Getting Britain Working Again

It is a pleasure to open today’s King’s Speech debate on behalf of the Government. As His Majesty said yesterday, we are living in

“an increasingly dangerous and volatile world”.

This debate is about the labour market, so let us start with some facts. We have 332,000 more people in work than a year ago; the third highest employment rate in the G7; unemployment lower than most OECD countries and lower than the EU average; unemployment down in the three months to February; and economic inactivity down by over 350,000 since the election—it is lower today than in 13 of the 14 years of the previous Government. Since the general election, real wages are up by more than in the first 10 years of the last Government, and this morning’s growth figures were up by 0.6% in the first quarter of this year—services up by 0.8% and construction up by 0.4%. That is the fastest GDP per capita growth in four years and the highest GDP growth in the G7 reported this year. That is on top of GDP per capita growth last year, and on top of six interest rate cuts since the general election. Our economic management has put the UK in a stronger position, better placed to weather the storm of global shocks, and better placed to weather the volatility of which His Majesty spoke yesterday.

The leadership task for the country now is to lead the country through the consequences of what is happening in the middle east, because there is no doubt that the shock from the Iran war and the continued closure of the strait of Hormuz is real. It will affect prices, it will affect jobs and it will affect growth. Our Prime Minister took the decision to keep us out of that war, but the UK, like most countries, will be affected by its consequences.

However, none of those consequences were thought about by the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of Reform when they were urging us to get involved. What did the Leader of the Opposition say?

The Secretary of State and many of his Front-Bench colleagues keep reiterating that point. He keeps saying that, but I do not believe it is true. Will he explain exactly what he thinks the Leader of the Opposition wanted to do in those circumstances?

Let me read this out for the hon. Gentleman. The Leader of the Opposition said that the Government were

“too scared to make foreign interventions”.

She also said:

“I say to Labour MPs that we are in this war whether they like it or not. What is the Prime Minister waiting for?”—[Official Report, 4 March 2026; Vol. 781, c. 803.]

That is what she said.

As for the leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), he said:

“We should do all we can to support the operation. I make that perfectly, perfectly clear.”

Instead of trying to douse the flames, they sought to pour as much petrol on them as possible. They would have jumped in with both feet, displaying not only a failure of judgment but a total disregard for the price that will be paid by British consumers in higher prices and higher interest rates. That is how much they cared about keeping Britain working when it came to the biggest judgment that this country has had to make for a long time.

The Conservatives’ record when in office was: the lowest business investment in the G7; wages flatlining for their entire period in office; the worst Parliament on record for living standards; and the public finances trashed as debt soared. The reason I point that out is that month after month, and nowhere more than in the arena of welfare, the Conservative party finds things that it is outraged about in the system that it built, it designed and it created.

Before I come to the system itself, let me state something that is obvious but too often left out of these debates: the welfare system is often the end of a process in people’s lives, not the beginning. I will tell the House what contributes to higher welfare bills and to people not working: hollowing out the NHS and leaving one person in seven on waiting lists, with a higher likelihood that they are unfit for work; increasing child poverty by 700,000, making it less likely that children will be ready for work when they leave school; explicitly rejecting the post-covid education recovery plan, and doing nothing about rocketing absenteeism from schools; neglecting our town centres and high streets, leaving too many places without hope or confidence in the future; and presiding over a 40% decline in youth apprenticeship starts, kicking away the first step in the career ladder for those who lose out. You cannot do all that and then stand at the Dispatch Box and credibly express outrage about the rise in benefit bills. It did not come from nowhere, and if we are going to tackle this area, we have to understand that.

In that case, can the Secretary of State credibly stand at the Dispatch Box and talk about the impact of the rise in national insurance contributions and of the Employment Rights Act 2025 on employment? The Government are now paying companies to employ young people because of the mess they made.

If it was down to those policies, we would not have seen a rise of a quarter of a million in the NEET—not in education, employment or training—numbers in the last three years of the hon. Lady’s party’s time in office. My point is that this did not come from nowhere, and we have to understand that. If we are to have a serious response, education, health treatment, youth apprenticeships and changes to the welfare system itself all have a part to play.

On the health front, I have good news to report: waiting lists today are down by 110,000—the biggest monthly drop since 2008. Elective waiting time targets have been hit, and four-hour waiting time targets have been hit. This is how we get Britain working, whereas simply picking a number for benefit cuts, with nothing behind it, is not an answer; it is a press release. The Conservative party has shown no understanding of how people end up on benefits in the first place.

I would like to raise with the Minister the fact that we are looking at around 1,000 redundancies across the NHS in Devon, which is a significant employer. That is cutting the legs off employment in communities such as mine in Torbay.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the figures that I just read out. For the first time in many years, the NHS is heading in the right direction. That is good for people’s health, and it is also good for getting people back to work.

