Jon Trickett
MP for Normanton and Hemsworth · Labour · United Kingdom
“The shadow Minister has said, “Well, we’ve got to be a bit careful. We don’t want to over-regulate these things.” The idea that these activities should be dealt with using a light touch will raise a bitter laugh in the communities I represent, and in communities all across the country who are suffering from the same kinds of problems.”
“They told me that it is probably the worst site in the north of England—other sites are competing for that award, but let us put that to one side for a minute. However, it became clear fairly quickly that the Environment Agency was understaffed and under-resourced and lacked the powers it needed to begin the process of enforcement.”
“At first, the Conservative Government envisaged light-touch regulation. It seemed to me—this has now been confirmed by the Minister, and I welcome her comments—that light-touch regulation simply does not allow the EA to take the necessary enforcement action when activities such as those I have described take place.”
“I welcome the robustness and energy that the Minister has brought to her task—it is very welcome. Inevitably, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth), wants to revert to some kind of light-touch approach, but we need to make sure the communities we represent are adequately protected—if necess…”
“Many, many years ago, permission was given under licence to do some recycling there, in order to eventually turn it back into arable land. When the people who live there bought their houses or moved in, they had a more than reasonable expectation that that work would be finished within a 10-year period.”
“Secondly, last Monday, we were having a planning appeal on this site, and the planning inspector went way beyond his brief and said to me—I am a Member of the governing party, but he thought I was the Government—“Will you ask the Government what they are going to do about those operators who deliberately take millions of pounds of profit…”
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“In a situation where a cowboy operator has taken millions of pounds in profit, left the place in a state and then gone into liquidation—or even gone to live abroad, as has been reported to me—what does she envisage will happen to avoid the taxpayer having to pick up the bill? These are serious matters. I will finish with this: those who I have described will welcome today’s debate and today’s action, but what they want to see next is action across the country. In my patch, we want to see some progress so that this site is no longer a horrible mess.”
“Secondly, last Monday, we were having a planning appeal on this site, and the planning inspector went way beyond his brief and said to me—I am a Member of the governing party, but he thought I was the Government—“Will you ask the Government what they are going to do about those operators who deliberately take millions of pounds of profit from a site, then abandon it at the last minute and declare themselves in liquidation?” What happens then is that either we get the putrefaction I have described, or the taxpayer has to pick up the bill. That is happening all over the country. Possibly the planning inspector abused his position—I felt slightly intimidated—but I said there was a debate today and that I would put that question to the Minister.”
“The shadow Minister has said, “Well, we’ve got to be a bit careful. We don’t want to over-regulate these things.” The idea that these activities should be dealt with using a light touch will raise a bitter laugh in the communities I represent, and in communities all across the country who are suffering from the same kinds of problems. We want action. Obviously, we do not want inappropriate action, but action must be taken. That is why I welcome the decision to proceed with this SI. I have two final questions. First, when a licence has been granted to an operator under the new procedure, if things begin to go wrong, does the Minister envisage that the EA will be able to remove that licence if a satisfactory resolution is not reached? It is quite clear that being preventive will not always work—some problems will emerge.”
“At first, the Conservative Government envisaged light-touch regulation. It seemed to me—this has now been confirmed by the Minister, and I welcome her comments—that light-touch regulation simply does not allow the EA to take the necessary enforcement action when activities such as those I have described take place. Obviously, this case is not the only one in the country, but it is worth raising to justify what is being done. I notice that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said that the powers that currently exist are reactive rather than preventive. When you are reacting, it is too late—you need to be there at the beginning to prevent things like this from taking place. I am quite sure that a much more proactive operation by the EA will be welcomed across the country.”
“They told me that it is probably the worst site in the north of England—other sites are competing for that award, but let us put that to one side for a minute. However, it became clear fairly quickly that the Environment Agency was understaffed and under-resourced and lacked the powers it needed to begin the process of enforcement. That left me worried, because people pay their tax—their council tax and so on—yet we were unable to get action. Eventually, we persuaded the Environment Agency’s enforcement people to begin to take action. The site was then refused permission to continue, but the operator simply abandoned it, or appears to have abandoned it, so no work has been done there for some time. The area is putrid; it is grossly unfair that people who live decent lives should be left in a situation like this.”
