Liam Byrne MP: speeches

Speeches

• 5 Mar 2025 · Department for Business and Trade · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a brilliant member of the Committee, and she makes a brilliant point. We know that we must come to a strategic culture and defence mindset in this country, so that our industry can innovate as fast as the battlefield changes. We all know that there are defence manufacturers—drone manufacturers in particular—that struggle to get the working capital that they need to fund and grow their businesses, month by month. We will have to change the way that we support smaller businesses, and that means transforming access to finance. Time and again, the Committee has heard about business leaders being brought in once a firm gets to a particular size, and it being snapped up and shipped out, in particular to the United States, because we do not seem able to supply equity finance or debt finance of between £50 million and £500 million. We have to think anew about how we ensure that the British Business Bank, the National Wealth Fund, the private sector and the proposed changes to pension funds work together to completely revolutionise access to finance for businesses in this market. In the estimates, there looks to be a welcome £414 million increase in funding for the British Business Bank. Although it is hard to decode the accounts, it looks like about £127 million of that is provision for bad debt. Will the Minister clarify that? The Committee will continue to press for us to completely transform access to finance, including through an inquiry that we will launch later in the year. The final fear that I wanted to flag, which is coming through loud and clear to Committee members, is that the Government just do not work for business in the way that they need to. We have heard over and over again about one Department doing something that completely undermines the work of another, or one regulator doing something that completely undermines what a different Department or regulator is trying to do. We do not yet see anything about how we can knit Government together in a wholly new way in either the Green Paper on industrial strategy, or any of the commentary about the estimates. In the good old days, when I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, what we were beginning to test—

• 27 Feb 2025 · War in Ukraine: Third Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing this debate and all those who have spoken today. It was Václav Havel who said that the best defence against tyranny is to live in truth. On this third anniversary, we have the opportunity to repeat some truths to this House—that Ukraine is a democracy, that democracies need defending, and that the best way to defend democracies is for democratic nations to come together with a unity of purpose around our values. We should not have to remind the world that Ukraine is a democracy, but some have impugned that. We in this House know that, at times, all democracies face challenges. Let us be honest, this country once had to suspend elections during the height of world war two. Gosh, I am even old enough to remember when thousands of people invaded the United States Congress because they wanted to overturn a democratic election and nullify the result and the election of President Biden. Let us send a clear message from this House that we do not regard President Zelensky as a dictator. We regard him as a hero of democracy, and we in the west should have his back. We must also remember that, at times, democracies will need defending, especially against dictators —especially when it comes to Russia. President Zelensky is on the frontline of an effort to re-contain Russia on behalf of us all. Russia is a country that invades its neighbours time and time again. It has been invading its neighbours since the days of Ivan the Terrible. It has invaded its neighbours on eight different occasions since 1945—on average, that is once every decade since the end of the second world war. Faced with that threat, why on earth would we make concessions now? Some 700,000 people have been lost in this war in Russia. Russia now faces a NATO that is bigger and stronger. Russia will run out of T-80 tanks in April, and it has lost more artillery systems in the past year than in the previous two years put together. Russia, at the height of the war, controlled 19.6% of Ukrainian territory; today, it controls 19.2%. In the face of that weakness, why on earth would we make concessions now to those who want to make Russia great again? We should confront them with strength, not weakness, because that is how peace is secured. Finally, it is vital for us across the west to unite around our values, to celebrate those values and not to attack each other. I am worried that what began as political improvisation in the United States has now become, under the new President, a political project. I am worried that some of the noises that I hear sound like the report that Thucydides made of the Athenian threat all those centuries ago, which is that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. In this country, we know how that story ends. When we talk about the rules-based order, we do not mean the rules of the poker table, or even the rules that we set out at the end of world war two. We believe not simply in a rules-based order, but in a rights-based order. The rights that ensure our freedom were enshrined in the UN’s universal declaration of human rights at the end of world war two and in the Council of Europe’s European convention on human rights, co-authored by this country, based on Churchill’s great vision of a great charter. Those are the rights that we should be celebrating, because they mean freedom for all of us. Those rights, values and freedoms must be defended with strength, so the Prime Minister’s decision to increase defence spending was right. This House will need reassurance that that money can be well spent, but, crucially, given the cuts that are to be made to the aid budget, we must think hard, creatively and quickly about how we now lead a great multilateral effort to increase the amount of aid spending around the world. We need to think in this 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods institutions about how we reinvent the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for new times, so that they are bigger and better in the world to come. That is the way that we become evangelists for the rights that are now being defended so valiantly by Ukrainian forces on the continent of Europe.

