. Given that, does the Minister accept that to approve this application while China is still committing transnational repression would be a kick in the teeth to Hongkongers such as Carmen?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the shadow Minister agree that if this Labour climbdown is happening, it is not enough for there to be a smaller increase than the one that was planned? There needs to be no increase in business rates.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister just said that the Government are pro-pubs, but any pub she speaks to in my constituency will tell her that this Government are not pro-pubs. The amount of profit left at the end of a pint for a pub is minuscule, and it is so far from reality to say that the Government are pro-pubs. How does she respond to all the pubs across the country that are crying out for change?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will be brief—the Minister might even be able to give me a one-word answer. In 2024, the Chancellor said that she had come to the conclusion that extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people. Does the Minister agree, then, that he is proposing to hurt working people?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  Has the Treasury done any analysis of the amount of that tax increase that will be passed on to renters, and if it has, what has it come out with?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Warm Home Discount · Hansard source

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  Citizens Advice notes that the warm home discount has not kept pace with rising energy bills and will struggle to touch the sides for families in energy debt. Will the Minister therefore commit to a Government review of whether the £150 discount provides sufficient support for the families who really need it right now?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is about choices, but will he accept one of the choices that the Chancellor has made? Even though hospitality employs less than 7% of people in the UK, since she has come into office, the number of jobs lost in that sector is almost 100,000—50% of total job losses? The Chancellor has made a choice in the Budget, and that choice is to lose swathes of jobs throughout hospitality, including making many young people—whose first jobs are often in the hospitality industry—unemployable.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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  Let me be clear at the outset that the Liberal Democrats support the Bill. We do so because we recognise that British businesses need backing to compete globally, and both the industrial support package and the export finance package have vital roles to play in that. The increases proposed in the Bill represent a major expansion in Government capacity and give us the opportunity to ensure that that expansion serves our priorities as a country: supporting small businesses, driving green growth and maintaining proper democratic oversight. Small business owners have told me that the current system simply does not work for them. UK Export Finance’s processes are designed for larger transactions, larger businesses and those that are already exporting. UK Export Finance’s criteria state clearly that in any one of the last three years at least 20%, or in each of the last three years at least 5%, of a business’s annual turnover needs to be made up from export sales, but those thresholds mean that businesses trying to break into the export market, or those growing still quite modest export activity, cannot access support. As we expand UK Export Finance’s capacity, let us make sure that the commitment made is about not just bigger deals and bigger companies, but making UK Export Finance work for smaller businesses—the backbone of British exports—with simpler application processes, lower eligibility thresholds for SMEs and dedicated support teams made up of those who really understand SMEs the best. As the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) said, we also need to understand the elephant in the room, which is that we are discussing expanding capacity of UK Export Finance at precisely the moment when British exporters face unprecedented challenges with our largest trading partner, the EU. The Chartered Institute of Export and International Trade has documented the impact, saying that among the smallest firms—those with six employees or fewer—the value of their exports to the EU fell by 30% after the trade and co-operation agreement was struck; meanwhile, firms with more than 107 employees were largely unaffected. The Institute of Directors’ January 2025 “Policy Voice” survey found that 54.8% of businesses that previously exported and have stopped cited as a reason the UK’s trading relationship with the EU. More than half of former exporters surveyed gave up because of the barriers to trade with Europe. We are not talking about businesses that have failed to break into distant markets; we are talking about established exporters abandoning our nearest and largest market because the barriers have become insurmountable. The priority for small manufacturers is assistance in navigating customs declarations and rules of origin to sell in Europe. These are markets they have served for decades, which is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a fundamental reset of our relationship with Europe—a new bespoke UK-EU customs union that would cut through red tape, boost gross domestic product by an estimated 2.2% and generate roughly £25 billion in tax revenues, according to the House of Commons Library.