“Lots of people tell me that they cannot have their windows open in summer, and they cannot have their doors open to let a bit of fresh air in because of the problems that site is creating—a site that is five times larger than intended and has run for seven years beyond the original licence. I have spent a long time dealing with this issue, because the people of South Elmsall are decent, and I am sure we would all do the same for any community that came to us. Large numbers of people have been involved, and we quickly latched on to the Environment Agency. The officers who work for the EA are genuine, hard-working, knowledgeable people who understand the impact of a site such as this.”
“It can spread over large distances, and several hundred houses can be affected by that horrible smell. I was a witness to it the other day. When it rains, it is awful; when the wind blows, it is terrible; and when it is hot and the wind is blowing, it is really, really horrible. The other day, I spoke to a gentleman who is a long-term resident of South Elmsall. His birthday was coming up—it is a number with a zero at the end of it, so it is an important one—and he wanted to bring 30-odd members of his family to sit in the garden in the projected heatwave, but in the end they could not do it. The effect of what had been left on the site was so horrible that he could not enjoy his birthday.”
“It was intended that 50,000 tonnes would be stored at the facility; that is quite a lot, but almost 250,000 tonnes have been discovered on the site, and much of it consists of material that is not inert, but noxious. That is a problem. Not only that, because of the scale of what has been dumped there, whenever it rains, dangerous and polluted water runs into watercourses and local streams such as Frickley beck. Dust and waste is everywhere, and it escapes from the site whenever there is even a small breeze. Turning briefly to putrefaction—which I am sure we do not want to think about—the level of putrefaction on that site is quite extraordinary. It creates what I will call an odour. In Yorkshire, we would probably call it a horrible stink.”
“Many, many years ago, permission was given under licence to do some recycling there, in order to eventually turn it back into arable land. When the people who live there bought their houses or moved in, they had a more than reasonable expectation that that work would be finished within a 10-year period. It has now been 17 years and the work still has not been satisfactorily resolved, which is a great misfortune. I will come to the Environment Agency in a minute, but let me quickly describe what has been happening at the so-called ash pit. Various authorities, including the appeal inspector for the Planning Inspectorate, the EA and the council, have all indicated that what has happened on that site is completely unacceptable. Noxious materials have been placed there.”
“I welcome the robustness and energy that the Minister has brought to her task—it is very welcome. Inevitably, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth), wants to revert to some kind of light-touch approach, but we need to make sure the communities we represent are adequately protected—if necessary, by criminal action, as the Minister envisages. Let me briefly describe the small, peaceful village of South Elmsall in my constituency. Like many other communities in Britain, it consists of law-abiding, hard-working, fair-minded people who play by the rules and expect to be able to live a satisfactory life. Many of them have saved hard to take out a mortgage and buy a house or to rent one. Close by, however, there is what is called the ash pit.”
“I have not yet had the opportunity to mention the knighting of Kevin Sinfield—a great human being, a brilliant sports player and, I suppose above all, a humanitarian. One of his distinguishing characteristics is his modesty, but modesty cannot be attributed to the new boss at Royal Mail, who is driving that company into the ground, in spite of the efforts of the posties. He has paid himself a £7 million salary in a single year. Can we have a debate about corporate failure and executive reimbursement? That would allow us to express our frustration about what is happening in the country.”
“The fact of the matter is that I did not hear Conservative Members, who are here today in great numbers, asking questions about the culture of those two Prime Ministers. They contributed to the mess that this country— [ Interruption. ]”
“There are many ways of developing a culture for how to run the Government in No. 10. I was a witness to that in the years from the financial crash through to the defeat of the Labour Government—between 2008 and 2010—when I saw a Prime Minister who would never have said in Parliament or privately that there were facts of which he was unaware, because he was a man of detail. He was a man of large vision and a man who drove the state forward. Members may disagree, as I do personally, with some of the decisions that that Prime Minister took. However, that was a different culture from those under two previous Prime Ministers—Truss, and our friend with his blond hair, who created a culture in No. 10 of the exotic. We went from the exotic to the toxic.”
“First, the security department tended towards refusing the vetting of Mandelson when Sir Olly first arrived, while others thought that he did not need vetting of any kind. Then, while the vetting process was going on, the Government appeared to proceed with the appointment of Mandelson, and even the King and the United States Administration were told that he would be the ambassador. The British state then conspired to deliver a positive vetting outcome, because that is what they believed the Government wanted. It was expressed in repeated phone calls from the private office in No. 10, which I was very familiar with in the years I served in government, to Sir Olly’s private office. The witness we saw this morning looked credible and made a very serious case that he was under pressure to proceed.”