• 27 Feb 2025 · War in Ukraine: Third Anniversary · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman and I have organised debates on this topic in the past. Does he share my view that we now need to get a lot faster in seizing this money, not only to pay for the munitions needed to win the war, but crucially, then to win the peace in Ukraine, making good the horrific scale of damage that Russia has inflicted on that great country?

• 11 Feb 2025 · US Steel Import Tariffs · Hansard source

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  What is essential now is that this does not escalate. Widespread duties on UK exports to the US would be devastating for economic growth, bad for inflation and bad for interest rates. The whole House ought to wish His Majesty’s new ambassador, Lord Mandelson, the very best of luck in the conduct of his new tasks in Washington. What flexibility will the Minister allow on increasing funding to UK steelmakers through the steel strategy if they confirm that that is essential to maintain a sovereign capability in this country?

• 6 Feb 2025 · UK-EU Relations · Hansard source

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  I very much welcome the statement from my right hon. Friend, but the reality is that he has inherited a deal with the European Union that has knocked about 4% to 5% off our economic output each year. Certainly, the Business and Trade Committee heard in Brussels last week a clear message from the business community that we need to be as specific and as ambitious as we can be ahead of the reset summit with the President of the European Commission. What plans does the Paymaster General have to bring together the British business community and, indeed, the trade union community so that the Prime Minister can go into his summit with President von der Leyen clear-minded about just how ambitious our wealth creators want him to be?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Harland & Wolff · Hansard source

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  Congratulations to the Secretary of State. This is excellent news for the people of Appledore and of Northern Ireland and for workers across the Harland & Wolff supply chain. He might want to confirm that the peril of providing a Government guarantee was the possibility of entailing a huge payout to a US-based hedge fund, which was the largest creditor for Harland & Wolff. What is happening to the contract value for the FSS deal? It was priced at about £1.6 billion. Has that contract value now gone up? Crucially, what does the Secretary of State envisage for Harland & Wolff after that enormous contract is safely and soundly delivered?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Post Office Redress and Funding · Hansard source

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  I welcome much of the Minister’s statement today. Redress is being paid out faster, but the truth is that 70% of the budget for redress has still not been paid. The Select Committee will be supplying its advice on how we make that faster in a report that we will release on new year’s day. The Minister has set out details for the House about the Capture victims who have been identified. Does he believe that many of those victims were convicted? If they were, would it not be right to have those convictions automatically overturned, in the way that we have done for other victims of this appalling scandal?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mrs Harris. First things first: I utterly condemn the attacks on 7 October. I utterly condemn the kidnap, torture and murder of hostages by Hamas. I also utterly deplore and condemn the destruction of Palestine and Palestinian life that has ensued. That destruction is now so complete that Israel is at risk of turning Gaza into a desert and calling it peace. The prosecution of the war is now so brutal that the Foreign Secretary himself said on 2 September that any exports of weapons from here lead to “a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” —[ Official Report , 2 September 2024; Vol. 753, c. 42.]

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I will not, because time is so short. Last week, in front of the Business and Trade Committee, a Defence Minister said that although it is technically possible to track the parts, it is contractually impossible. Indeed, Lockheed Martin has supplied me with a letter that states that, if I want to know anything about the parts, I need to address my queries to the Department of Defence in the United States. The Government defend their case by pointing to the 28 words that allow them to make it up as they go along when it comes to weapons exports. Those words were written by the last Government and were published in the House on 8 December 2021. They state: “The application of these Criteria”— the selective licensing criteria— “will be without prejudice to the application to specific cases of specific measures as may be announced to Parliament from time to time.” There we have it. However, what Ministers have not explained is the part of criterion 1 that states: “The Government will not grant a licence if to do so would be inconsistent with…the UK’s obligations under the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty”. Of course, the UN arms trade treaty is very clear. Article 7 requires this Government, as a signatory, to assess any items that we may seek to export. If there is an overriding risk of the use of those weapons to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law, “the exporting State Party shall not authorize the export.” Now, if there was any question, doubt or dispute about whether F-35 parts that we supply could be used in such a way, perhaps the Government would have a case for keeping the licences open. But there is nodoubt, dispute or question about the Government’s analysis of F-35 parts, because in their opening statement to the High Court on 12 November 2024, they said: “The F-35 carve-out accepts that there is clear risk that F-35 components might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of IHL”. We now have the advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, the arrest warrants and the Government’s own assessment. I cannot see how this Government can now legally defend a position of keeping these arms export licences open.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Let me come to exactly that argument. The Foreign Secretary was followed by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, who said that there were now “significant doubts” about Israel’s “record of compliance”. In court, His Majesty’s Government said bluntly, in their opening statement on 12 November 2024, that Israel is “not committed to complying with international humanitarian law”. Yet the Government have not cancelled all licences; they have cancelled some, but not all, and they have kept open the licences for F-35 parts.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being characteristically generous. As I understand it, we cannot track F-35 parts because we have signed a contract that basically renders us blind when they leave our borders. Technically, it is possible; the Ministry of Defence has said that. The issue the Minister has to address is that article 7 of the arms trade treaty is very clear that if there is an overriding risk of a breach of IHL, exports should not be made. His Government’s own submission to the courts is that that risk exists. We cannot have it both ways.

