Rushanara Ali
MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney · Labour · United Kingdom
“Friend and I studied at the same secondary school and, as children and young people, along with our peers, benefited from learning about the battle of Cable Street and by visiting the memorial that she spoke about, which has inspired young people in the generations that came after as well as before us, and it continues to do so.”
“Friend, so I was able to meet many powerful advocates of the anti-racism movement, including two of my former constituents who are no longer with us. I pay tribute to their struggles and what they did.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) on securing this important Adjournment debate. She represented Cable Street until the last general election, and I am very proud to represent it now. She and I have much in common.”
“I hope that as we mark the 90th anniversary of the battle of Cable Street, we can all work together to redouble our efforts to build strong communities, cohesion and strong inter-faith relations, as well as relations with those with no faith, and recognise that the modern-day challenge of intolerance and hatred is even greater in some res…”
“They were two people who inspired me and supported me through my political career, along with many others in our community who told the story of the anti-racism movement and continued to work across communities. My hon. Friend spoke eloquently about that period and what happened afterwards.”
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his incredibly moving and courageous statement. He has been a friend of Israelis and Palestinians. When he was Leader of the Opposition, he and the Labour party recognised Palestinian statehood, and I am proud of the fact that this Labour Government have recognised Palestinian statehood.”
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“In the last quarter of 2023, productivity was estimated to be 0.3% lower compared with the year before, according to the Office for National Statistics. What we have, and have had, is sluggish productivity, flatlining growth, stagnant wages and rising prices. No wonder our country is in recession. As a consequence, the Government have presided over declining investment in our public services. We have seen the spectre of queues for dentist appointments; people stuck in hospitals because of the failure to invest in local government and social care; the police struggling to cope because of underfunding and cuts in police numbers; the criminal justice system facing massive cuts and, as a result, people not getting justice; major infrastructure projects cancelled, such as HS2, which means that investors have lost confidence; and so much more.”
“In constituencies such as mine, and up and down the country, it means millions more children living in poverty during the last 14 years, children in this country going hungry because of the failures of this Government, and parents having to work more hours just to keep their head above water. That is the consequence of what the Conservatives have done to people’s lives in this country. The Budget leaves those who earn £19,000 or less worse off. That cannot be right. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts show that GDP will grow by just 0.8% in 2024 and 1.8% in 2025. What about productivity? The Government have talked about the productivity puzzle for a very long time, but they have not managed to address it.”
“That is nearly two decades of lost pay growth, nearly two decades of people not seeing an improvement in their living standards, and nearly two decades of people having to face real-terms wage cuts. By contrast, real wage growth across the OECD as a whole has risen by almost 9%, on average, over the same period. This is costing British workers an average of £3,600 per year. It means that they have had less to spend and, on top of that, they have had to live through the mini-Budget crisis, made in Downing Street, and the cost of living crisis that came after that. The House of Commons Library shows that UK food and alcoholic drink prices were nearly 7% higher in January 2024 than the previous year, based on the CPI measure of inflation. What does that mean in practice?”
“He said: “He wants to be prudent and responsible, and he wants to cut taxes. The reality is that he cannot do both.” I have a lot of time for the current Chancellor, who inherited an awful situation, but he has not faced up to the reality of needing to be responsible. His former colleague set that out in the article. It is not Labour that is attacking the decisions of the current Chancellor; it is his own former colleague, who was a respected Treasury Minister. When it comes to growth, one does not need to be an economist to know that the Government’s economic policy is failing. Wages have fallen behind and, according to the Resolution Foundation, real wages will only return to 2008 levels by 2026.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. Those reports were well publicised at the time, and it is shocking that there has not been an investigation or an inquiry into what happened. Shockingly, the then Chancellor and Prime Minister continued to behave as if they had done nothing wrong, as if we should be grateful that they were in charge at the time. They continue to go on speaking circuits, gaslighting the British public, having crashed the economy and ruined their lives. We are still paying for that. The time cannot come soon enough for this episode to be over, for a fresh start with a new Labour Government. Of the current Chancellor and his Budget, the former Treasury Minister David Gauke said in an article in the New Statesman that the Budget was a “work of fiction”.”