“Those two Prime Ministers in particular—the chaotic and the exotic—left this country in a disastrous situation. I do think that a Prime Minister who comes to the House and implies that he relies on a culture simply of process is mistaken. The Gordon Brown model, flawed as it was, will turn out to be far better than the one we have heard from this Prime Minister. I am sorry to say that, because I want to support a Labour Government who are effective, but that is the case. I saw it with my own eyes back then—I saw the vetting, the decisions, the pressure, and the tumult. I saw a Prime Minister struggling with their party to deliver a different kind of society and economy. Let me turn to the present events and what we learned from Sir Olly today. There are a few things that matter.”
“This House has spent literally hours discussing the appalling behaviour of Putin and Russia in relation to eastern Europe. All these things should have counted against Mandelson, but when they were weighed in the balance, they counted less than the opportunity that Mandelson offered of access to a network of people, which included the US President. I will make one final point. Mandelson played a key role in a faction that sought to change the strategic direction of the Labour party and the Government. The truth is that they wanted to change the Labour party into something it never was.”
“They wanted change in their ordinary lives: a better NHS, improvements to the cost of living and so on. We have a long way to go to deliver that. What we have delivered is a disaster with the appointment of Mandelson. I have raised the question of unemployment four times in recent months. There is growing unemployment in our area. It is hard to see how the time that the Government spent ingratiating themselves to Washington helped the unemployed and poor. Just think about Mandelson’s involvement with Russian and Chinese business. So obnoxious is China supposed to be that this place has banned all Chinese-based networks, as though they were the agencies of an enemy state. How can it be that Mandelson’s links were seen to be of such low risk?”
“The truth is that much of the nexus of wealth that Mandelson was plugged into—so was the US President, by the way—was centred around Epstein. Let me pause for a second to say that none of these facts would have emerged were it not for the courage, bravery and resistance of the women who were treated so appallingly on Epstein island. Getting Mandelson into Washington as part of that network—a political network of billionaires—was of the highest priority. All this leaves a bad taste. The Government promised the people change, but the change that they sought was to further accelerate the integration of the British state and Government into the networks of the richest people. People in our country—certainly those in my constituency—did not vote for that.”
“No, I will make progress; there are many Members on both sides wanting to speak. The hon. Member may well be pleased with some of the things I am going to say. I am developing an argument, and I want to proceed with it. The question I have not heard answered is why a group of people in No. 10—possibly the Prime Minister as well—felt that that level of pressure should be placed on the Foreign Office in favour of appointing Mandelson. There are two possible answers, but I will focus on one. The political unit in No. 10, possibly the Prime Minister too, wanted Mandelson because he was their close political ally and because he was plugged into a vast international network of what we might call the billionaire class.”
“I have spoken in a previous debate about Labour Together, so I will let the right hon. Member’s comments stand for themselves. This was a faction that sought to change the Labour party into something that it never was. If we continue down the path that has been chosen, I fear that we will be in a downward spiral from which we will not escape.”
“I thank the Minister for her response. In the austerity years, over £1 billion was taken out of youth services by the previous Government—that was shameful and damaging to the social fabric. The Minister has already indicated that we are beginning to tackle that legacy, but in mining communities, where villages are remote and there are no bus services readily available in the evening, young people are being left behind. Is there more we can do to help those mining villages? Will she also reflect on the availability of the youth centre in Upton in my constituency, which has been closed since the Tories were in office but might be used as a youth hub?”
“I echo the comments about the President’s statement on Easter Sunday, when he said that he could destroy a 2,500-year-old civilisation in an evening. Is it not clear that the strait of Hormuz was open before the President foolishly launched his illegal war? Will the Prime Minister say clearly that no British military assets or brave personnel will be put at risk by the President’s foolish idea to blockade the strait even further?”
“Q7. Two members of the same family in my constituency recently suffered serious health problems. The NHS was there for them, as we would expect, and they are both hopefully on the road to recovery. The recently departed hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) had a different idea, which was that we should have an insurance-based health policy—an American-style policy—but that family, whose costs would have been $1.2 million, would have been crucified financially by what happened. Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to say that our principles for the NHS are that it is universal for everybody, that wealth does not give privileged access and that this is a public service, not a private service?”
