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Lord Livermore (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 29 January 2026

Debate

Business Rates

Contribution

I very much agree with everything that my noble friend said. Among the long litany of the previous Government’s failures, their failure on growth was one of their most significant. We saw Brexit and the Liz Truss mini-Budget, and we know what business thought of that. We saw business investment across the whole economy fall to the lowest level in the entire G7. My noble friend is also absolutely correct to point out that, every time we debate the economy in the Chamber, the noble Baroness opposite supports every single piece of spending that we announce but opposes every single piece of revenue raising. It is quite clear that those two things do not add up. On the Tory record more widely, we should note that 7,000 pubs have closed in the past 14 years, and that the previous Government’s plans were to scrap entirely the temporary Covid retail, hospitality and leisure relief in 2025. Their plans show that they would have ended it overnight. We have chosen a different path by extending that support with the help of £4.3 billion of additional support.

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