• 15 Dec 2025 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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  In reality, we need to look at the positions that were on the table at the time. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do the positions that both our parties took when the votes were happening. Obviously I was not in the House at the time, but I recall watching and listening to colleagues on the Labour Benches opposing various things that we put forward. The proposal that the Liberal Democrats are putting forward today would add £25 billion a year to the revenue coming into the Treasury. That money is not to be sniffed at, and it should be supported across the whole House. In discussing the doubling of UK Export Finance’s capacity to £160 billion, we need to ask ourselves whether that extra money is going to address the export challenges that British businesses actually face. Despite the fundamental barriers to the markets, the Government’s answer is simply to expand capacity, without addressing whether that capacity will be able to reach the businesses that need it most. While I appreciate that, according to its 2024-25 annual report, UK Export Finance put in £14.5 billion of new finance, that only supported 667 UK businesses to grow and invest. UK Export Finance’s business plan for 2024 to 2029 clearly states its five-year milestones, including that it wants to support an extra 1,000 SMEs to export every year until 2029. That target was introduced under the previous Government, but it has not been amended under the current Government. Considering that there are 5.7 million SMEs in the UK and that facilitating export is a critical tool for economic growth, that number seems pitifully small. I would value the Minister’s thoughts on whether that target of 1,000 is his target and whether it can be improved. It is my hope that the Bill will ultimately support a more ambitious target for UK Export Finance. It would be stronger if we acknowledged the reality of supporting small businesses and removed the practical barriers that stop SMEs from exporting. That brings me to my final point: parliamentary oversight. We are to spend £20 billion on industry assistance and guarantee up to £160 billion for export finance. This House deserves more than just retrospective annual reports. Fundamentally, these are political decisions about which sectors succeed, which regions benefit and how Britain competes globally. We need to have regular parliamentary scrutiny of spending decisions, transparent criteria for allocating support and proper impact assessments that show whether the funding is actually working. The assessments must show not just how much has been spent but whether it is reaching the businesses that need it the most and delivering the economic growth that we were promised. We support the Bill. The Government have brought forward legislation that recognises that British businesses need backing, but British businesses need proper industry and export support that is strategically directed, environmentally responsible, democratically accountable and rooted in the challenges that they actually face. I hope that the Bill will deliver that.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Vaccination rates among the over-65s are not where we would like them to be, so will the Secretary of State adopt an emergency vaccination scheme in village halls, supermarkets and—if needed—jab vans to get to the people who have been missed?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Jimmy Lai Conviction · Hansard source

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  Carmen Lau is a Hong Kong democracy campaigner, and a constituent of mine. Earlier this year, her neighbours received letters asking them to take her to the Chinese embassy in exchange for £100,000. Last month her neighbours also received fake sexually explicit photographs of her, with a Macao postage stamp. May I ask the Foreign Secretary when she last met Carmen to discuss those concerns, and how she can reassure Hongkongers living in Britain that they will be safe?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman understand that his Government are yet to abolish the hereditary peers—

• 9 Dec 2025 · Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry · Hansard source

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  What steps will be taken across Government while this inquiry is ongoing to ensure that the victims of these horrible crimes are given proper support during the process?

• 8 Dec 2025 · Child Poverty · Hansard source

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  It took the Government a year and a half to confirm that they were going to scrap the two-child benefit cap. What estimate has the Minister made of the number of children who, during that time, were unnecessarily kept in poverty because of it?

• 3 Dec 2025 · OBR: Resignation of Chair · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor announced in the Budget that she would legislate for only one assessment of the fiscal rules every year, instead of two, which is the case at the moment. In the light of the change in the OBR’s leadership, will the Minister commit today to seeking the views of the incoming chair of the OBR about the economic and fiscal impact of that decision before the Government plough ahead with it?