“I welcome the Chancellor coming to the House as soon as possible to make a statement. On profiteering in the fuel sector, the last time there was a problem with oil prices was after the war began in the east, when the then Government, following their laissez-faire market policies, allowed prices to rip to an extraordinary extent. The consequence, as we saw, was outrageous profiteering in the energy sector. Will the Chancellor indicate that we will not follow the Conservatives’ failed laissez-faire ideology, and that we will instead intervene directly in the market to prevent outrageous profiteering from occurring on this occasion?”
“I join my right hon. Friend in paying tribute to members of the armed forces, and I acknowledge too the difficult path that he has to tread. The Government’s stated objective was to achieve de-escalation of this war led by diplomacy, yet the truth is that the US planes leaving British soil, which he authorised without parliamentary consent, are carrying not diplomats but heavy payloads. The Secretary of State said that he wants these actions to be legal. What protocols has he agreed with the United States to ensure that those bombers are operating within national and international law and in a defensive capacity only? Anything else leads to a slippery slope from defence into offence.”
“The unemployment situation in my constituency and across the Yorkshire coalfield is becoming a crisis. There are 1,980 people out of work in my constituency and 70 job vacancies—that is almost 30 unemployed people pursuing every single job. No Labour Minister would ever say that employment is a price worth paying, but will the Minister tell the House that he will equally prioritise tackling unemployment and reassuring the bond markets?”
“When I was working for a living as a building worker, rather than being here, if there was a backlog of work, we were told to work through the night and at weekends, and on not very much additional pay. I wonder how it is that, today in our country, one tenth of all the courts are not even sitting, despite the backlog that the Deputy Prime Minister has told us about and many others have spoken about. Why is it that, when there is a backlog, manual workers, as I was, are made to work hard, and rightly so, to catch up, but the barristers, judges, solicitors and all the other accoutrements of a court are simply told, “Well, we’ll make it easier for you by reducing the amount of jury trials that are going to be held.” It is rather odd.”
“However, he has not said that; instead, he says that this will be a permanent change to the way that we do things. I am not convinced. This is oppressive, authoritarian and, quite honestly, much as I admire the Deputy Prime Minister, reactionary.”
“If the Deputy Prime Minister had said that the world and the country had changed, and that our way of looking at the judicial system had to be reformed, he might have had a case, although I would not necessarily agree with it. However, he has not said that. He has said that this is a contingent problem. When I was working for a living, I regularly used a ratchet—I do not know if the DPM has ever used one. A ratchet is a device that moves in only one direction. In the jury system, citizens have had, over centuries, a ratchet that gives protection from an oppressive Government. If the Deputy Prime Minister had come to the House and said that he was going to do some things that were extraordinary but temporary, to deal with the problems facing all victims, I might well have been prepared to listen to him.”
“Members have said today that we have done similarly in the past, but making mistakes in the past does not at all justify continuing to make mistakes in the present. I have not heard the case made that juries are a bad thing in principle, although we are reducing them. One further point I want to raise is the question of how the backlog occurred. Again, no one has made the case that the backlog occurred because of some sort of permanent, strategic problem with the way our judicial system works. It is the product of a series of cuts by Governments of both parties, to be honest, and of a number of failures—there was privatisation, and all sorts of other issues. If those changes are contingent, rather than permanent, and a temporary problem that can be resolved, why are we destroying an element of the jury system?”
“Let me reflect for a moment—in a sense, going back to the basics—on why juries are in place, and I think it is to do with the fact that the Crown has the power, uniquely, to imprison people and deprive them of their liberty. No other organisation has that massively powerful capacity. The point is that, in a case where the Crown—or the Government, acting on behalf of the Crown—is operating in an unreasonable, unfair or even oppressive way, what the person facing imprisonment has is the jury system. Twelve people drawn from the citizenry of our country at random are able to speak together and make a final decision about whether the Crown has made out the case that that person should be imprisoned. That is a fundamental part of our constitutional system, and the idea that we should begin to abandon it is mistaken. Some hon.”
“No. I have only five minutes, and I will have to move fast. The Deputy Prime Minister did convince me, and I am sure all of us, that there is a backlog, and it is not reasonable or fair, in terms of justice, that people should wait so long. Obviously, today we have heard some very powerful speeches from victims that reinforce the case. However, he has not shown to my satisfaction that the cause of the backlog is the juries. In fact, there is much evidence to show that they have a marginal impact at the most. The cause of the backlog is all sorts of things, including the failure of the courts to meet for long enough hours, as other working people have to do all over the country.”
