Yesterday morning, John Healey woke up for the first time as our country’s Chancellor. A dream come true perhaps – but the legacy he’s received from his predecessor is more the stuff of nightmares. The first figures out that day were the latest ONS stats on employment. Not a rosy picture. They show 160,000 fewer […]
Andy Burnham said this morning how seriously he takes Alan Milburn’s review of youth unemployment. If that’s true, he should pay close attention to one of its most important findings: the cost of employment is standing in the way of businesses hiring young people. Since Labour came to power they have put up the cost […]
Keir Starmer says he is fighting to stay. The problem is that is all he is doing. Last week’s King’s Speech was written to save his skin, not to fix anything. Take the spiralling welfare bill, which even his own Chancellor recently admitted desperately needs gripping. But there was no Welfare Bill in the King’s […]
This is the transcript of a speech delivered by the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions during the Commons debate on the Pension Schemes Bill on April 15, 2026. Who knew that the Pension Schemes Bill would become so controversial? It is a Bill on which there was so much consensus; a Bill […]