• 16 Dec 2024 · Royal Mail Takeover · Hansard source

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  I welcome the statement made by this hard-working Minister. I take it from the announcement that Mr Křetínský has cleared the investment screening tests that the Cabinet Office is responsible for. It would be useful to have that confirmed. Let me press my hon. Friend about the universal service obligation. Is it his intention that beyond the initial five years he will seek six-day delivery and a universal service obligation in place for Royal Mail for as long as His Majesty’s Government retain the golden share?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Stellantis Luton · Hansard source

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  This is indeed a hard day for Luton. I welcome what the Secretary of State shared with the House, and the review of the zero emission mandate that he announced. In that review, I hope that he looks again at the perversities of the regime that he inherited, which could involve petrol engine makers in this country transferring credits to companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla, and to Chinese EV makers. If we really want to ensure a level playing field, why do we not reverse the decision of the last Secretary of State, follow the EU Commission and launch anti-subsidy investigations into Chinese EV makers? The Trade Remedies Authority is ready to go—it just needs the Secretary of State to give the green light.

• 21 Nov 2024 · G20 and COP29 Summits · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Prime Minister on the restoration of UK leadership. Lord Prescott, who did so much to lead on Kyoto, would be truly proud of my right hon. Friend’s work and that of his Cabinet. I was very proud to lead the UK Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Baku this weekend, where we heard loud and clear a report from finance experts who say that we need $1 trillion a year in climate finance between now and 2030. The UK has led from the front, but the reality is that we cannot hit that target without building a bigger World Bank. We could lead that charge by recycling some of the £3 billion we get back from the European Investment Bank. Is that an initiative the Prime Minister could look into?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Future of the Post Office · Hansard source

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  Today is the last day of the Horizon inquiry. I look forward to working with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and with colleagues across the House to explore appropriate sanctions for those who clearly misled us as the scandal unfolded. I look forward to seeing the Minister and the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander), before the Committee on Tuesday 19 November to explore how redress payments can be paid faster. It is surely right that we aim to grow the top line of Post Office businesses, which has to mean that high street banks contribute more to the core business. What steps can the Minister take to ensure this happens?

