Justin Madders
MP for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard asked about, will consider the points raised in this debate and whether any of them can be put into future updates to guidance. As was mentioned, good passenger information is central to standards.”
“As the roads Minister, I of course recognise the importance of bus stops and the important effect they have on the streetscape. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard made clear that she is passionate and informed about the importance of bus journeys to everyone.”
“Where responsibility for highways or individual assets sits elsewhere, close and effective working between the relevant authorities is essential. We expect local plans to join up services, infrastructure and passenger information, rather than treating them as separate issues. That will no doubt be music to the ears of my hon.”
“Our guidance encourages authorities to take a strategic approach to stops and interchanges, including keeping an inventory of infrastructure, identifying priorities for investment and setting locally appropriate standards for facilities and maintenance.”
“She is absolutely right that the quality of a bus stop is about more than accessibility, although of course accessibility is vital. Passengers notice whether a stop is easy to find and use, whether it offers shelter or seating where appropriate, whether it is clean, whether the surroundings feel safe and well maintained and, as we have di…”
“That approach reflects a simple principle: local transport authorities know their areas and are best placed to plan improvements across the whole local bus network. That is why the Department’s vision for buses, within an integrated transport system, puts local transport authorities at the centre of delivery.”
The complete record
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“Borrowing tropes from conspiracy theories, I found one website referring to the WHO as “globalists” that “drain our resources, serve our enemies, and continue working to establish a global dictatorship over everyone and everything.” That sentiment is clearly ludicrous, as is the reference to the WHO being owned by Bill Gates or the Chinese Government. The reality is far more mundane than the narrative spun. The first key point to remember is that nothing has yet been agreed. The treaty is being negotiated as we speak by, among others, representatives of the United Kingdom. It cannot be viewed as being imposed on us when we are helping to develop it. It is also important to note that it was our Prime Minister at the time who was one of the signatories to the statement of intent to instigate the discussions.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Sharma. This debate is incredibly important. It raises issues about sovereignty but also delves into far broader issues that we have touched on already. I am under no illusions as to why the petition has received such a large number of signatures: because of what has been suggested could be in the treaty. While doing research for this debate, I found a broad range of concerns, some of which are entirely reasonable and others that are completely absurd. On the absurd side, a narrative has been created that the World Health Organisation is a body intent on world domination.”
“Often, there were no SAGE minutes that stated that these matters had been considered either. Often, what SAGE recommended did not even make it into regulations. I am sure that many of us can remember the contradictions and the confusion about some of the measures: around why an area was in a particular tier, the lack of clarity about how areas moved in and out of tiers, the decision to close pubs—”
“On numerous occasions, there was no objective reason why that needed to be case. Indeed, sometimes the rules were made publicly available on the Government website only minutes before they became law. Trying to obtain clarity about which measures, individually or collectively, were considered likely to lead to an increase or decrease in transmission rates was mission impossible. When we were able to see the minutes of meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies—in the early stages of the pandemic, we were not—there was often very little correlation between them and the measures being debated. Sometimes, there was no statement in the explanatory memorandum that the measures being put forward in the regulations had even been considered by a scientific adviser.”
“It took the world far too long to understand that in a pandemic no one is safe until everyone is safe. To my mind, the question is much more about whether this Parliament and this Government are up to the task of dealing with another public health emergency in a way that ensures that democratic accountability and public confidence are maintained. As someone who spent many hours dealing with public health regulations during the covid pandemic, I think there is much to be done to improve Parliament’s role. We know that, at times, decisions had to be taken quickly, but far too often covid regulations were debated weeks or even months after they were introduced. As the pandemic progressed, I felt that no effort was being made to ensure that regulations were debated before they came into force.”