“I welcome what the Leader of the House said about youth unemployment—it is essential that we tackle this problem. Unlike the Conservative party, which was happy to have 3 million people out of work under Mrs Thatcher, Labour must tackle unemployment. There is also the problem of graduate unemployment. Yesterday we had a 27-year-old constituent who came from a working-class family in an isolated pit village and who managed to get a degree. They were landed with large amounts of debt and have now spent more than a year trying to find a job. Having researched that problem, I find that it looks as though the number of graduate jobs available in our country has fallen by 45% in the last few months. I am sure the whole House feels uncomfortable about that. Can we have a debate about graduate employment, particularly in rural areas?”
“May I put it to the Minister that a significant number of Ministers in this Government, including him, received large sums of money from Labour Together? I think he received almost £60,000.”
“The Minister is shaking his head. If what I have said is untrue, I withdraw it, but a number of Ministers did receive money. Did it not leave a bad taste in many people’s minds—if you can have a bad taste in your mind—that so many Ministers were standing in judgment on another Minister who had been the director of Labour Together? Clearly, the right thing to do is to hand over the investigation to an independent third party. Narrowing the investigation down to simply one man is a mistake, given that Labour Together has made a number of serious blunders.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The House will have heard me suggest that the Minister had received a donation of almost £60,000. I withdrew that suggestion following an indication by the Minister that it was not correct. I have now had an opportunity to look at his declaration of interests for the early months of 2024. He received two donations amounting to £60,000. I accept that this was not in cash, so I want to clarify what I said, but on the other hand, the Minister has received a significant amount of money. I seek your guidance on whether Ministers who have received money need to declare their interest before responding on matters that relate to Labour Together. Maybe you have not considered that and can give us guidance later.”
“I heard today from one of my constituents who is struggling—in agony, almost—to get proper recognition of his children’s needs. When can he and everybody else expect to see results from the Secretary of State’s announcement? On the attainment gap, will she look particularly at the coalfield communities? For example, in my constituency, the least deprived 50% or more are achieving the targets for GCSEs, but the figure for the most deprived is less than a quarter, which is totally unacceptable.”
“Given the scale of the contract—it is for almost a quarter of a billion pounds—and the fact that Mandelson had had a contract with Palantir, and attended a meeting in Washington with the Prime Minister and Palantir after he became the ambassador, questions inevitably arise. May I ask the Minister explicitly whether all the papers relevant to the Prime Minister’s visit and the contract will be made available to the Intelligence and Security Committee, as we believed we decided last Wednesday? I am aware that at least five or six senior civil servants in the Ministry of Defence have gone to work with Palantir. Can we have an assurance that there are proper firewalls in place to protect the interests of the public, as against the private interests of Palantir?”
“I associate myself with the comments of the Leader of the House about Holocaust Memorial Day. Coming from a family with Jewish heritage, I feel that very strongly. One of the worst aspects of the austerity years was the impact on young people. In a community such as mine of 23 separate mining villages, all isolated, the future of the youth, who are after all the future of our country, is very difficult. Will the Leader of the House think about recommending a moment when we might discuss youth services in the country? That would give me an opportunity to raise the issue of a piece of land that has fallen into private use in Upton in my constituency. There is a covenant held by the coalfields authority, which I hope it will enforce. Such a debate would allow me to press that case.”
“The Government still have a chance to put this right, and I say this to the Minister: he has not heard the end of this problem or of the voices of the WASPI women.”
“There are 300,000 WASPI women in Yorkshire and 6,500 in my constituency. In Yorkshire we believe that politicians should say what they mean and mean what they say. Labour opposed the proposal when it was first introduced. Our leading spokesman continued to say that Labour wanted to and would deliver justice to the WASPI women. This is not justice. For the many women in my constituency and elsewhere who I have met and discussed this issue with, the idea that there would be an accelerated process of getting to a higher pension age came like a bolt out of the blue. They had no idea that it was coming so quickly. It disrupted families’ plans and the financial structures of their lives. It was a disgrace, and it was introduced by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.”