• 19 Nov 2025 · Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) on securing the debate. When I woke up on this cold Wednesday morning, I did not think I would learn so much about the manufacturing in all our regions—and when there are so many Members from Stoke-on-Trent in the Chamber, how could we not learn so much about ceramics? Specialist manufacturers do not operate in a vacuum; they need certainty to make investment decisions spanning years—often decades—and they need to know that the Government understand their sector and will back it for the long term. I welcome the fact that the Government have listened to British business and reinstated the industrial strategy, and I am pleased to see it focusing on many of the same sectors that the Liberal Democrats have prioritised for so long: life sciences, clean energy, professional business services, aerospace and automotive. Obviously, the background to that is disappointment from the previous Government’s decision to scrap the industrial strategy in 2021, pulling the rug out from under businesses that had planned on the basis of Government commitments. However, I am disappointed that not enough attention has been paid to the agrifoods industry and the rural economy. Agricultural technology was one of the 11 priority sectors that Liberal Democrats identified in our industrial strategy. Recognising and supporting that sector will help make food healthier, safer and more affordable. Agrifood tech is not a niche industry; it is about applying the same precision engineering we have for aerospace and pharmaceuticals to the sector that feeds our nation. It is disappointing that the Government have relegated it to a handful of mentions in the White Paper. We cannot have this debate without discussing the issue that keeps specialist manufacturers awake at night: energy costs. Many other Members mentioned that we have some of the highest industrial energy prices in the world, and measures to bring them down will always be welcome news. When Nissan tells us that its Sunderland plant has the highest electricity cost of any of its plants worldwide, Britain’s competitiveness is obviously going to become an issue. That lack of competitiveness will harm our regional economies in the future. Britain’s businesses are not only struggling in this sector. When it comes to regional economies and these specialist manufacturers, they do not just rely on affordable power for themselves and their factory floors; they also need it for the companies that supply them, such as local services and the businesses that form the ecosystem to allow them to be viable. It is also important for the hospitality sector and small and medium-sized enterprises, so the Government need to do more to ensure that small businesses across all those sectors have access to better energy deals. There cannot be a thriving specialist manufacturing area when broad business in the region is struggling. Manufacturing is reliant on skills, and specialist manufacturing sites cannot be run without people with deep technical knowledge. When I speak to businesses across the country, they tell me that after energy bills and tax, skills comes out as their most pressing issue. Multinationals have the choice of where they put their facilities across the world, so we need to ensure that they are in Britain. That means that we need the talent pipeline, and not just the talent density, to ensure that that we are at the front of manufacturing in the future. The Liberal Democrats have set out a comprehensive approach to reforming skills that includes replacing the broken apprenticeship levy with broader flexibility in the skills training levy, guaranteed apprenticeships paid at least at the national minimum wage and lifelong skills grants so that adults can learn to use new technologies as they evolve. I will briefly touch on two areas where specialist manufacturers are facing significant challenge, the first being trade. These are international sectors, and if the Government are serious about backing British business, they must show more ambition on trade with Europe. We would do that by negotiating a new UK-EU customs union, because our specialist manufacturers face red tape and friction when they trade with our largest and closest market neighbours. That makes them less competitive and increases costs. Secondly, there is the national insurance contributions—the jobs hike. The Government must scrap that damaging measure, because making it more expensive to employ people is counterproductive. I conclude by pressing the Minister to work cross party to ensure that we get a fix for those issues and asking him about national exporting. We are hearing concerning news from the Department for Business and Trade about its plans to reduce its international export team by between 27% and 38%, and in particular reports about cuts to the Latin America trade support team of up to 54%. I would appreciate the Minister’s views on that, as that is an area we must focus on to ensure that Britain is competitive and is exporting. Given that we must support our small businesses to export, those reductions cannot be correct.

• 19 Nov 2025 · Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies · Hansard source

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  The Minister talks about SME exporting. Is he aware that, although UK Export Finance has unveiled what it believes is a fantastic and ambitious plan to support 1,000 SME exporters a year by 2029, there are 314,000 SME exporters in the UK at the moment? I would not have thought that 1,000 a year out of 314,000 is very ambitious.