“It is those nations that want to undermine western liberal democracies and to create disarray that are pushing the narrative that there is an unaccountable, unelected, global group of people seeking to take control of our lives. We can both protect our values of freedom and democracy and work more closely with other countries in the face of a global threat. Those two aims can be entirely consistent with one another. Creating a global treaty is an entirely reasonable and responsible course of action. One of the most important messages to emerge from covid-19 was that we need to be better prepared for the next pandemic. We have learned that global co-operation is crucial to success, whether that is by co-ordinating measures to suppress transmission or conducting vaccine roll-outs.”
“Fact checkers have consistently stated that the WHO would have no capacity to force members to comply with public health measures. A WHO spokesperson said: “As with all international instruments, any accord, if and when agreed, would be determined by governments themselves, who would take any action while considering their own national laws and regulations.” The idea that we would allow our citizens to be imprisoned by a third party for expressing an opinion on something in this country is absurd. It is just not going to happen. We live in a liberal democracy and I know that Members from across the House are determined to keep it that way.”
“They state fears that the treaty will restrict freedom of speech to the extent that dissenters could be imprisoned, that it will impose instruments that impede on our daily life and that it will institute widespread global surveillance without warning and without the consent of world leaders. In other words, some of the hallmarks of totalitarian Governments are to be combined with supercharged lockdown measures, which are all, of course, already in the power of the Government under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. Under this treaty, those things will apparently be done without our Government having a say. If those claims had any basis in fact, we would all be rightly concerned, but they do not stand up to scrutiny.”
“From that we can see that the guiding mission is: “to prevent pandemics, save lives, reduce disease burden and protect livelihoods, through strengthening, proactively, the world’s capacities for preventing, preparing for and responding to, and recovery of health systems from, pandemics.” I would be very surprised if anyone objected to that as a set of guiding principles, but it is reasonable to ask what the definition means in practice, what the procedure is for declaring a pandemic, and what safeguards will be in place to ensure individual liberty and rights are protected. Those questions and that ambiguity have been seized upon by those who want to undermine global co-operation.”
“Given the amount of time that this House has spent debating questions of national sovereignty over the past five or six years, would we do something that would give away sovereignty? There are important principles about parliamentary accountability that we need to bear in mind. It would be unfair to allow some of the wilder conspiracy theories to overshadow legitimate concerns about any potential infringement on our sovereignty and democracy. On the specifics of the treaty, as I have said already, the key point to note is that it has not been finalised yet, but we do know the broad parameters of negotiations set out in the latest “zero draft” published in February.”
“I am grateful to the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, who has a great deal of experience in this area. As a country, we are leaders in the field. We should be proud of our role in creating the WHO and fighting the pandemics that have happened in recent years. It is also the case that, as with all treaties, there is an opportunity for parliamentary intervention. That is already established, and the Government have committed that any subsequent domestic regulations would need to be passed before the treaty was ratified. As we have already heard, we can, if we so decide, opt out, so there is no question that this is something that will be done to us. As a sovereign nation we have the opportunity to say no.”
“If we do not seek to work together to meet those challenges, we will ultimately all be the worse off for it.”
“The treaty has nothing to do with Bill Gates, and it is not the first step in creating a world-dominating authoritarian state. I do not believe that it will even impede our sovereignty. It will enable the combined efforts of our brilliant researchers, medics and scientists jointly to tackle the increased threat that we face from pandemics. We achieve far more as a species when we work together. The far bigger risk to our continued existence on this planet is not the so-called great reset, but a descent into paranoia and distrust, such that we avoid using our brightest and best, they end up working in silos, and they do not share their knowledge and efforts collectively. We want to avoid that. From pandemics to climate change and eradicating global poverty, we face many challenges as a species, some of which are existential.”
“But there is a world of difference between doing that and descending into the dark world of conspiracy theories that suggest that vaccines do more harm than good. That risks pushing people away from potentially life-saving interventions and, over the long term, damaging the public’s perception of the importance of a tool that has been used to eradicate diseases that frequently ruined lives. From smallpox to tuberculosis and polio, vaccines have saved millions of lives over the years. We cannot now abandon the importance of that work because of a few videos on YouTube. We need to be able to challenge and question, of course, but we should not ignore what decades of experience have shown us about the value of vaccinations.”
