Not only does this have all the obvious first order effects, like pay compression and inflationary pressure (think supermarkets, with high labour costs and 2% profit margins), but there is also another, in my opinion even more damaging, second order effect:

Think about what will happen to the marginal worker who would 'only' be worth £25k a year to a business (if on full time hours). They now won't get hired at all, and will go from paying ~£2.4k in income tax per year, to needing to claim benefits, possibly in the tens of thousands (depending on if they become eligible for social housing and any other benefit-related perks).

This is just complete madness. All because Labour wants to appease its short-sighted voters who think Econ 101 is some 'neoliberal' conspiracy theory. They also seem to believe that, if there are 10 employees (on minimum wage) and 1 business owner, the former are automatically more righteous by dint of being more numerous (aka tyranny of the majority).

P.S. I know this isn't related, but I'm always going to bang this drum: if you live in a Labour-Reform battleground, please think very carefully about who to vote for.

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The Troubles Bill gets a two-day sprint this week.

MPs have Monday and Tuesday to get it through the Commons. The government has put forward a package of amendments, most of them strengthening protections for former service personnel and police officers.

Then MPs turn to the Church.

On Wednesday they'll debate a bill that repeals old laws that bar Catholics and Jews from advising the Crown on appointments in the Church of England. Andy Burnham is Catholic, so bishop appointments currently go through the Lord Chancellor.

And Wednesday is also an opposition day.

It's the turn of the Lib Dems this time. Topic is still TBC.

MONDAY 19 OCTOBER

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill – committee of the whole House
Applies to: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland
Repeals parts of Troubles Legacy Act (the previous government’s attempt to deal with Troubles-era deaths and injuries). The old act blocked criminal prosecutions and civil cases, offering immunity to perpetrators, but courts ruled this violated human rights laws. This bill allows prosecutions and lawsuits to proceed again, restarts some inquests, and creates a reformed Legacy Commission to investigate cases.
Draft bill (PDF) / Commons Library briefing

TUESDAY 20 OCTOBER

Social Security (Marriage) Bill
Bans the social security system from recognising polygamous marriages and marriages between close relatives. Ten minute rule motion presented by Richard Holden.

Northern Ireland Troubles Bill – conclusion of committee and remaining stages
As above.

WEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER

Multi-Academy Trusts (Governance) Bill
Introduces tighter regulation on multi-academy trusts, the organisations that run groups of state schools. Areas covered include financial transparency, spending limits, and governance. Ten minute rule motion presented by Dave Robertson.

Church Appointments (Repeal of Discriminatory Provision) Bill – all stages
Applies to: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland
Repeals two 19th-century laws that bar Roman Catholics and Jews from advising the Crown on appointments in the Church of England and Church of Scotland. Also removes the rule that stops Roman Catholics making church appointments themselves.
Draft bill (PDF)

THURSDAY 22 OCTOBER

No votes scheduled

FRIDAY 23 OCTOBER

No votes scheduled

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I think most on the centre right want to see less of the state, less interference in private business and less regulation.

What department or Quango should go.

"The soaring number of people on disability and sickness benefits is blowing up the country’s welfare bill and imperiling its long-term financial stability"

The article is too long to realistically copy and paste in full in the comments, plus you'd miss all the helpful interactive data graphs, but I've shared the Gift link so that should get you past the paywall, and if that doesn't work, you can use this link to bypass it instead:

https://archive.ph/gd4TK

A few highlights:

Some seven million people—more than 10% of the population—now claim at least one or more sickness or disability benefits. The numbers are growing fastest among working-age people who should be powering the country’s economy, surging more than 60% in the past six years to 4.7 million from 2.9 million in 2019.

Many of the newer disability claims are for mental-health issues like depression, anxiety and ADHD, which can be harder for the government to verify than a physical disability. Between 2017 and 2025, disability claims for cancer doubled. But benefits claims for all psychiatric issues surged fourfold.

The scale of the payout has become a scandal. No other western country has seen such a rise in disability claims. In the U.S., the number of people getting federal disability payments has fallen in the past 15 years. The most recent figures show some 10.6 million working-age people in the U.S. claimed one or both main Social Security programs for people with a disability, in a country with a population five times bigger than the U.K.

The financial incentives to claim are significant. For example, a young person living outside London can claim around £900 a month on unemployment and housing benefits. If they are classified as being too sick to work and also claim PIP, that increases to around £2,000, tax free. If you work 40 hours a week in a minimum-wage job in the U.K., you take home £1,880 a month after tax.