As I said, the Conservatives show no understanding of how people end up on benefits in the first place. They are like a workman who wanders around someone’s house asking, “Who installed that?”, when the answer every time is that they installed it. The Conservatives say that the welfare bill is too high, but it went up by £100 billion when they were in power. They say that they want more face-to-face appointments, but they shut them down almost entirely, and then the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride), now the shadow Chancellor, signed off a bunch of contracts that allowed the assessors to work from home. The Conservatives say that there are too many people on health benefits, but they designed the system, they designed the gateways, and they designed the differences in income that have made that happen. We did not just inherit a mess; we inherited their mess.

In fact, the shadow Chancellor personally oversaw the biggest single increase in welfare spending on record during his time as Work and Pensions Secretary. Two weeks ago, the Leader of the Opposition railed against there being 1.5 million more people on universal credit. She was outraged by the figure, as she often is, but there was only one problem: around 80% of the increase was a legacy transfer from old benefits that was decided, organised and begun by the Conservative party. It is no wonder the chair of the UK Statistics Authority wrote to the Leader of the Opposition to correct her. Her letter said of the figures quoted:

“A substantial proportion reflects the ongoing transfer of claimants from legacy benefits to Universal Credit. This process has been a longstanding policy and has been implemented at scale by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) since May 2022, predating the current administration.”

Twelve months ago, the Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), attempted to cut the welfare bill and was sent packing by Labour Back Benchers. In the autumn, the Government had to get rid of the two-child benefit cap because of Labour Back Benchers. Is the truth not that the Secretary of State is incapable of reforming the welfare system because he does not have permission from his Back Benchers?

I will outline the changes to the system that we are making. At the heart of it, we have to change the question that the system asks in order to have a system that is suited better to the conditions of today. We should ask people not just what benefit they are entitled to, but how we can help them change their lives, and we have begun that task.

The change to universal credit that came into force last month narrowed the gap between the health element and the standard element. Crucially, it is matched by an increase in employment support. Another change is the provision of £3.8 billion to help people into work over the next few years, ensuring personalised help to maximise people’s chances of moving into a good, secure job. We have to change the old Tory habit of people being signed off and written off, and instead move to a system that more actively helps people into work. Nowhere is that more true than among the young, because the longer young people are left on benefits or out of work, the harder it is to come off and the worse the consequences are. The issue with the system is not just about monthly income; it is about the story of people’s lives and how we change it.

I thank the Secretary of State for enabling me to ask a question, and for the positivity in his comments so far. Like him, I am incredibly worried about whether young people are getting job opportunities, and many in my constituency unfortunately have not been. May I ask a question about apprenticeships? We need to get people into the building and construction sector, for instance, where there are opportunities because house building is continuing to grow, as is the Government’s commitment. Will he outline some of the good things that have been done for young people in relation to apprenticeships?

Apprenticeships are really valuable and important. I visited construction apprentices with the Prime Minister just a couple of days ago, so I heartily endorse what the hon. Gentleman says.

The issue of youth employment is really important to us because of the long-term consequences of young people staying on benefits. Let me illustrate this for the House. A young person under the age of 25 who is on the health element of universal credit is now less likely to get a job than someone over 55 on the same benefit. A 20-year-old on incapacity benefit is more likely to turn 30 and still be claiming it than to have held a steady job for a year. Perhaps worst of all, a young unemployed person is over 70% more likely than their peers to die prematurely. Changing those stories has to be at the heart of what we are doing.

There are practical ways of doing that. We know that many disabled people—young and old—and people with health conditions want to work, but have been held back by the fear of losing their benefits if things do not work out, so just last month we changed the law to bring in the right to try. Keeping people locked on benefits because they lack the confidence to work is in no one’s interests—not the individuals’ and not the state’s. The change means that entering employment will not automatically trigger a benefit reassessment. This is practical welfare reform and this is what getting Britain working looks like.

We also know that disabled people and people with health conditions need localised support to get back into work. There is no greater fan than me of the wonderful work that our elected local mayors are doing, so we are putting £1 billion of funding into local areas to help 300,000 people into employment over the next few years. That is what practical welfare reform looks like.

Today, the Department has published new figures on fraud and error. They show continued progress and a fall since the post-pandemic period, but this is an ongoing effort. There is always more to do because there are unscrupulous individuals who will try to game the system, but whether it is £5,000 or £5 million from an undisclosed source—possibly someone located abroad—people are expected to declare it. There cannot be one rule for some and another rule for everyone else.

Reports suggest that unemployed people who are signing on are getting trained for jobs that do not exist, not for the jobs in the sectors where there are opportunities to work. Will the Secretary of State reform the system so that those who are unemployed and seeking a job are trained to do the jobs that are available?

That is precisely what we are doing, including by providing apprenticeship courses that are shorter than the usual eight-month minimum, because employers have told us that such short courses are exactly what they need. I am all in favour of more flexibility in the apprenticeship system to suit what employers need.

Getting Britain working is also about the levels of investment in the economy: it is about the roads and railways we build, the capital programmes in education and health, and the year-on-year modernisation of the country. Here too there is a contrast with what we inherited. Compared with the plans that we inherited, there will be £120 billion more public investment over the course of this Parliament. That is what getting Britain working looks like—building and modernising the country. Underpinning all of this are measures in the King’s Speech to raise living standards in every part of the country, to attract investment, to work in partnership with business, to take advantage of new trading opportunities, to reduce the burden of unnecessary regulations, to unlock airport expansion, to build the roads that need to be built and, finally, to deliver a fair deal for the north of England.