• 31 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  On Tuesday, we will hear from Sir Alan Bates and other victims of the Horizon scandal, which continues to deepen. In September, we learned that there will be 100 more convictions quashed than we originally thought, and yesterday the bill for redress went up by half a billion pounds. Have all the victims now come forward, and are there any gaps left in the schemes for redress?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I congratulate our first female Chancellor on delivering an outstanding Budget. It is a great pleasure to speak in my first Budget debate for 14 years, and I think that period of silence was probably appreciated more by my own party than by any other. When I look back on those debates, which I listened to even though I did not speak, it is striking that the curtain has finally fallen on an economic philosophy, an economic approach and an economic settlement that has fundamentally failed this country. Over the past 14 years, we have witnessed something akin to “The A.B.C. Murders” of the British economy—austerity and a bungled Brexit, followed by chaos. I see clearly how today’s Budget is a very different kind of settlement. It honours the approach, the compassion, the intelligence and the judgment of the last Budget presented to this House by my good friend, mentor and boss, Lord Darling, in March 2010. Alistair Darling is much missed in this place. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] He was a man of dry wit, patience, tenacity, kindness and compassion. I have no hint of reservation in my mind in saying that this is a Budget of which he would have been proud, because it strikes the right balance. All Budgets are a balance, as we ask Chancellors not only to balance the numbers but, more importantly, to balance the interests of our country. Compared with the Budget in March 2010, the Chancellor’s task today was far harder. Back in 2010, we tried to present a Budget that would remedy a deficit opened up by the greatest financial crash since the 1930s.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I agree 100%, but I say gently to right hon. and hon. Members across the House that that is not free. If we want to ensure that there are good transport links and digital links, that the workforce is healthy, well and trained, and that there is a rich ecosystem of ideas, the money has to come from somewhere. The sensible decisions that have been made to increase borrowing in order to fund a higher level of fixed capital investment are wise. Investment in public services is wise too. I very much hope that that will benefit the hon. Lady’s constituency. An increase in investment on the scale we have seen today will improve the profitability of businesses in this country. The Business and Trade Committee looks forward to scrutinising the detail and ensuring the Government have got the balance right, because, goodness knows, it is hard enough to get the balance right in a Budget, never mind translating it into legislation. That bargain for business has to consist of two sides: on the one hand, we will create a better business environment through higher capital investment, but on the other we have to give workers a pay rise. The labour share of income in this country has fallen precipitously since the 1950s. If the labour share of national income was as high today as it was in 1955, on average a worker would be receiving a pay packet this year that was over £7,000 bigger. That is why we have to get the balance right between ensuring that businesses are more profitable and ensuring that workers are getting their share of national income. Getting the balance right is difficult. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the Chair of the Treasury Committee, my Committee and I will scrutinise that in detail. We will begin that work when we see the Secretary of State for Business and Trade in front of our Committee in just a couple of weeks’ time. My final point is about where I wanted the Chancellor to go further. Among the worst of her inheritance is the yawning gulf in inequality that scars our country. We have a moral emergency in Britain: sales of superyachts, luxury cars and big mansions are at an all-time high, but, at exactly the same time, the queues for food banks have never been greater. There is no mystery to that. Over the past 14 years, the combination of easy money and low taxes on capital income has meant that the top 1% in our country—the luckiest 1%—are 41 times richer than everybody else. Did they work 41 times harder? Are they 41 times cleverer? Did they win the lottery? Well, in a way they did, because £850 billion-worth of quantitative easing held interest rates in our country down by about 1%. That triggered three quarters of the rise in asset prices that we have seen over the past 14 years. Of course, people in the top 1% will own assets and will have seen a windfall gain, yet the rate of tax they pay on those capital gains is just half the top rate of marginal tax. I am sorry that the Leader of the Opposition is no longer in his place to hear me say this, but he did a good thing a couple of years ago, which was to publish his tax return. I am sure that all hon. Members will have read it—it does not take long, as it is only a page long. It declares an income of £2 million and a tax rate of 23%. At a time when so many people in our country are paying a top marginal rate of more than 47%, I do not think that it is morally right that those with broader shoulders are paying much lower tax rates. I would have liked to have seen the Chancellor go further on capital gains tax. I welcome the changes to the non-dom and inheritance tax regimes, but I would have proposed other changes as well. If we had truly restored fairness to the tax system, we could have raised money to increase the national wealth fund and opened the opportunity, for the first time, of paying dividends into a universal savings account for every young person in this country. That would have helped them get a foot on the housing ladder, repay their student debt, invest in their training, or kickstart savings for their pension. That would have helped us to create a universal basic capital system in this country. We will need a system like that if we are to fix the scandalous inequalities of wealth that now bedevil our country. None the less, I accept that the Chancellor had to put first things first today. She had to fix the foundations, because, as all of us in this House know, if we get that job done well, the best years for this country truly lie ahead of us.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I am incredibly grateful to the Father of the House for giving way, which is characteristically generous. I think we would both agree that his inspiration and mentor, Nigel Lawson, was not a hoary old socialist, but, of course, he was the one who equalised the top rate of tax and the rate of capital gains, and I did not see people fleeing the country back then.