“The Foreign Secretary set three conditions for judging the transition: that it be peaceful, that it be compliant with international law and that it have the support of the Venezuelan people. All three of those conditions were broken by a lethal attack by a foreign power, planned not in Caracas but in Washington and in breach of the UN charter. Will the Foreign Secretary turn her mind for a second to the President’s idea that he will seize Venezuelan oil and turn the Venezuelan state into a colony, and advise the House of her reaction? None of those things could be supported by any Labour Government.”
“As we approach Christmas and Boxing day, let me record my pride in having been an MP when we banned foxhunting. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the Government’s commitment to welfare. Will she reiterate to the minority of people who still seem to think that it is pleasurable to kill foxes that that is totally illegal and inappropriate?”
“May I warmly endorse the generous comments of the Leader of the House about the public sector workers, often on low pay, who serve our communities, especially in holiday periods? I cannot extend that warm greeting to the management at Yorkshire Water, which has polluted our river courses, raised its prices and failed to deliver services more generally. Today we learn from the BBC that the chief executive, who earned £1.7 million over a two-year period, was secretly paid two further payments of £660,000 each. Can we have a debate about the scandalous levels of high pay in corporate Britain, particularly pay that is kept secret from the public?”
“The fact of the matter is that Britain has one of the most centralised political structures anywhere in the world. If we are to renew our democracy and rebuild confidence in the people, we need well-led, financially secure authorities that can speak powerfully to central Government, so I advise the Minister to proceed quickly and carefully with the reorganisation. [Interruption.] I do not want to listen to advice from Opposition Members. They launched a tsunami of financial attacks on local government that left councils strapped for resources. One final point: there are 10,000 parish and town councils, including quite a number in my constituency. Will the Minister look at how we can use them to help to renew our democracy?”
“Let me address the chief executive and the board of directors, who have been less than helpful, directly: if you cannot get round the table and resolve this matter—a matter of only a few thousand pounds—then you really ought to stand aside and make way for somebody else who could bring a resolution to this matter. I have met the people who are on strike; they are reasonable, decent Yorkshire folk who deserve the best possible Christmas, and that means a settlement to their dispute.”
“I do not whether know everybody knows this, but 100,000 men died underground, digging coal, in the last century. Think of the scale of that, and contrast it to the conditions that people face today. We are very proud that we have a National Coal Mining Museum to recall that history, and to show our pride. It is in Yorkshire, in the Wakefield area, for which I am an MP. A strike has been running there for almost 90 days, and I express my total support and admiration for the courage and resolution of those people who have been on strike for so long. They are now balloting to stay out probably until the summer. Think about that—the strike going through the winter and into the summer. This is just unacceptable.”
“Those who understand anything about human physiology will understand that, at 40 days and beyond, life can be very, very difficult. I am alarmed at the different kinds of advice I am getting about her condition: the governor tells me that she is receiving the medical treatment that she requires, but her lawyers tell me that she is not being properly cared for. Putting aside the pursuit of justice, I hope that the authorities at least ensure that she receives the healthcare that she requires. I will be watching the matter carefully in the coming days and weeks. My final point relates to the National Coal Mining Museum. Yorkshire is very proud of its heritage; I often say that if you dig down deep enough in my garden, you will find coal. The miners provided power, heat and light for so long, in the most difficult conditions.”
“I represent 23 former mining villages in Yorkshire, and I am very worried about the future of young people there. They are trapped in villages with little public transport, services have been cut to the bone, and there are no more youth services. They are facing great difficulty. I met some of them the other day in Featherstone. They were bright and optimistic, with eyes shining and looking forward to the future. I hope that this Government will build on the Budget announcements the other day to do more for young people. The second point I want to raise is the presence of a hunger striker—I will be very careful in what I say because of sub judice rules—in New Hall women’s prison in Wakefield. Heba Muraisi is now on day 46 of a hunger strike.”
“Q3. When the Conservatives were in government, they said that they would level up the country, but in fact they left the country divided. Austerity, de-industrialisation and stagnant wages all ripped the heart out of mining communities like the ones I represent. Everywhere we can see the legacy that the Conservatives left. How can it be right that the hard-working, loyal people in my constituency earn £400 a week, or £20,000 a year, less than people who live in Kensington? Will the Prime Minister declare that it is the Government’s moral purpose to eliminate economic injustice—starting, in the Budget next week, with an announcement of massive investment in the north, and wherever else poverty and low pay raise their heads?”