At the heart of our reforms should be the young, for the simple and obvious reason that if we do not get the young into work, there can be lifelong effects. We have almost a million young people not in education, training or employment. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), in the last three years of the Conservative Government, that figure went up by a quarter of a million. Although the numbers have barely moved since the election, they are still far too high.

On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?

I will proceed, if the hon. Lady does not mind.

Unlike the Conservatives, who did nothing about the number of young people not in education, training or employment, we are doing something about it, because we will not leave a young generation behind. We will not give up on young people, and that is why our youth guarantee is so important. It will invest £2.5 billion in support for young people and employers over the next few years. From June, there will be hiring bonuses of £3,000 for employers who take on a young person who has been out of work for six months. For small businesses, there will be a hiring bonus of £2,000 to take on a young apprentice, and the Government will pay for all the training courses for young apprentices employed by small and medium-sized enterprises. [Interruption.] Youth hubs across the country will take support out of the jobcentre to where young people are, giving them access to community-based advice, skills training, mental health support, housing advice and careers guidance. In the spirit of generosity, I will give way to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths).

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way and for his astounding shopping list of action that he is taking, but the Conservatives can make life easy for him: if he had not put 2% on national insurance, increased the national minimum wage and used the Employment Rights Act 2025 to remove the option of zero-hours contracts, businesses in my constituency and across the country would not have been forced to remove jobs focused specifically on young people. It is this Government who are responsible for the increase in youth unemployment.

I have to disappoint the hon. Lady. If this Government were responsible, it would not be case that youth employment never in a single year reached the pre-financial crash levels when her party was in power. If this Government were responsible, we would not have seen the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training rise by a quarter of a million.

Beyond the hiring bonuses and the youth hubs, we are offering more work experience or workplace training with a guaranteed interview, designed in partnership with employers. For those who have been out of work for 18 months, we are offering a six-month paid job placement of 25 hours a week at national minimum wage rates. The reason we are doing all this is that we will not stand back and allow young people to graduate from school to a life on benefits. There has been too much of that in recent years, and to do that would be to accept the scarring effect for the rest of their lives and to accept the huge cost to the country and to businesses in lost talent.

Changing this situation should be a cause for us all, and it should certainly be a Labour cause, to give hope to the country’s young people and to show that we believe in them, we back them and we want them to have a better future. This is a generational challenge. Of course it is an issue for young people, but it is also an issue for their parents and grandparents, because they all want a better future for young people, and so do we. There is an urgency about this issue. As the population ages and net migration falls, we need the young people of this country more than ever. They are our greatest resource and our greatest asset, and an investment in them is an investment in the future for all of us.

In the volatile times that His Majesty spoke about, people look for security, and rightly so, but the future is not just about security; the future is about building opportunity too. It is about not accepting so many young people being written off and about giving them a chance to change the story of their lives. That is the message at the heart of the King’s Speech and that is what is at the heart of our youth guarantee. It is at the heart of all the changes in welfare reform that I have listed, and it will be at the heart of the changes to come, and I recommend them to the House.

I respect the Secretary of State. He has talked at some length about what is wrong with the welfare system, but the fact is that there is no welfare Bill in the King’s Speech. I reckon he is stuck between a rock and a hard place: he knows the benefits bill is out of control; he knows that the public are sick of seeing their taxes go on ever higher welfare handouts; he even knows how the savings could be made because I have told him [Laughter.] They are laughing, but they are the problem. The Secretary of State also knows that the MPs behind him will have none of it. With the Prime Minister clinging on by a thread, no wonder there was no welfare Bill in the King’s Speech.

Here is the problem: failure to grip welfare puts the Government dangerously out of touch with people out there—the people he, I and all of us are here to serve. Let me read from an email that I received recently from a constituent; I will call her Sandra. She says:

“I am writing to you with utter frustration. We work so hard and for what? What is the point of working please tell me. To watch everyone else do nothing and get paid more than you! I’ve done the benefit calculation online and I’d be better off quitting my job…I’d be better off getting universal credit…how is that normal or fair?”

My constituent is far from alone. I have heard that feeling expressed time and again since I have been shadow Secretary of State—on the doorsteps, in the pub, in the supermarket, on the train and all over social media. Beyond Westminster, people are despairing. Family breadwinners are losing their jobs, homes are being sold to pay the bills and young people are losing hope. Millions have drifted out of work, and for many, claiming benefits simply makes more sense.

For those who are working, each month they are seeing their earnings disappearing in higher taxes and higher bills, with nothing left over. No wonder they are fed up. People who are doing the right thing are paying for people who have opted out. And what is Labour doing about it? Absolutely nothing. The Government are making a big mistake because the bald fact is that alarm-clock Britain is sick of paying out for “Benefits Street”.