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  We aimed to get the right balance between spending restraint, budget rises, growth and time. Balancing those four ingredients was at the heart of any Budget judgment, and our judgment would have halved the deficit within four years and seen debt falling by 2016. Our obsession was to avoid the double-dip recession that had been experienced in Japan and to ensure we escaped the perils of widening inequality that we had seen in the United States. Mr Osborne chose a different path, and he was supported by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), to whom it is my pleasure to give way.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Correct. In a way, that is the point that I am gently trying to make to the House, with a very brief and, everyone will be pleased to hear, soon-to-conclude lesson in the fiscal consolidation of the last 14 years. Austerity, a bungled Brexit and chaos left us with a growth rate that fell from an average of 3% in the Labour years down to 1.6% over the last 14 years. We had tax forecasts that failed time and time and time and time again; living standards that simply did not rise in the last Parliament; productivity growth that collapsed from about 2% a year to about 0.5% a year; inequality that soared; and, as I have just rehearsed, debt that multiplied to an extraordinary £2.7 trillion. In the old days, we used to have debates about whether the roof had been fixed while the sun was shining. The reality is that for the last 14 years, the Conservative party has been trying to patch the roof by ripping out the foundations of our economy. That approach has drawn to a close today. We have only got through the last 14 years because of the ingenuity, fortitude, kindness and compassion of the people we represent. Those people deserve a better approach and that is what they got from the Chancellor today. We have an approach that Alistair Darling would have well appreciated: a Budget balanced not simply in the numbers, but in the balance of interests. If we look at the numbers in the Red Book, we can see the guts of that different approach. Everybody knows—we might as well be honest in the House today—that the original sin of the British economy is a failure in the investment rate. Over the last 14 years, the approach to trying to stimulate development has relied on tax cut after tax cut after tax cut after tax cut. Today, the Chancellor has ended the insanity of trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. The capital investment delivered by this Budget will see £104 billion extra being surged into the economy. The Chancellor was absolutely right. Last week, at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, we heard a clear message from the IMF that unless we raise the fixed rate of investment in our economy, we are not going to improve living standards or the growth rate, and we are not going to pay down the debt, so the Chancellor’s approach is extremely welcome. The Budget forecast shows that over the forecast period, we will now see the rate of fixed investment increase in our economy by between 6% and 7%. That is still probably not enough to catch up with our competitors, but it is a hell of a good start and, crucially, it is a departure from the failed economic philosophy for stimulating investment of the last 14 years. After 14 years of failure, it was time to try something new, and that is what the Chancellor has given us today. That allows us to strike a new bargain with business. We can say to the business community, “Look, we will put £104 billion extra of capital investment into the economy. We will make sure you have the roads, the railway systems and the digital infrastructure that you need for your markets to function. We will make sure you have a workforce that is actually healthy and well, fit for work and well-trained. We will make sure there is investment in the skills you need in your business, and we will make sure your workers stand a hope in hell of getting a home somewhere near their work. We will make sure there is investment in research and development.” Why? Because if we put all of that together, we will have the greatest entrepreneurs in the world. Our entrepreneurs have been making history by inventing the future since the age of the industrial revolution, but they need good people, good ideas and access to capital markets, which they do not have today. This Budget begins to make that available.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Let us be really clear about what has been bequeathed to this Government. The right hon. Gentleman is right that back in 2010, at the height of the financial crash, the deficit went up. What happens in a financial crash is that the economy has a heart attack: spending continues, because to cut spending would be to deepen a recession and turn it into a depression, tax receipts fall off a cliff, and the role of Government is to sustain a country through that kind of crisis. The deficit rose to £154.4 billion, yet today how much interest do we pay on the debt we have been bequeathed? We pay £104 billion in interest alone, which is almost the entirety of the deficit we had back in 2010. It is important for the House to recognise that that happened because Mr Osborne chose a balance that was different. He chose to load his austerity programme on public spending cuts. Actually, he eventually arrived at the same settlement that Labour proposed in 2010, but he took four or five years to get there and he put the economy into recession. If memory serves me correctly, he blamed it on some light snow. That austerity programme was followed by a Brexit that was bungled, and then the chaos of the former Prime Minister.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Israel: UNRWA Ban · Hansard source

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  I utterly condemn this decision by the Israeli Parliament. Tens of thousands of people have died as a result of Israeli firepower, and now thousands more will die as a result of an Israeli-induced famine unless the world acts. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that if this decision is put into effect, it will be a breach of international humanitarian law? A track record of honouring international law is required if we are to keep arms export licences open.

• 17 Oct 2024 · International Investment Summit · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 17 Oct 2024 · International Investment Summit · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman gives way with characteristic generosity. The truth is that the International Monetary Fund forecast growth for this year at about 0.5%, that families were about £1,200 worse off on average at the last election than in 2019, and that since 2010 the national debt has more than doubled, to £2.3 trillion. I suggest that those three metrics represent not a good inheritance, but a bad one.