“If decisions are taken transparently and—dare I say it—if everyone is seen to be following the rules, we stand a much better chance of maintaining public confidence that the measures are necessary. There has been a bit of talk about vaccine harms today. I do not want to be seen as unfairly critical of those who have raised those concerns. I understand that sometimes there is a deep desire for a rational explanation for the sudden loss of a loved one. I also believe that we should be able to ask legitimate questions about vaccines: it is perfectly reasonable to debate who should receive a vaccine and how often they should receive it. It is also legitimate to scrutinise Government decisions, particularly ones that impinge on individual liberty.”
“It was a fast-moving and unprecedented situation but, given the draconian nature of the regulations, we needed to be better at parliamentary scrutiny than we were. The release of the WhatsApp messages of the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), has certainly given me food for thought. Perhaps not all the decisions were made on a scientific basis. If we find ourselves amidst another pandemic in which measures that affect people’s daily lives are proposed, this place’s ability to openly scrutinise and question Government on decisions before they are made, as well as its access to the full scientific advice, will be vital.”
“If that was how it was going to proceed, I would agree with the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not believe that is the case. Any Government Member concerned about parliamentary sovereignty and scrutiny would not have voted for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which has put thousands of laws into the hands of Ministers without any parliamentary accountability. Let me return to the question of how the last pandemic was dealt with. There were other examples of decisions being made seemingly without any evidence to back them up—the decision to close pubs at 10 o’clock is a good example—and there was also the lack of coherence about why people were allowed to meet in groups of not more than six and why certain establishments could reopen and some could not.”
“We are very proud that the Canal & River Trust has its headquarters in Ellesmere Port, but like everyone else it has been struggling with increasing costs relating to covid and energy. It is waiting for an answer from the Government about what will happen with its grant funding, so will the Secretary of State give us a date by which a decision will be made and guarantee there will be no cuts to its grant funding?”
“This is an urgent question, but I do not get a sense of urgency from the Secretary of State that he wants to resolve the dispute. I am afraid that standing at the Dispatch Box and traducing the junior doctors for their approach will not help to resolve this matter. I urge him to drop any preconditions on any future meetings, because the only way that this can be resolved is through negotiation. Will he do that now?”
“So may we have a statement from the relevant Minister on what is going to happen to improve access for children to orthodontic services?”
“I am grateful to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee for announcing that there is going to be a debate on NHS dentistry, because clearly a lot of Members are concerned about that issue, but may we also please have a statement on children’s access to orthodontic services? In the past couple of weeks, a couple of constituents have contacted me with concerning issues that they have raised regarding their children. One has been told that there is a three-year wait for a referral to an orthodontist, when their dentist has told them that action needs to be taken within 12 months otherwise it will not work. Another has been told that they cannot have the work required because sedation is no longer available for children.”
“That looked to me like blatant exploitation. Luckily for him, his father was the shadow employment rights Minister so he could be guided on what to do in that situation, but it begs the question: how many other times have they gotten away with that? How many hours each week are young people being asked to work trial shifts for which they get no payment? The Minister should be tasking his officials with trying to find out exactly how many times this happens each week, because we are probably seeing only the tip of the iceberg.”
“Does he agree that, given that the majority of people in these sectors are young people, because of the nature of the work, and are unlikely to be members of a trade union, they need support in enforcing their rights? Let me give an example from my own family of what is probably a pretty typical situation. My son has plenty of experience working in bars—quite often in Glasgow, actually. He has applied for various jobs in bars, including one at a bar in Chester. He had an interview. He has all the experience needed to work there, but was offered a trial shift despite the fact that he clearly could do the job. It transpired that the trial shift would run for eight hours and finish in the early hours of the morning, when there is no public transport, so he would have to pay for a taxi out of his own pocket to get home.”
“As we know, there are six factors in the guidance that a court or tribunal will consider when making a judgment about whether a trial shift should be paid. I ask the Minister to consider how many people have the legal knowledge, patience, time or money to pursue an employer for a handful of hours of lost earnings at the tribunal, particularly if they are in a legally vulnerable position from having no employment protection at that point. Does the Minister agree that the threat of being taken to a tribunal for an unpaid trial shift is self-evidently a hollow threat to employers, and that the Department should be much more proactive in pursuing complaints on behalf of workers?”
“When we are confronted with the evidence that we have heard today and on previous occasions, the suspicion continues to grow that they are often used as a quick way to get free labour. We have to ask what is being done to stop jobseekers being exploited. Although it is welcome that the Government have published guidance on the practice of unpaid trial shifts, it is not worth the paper it is written on without proper enforcement. There is a problem with both the wording of the guidance and the Government’s general attitude to upholding UK employment law. In particular, I have concerns about the fact that, as the guidance notes, there are no definitive rules or tests for whether a trial shift is legal.”
“As we have heard, there clearly ought to be means by which an employer can test an individual’s suitability for a position, but—call me old-fashioned—I have always thought that that was what a job interview was for. If not that, what about a paid probationary period for someone to be assessed for their suitability? Let us not forget that people have to work somewhere continuously for two years before they get any protection against unfair dismissal, which could be seen as a very long trial period, albeit one that is paid. When we consider the many options available to employers to assess the suitability of potential employees in the round, we inevitably get drawn to the conclusion that, in the main, trial shifts are not necessary—certainly not unpaid ones.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for securing the debate and for the work he has done over six years to try to deal with this wholly egregious situation. We can probably start on a note of common concern, because every right-minded person would regard it as wrong that workers should be expected to work for free. In many cases, as we have heard, they actually end up out of pocket after working a trial shift. I firmly believe that we should all adhere to the principle that there should be a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, and any action to stop exploitation—whatever form it takes—should be welcome.”
“I want to hear from the Minister about what more can be done to ensure that people get paid for the work they do, and to ensure that these ruses, in all their forms, are put to an end, so that we get to a point in this country where a fair day’s work means a fair day’s pay.”
“As I have mentioned to him on previous occasions, a number of Departments have awarded lucrative contracts running into the hundreds of millions of pounds to companies that have appeared on the list of shame. What kind of message does it send to companies about the importance that the Government place on enforcement of the national minimum wage if they are then rewarded with Government contracts? I hope the Minister can give us an update on when the next list will be released. In conclusion, the debate is a useful reminder that this is unfinished business. We can see very clearly how current ambiguities are being used to exploit workers.”
“As has been mentioned, we have this figure of £3 billion for unpaid work in various forms—it is probably is an even greater figure now. The continued reliance on an underfunded and overstretched tribunal system is failing our workers. Surely it is time for a single enforcement body to follow through for workers to ensure that their rights are enforced. I know the Government promised that along with an employment Bill, which we unsurprisingly have touched on. Will the Minister give us a timescale for when this single enforcement body will emerge? The Government’s record on national minimum wage enforcement in recent times has been concerning. A naming and shaming list has not been published since December 2021, and I know the Minister has expressed his support for that as an important pillar of enforcement.”
“I am not sure Hansard can record in a polite way the suggestion that I conveyed to him. Let me put it this way: the employment relationship did not continue. The six factors contained in the guidance are useful, but a lot of subjectivity is applied to them. For example, how is observation—which is one of the criteria—defined? How long is a reasonable period of observation? Ultimately, how can a jobseeker be expected to know if their employer has acted in line with the guidance, given how ambiguous it is? The ACAS website does not make any reference to trial shifts at all. People need a lot more support to understand when they are being asked to do something that is unlawful. Ambiguities aside, the guidance needs to be properly enforced.”
“At the very least, it should not be the remit of just one Minister in one Department; it should be a central mission across all Departments. If the Government are serious about tackling injustice and widening opportunity, it must be driven from the very top.”
“In their defence, they say: “Having memberships to the multiple platforms will give you access to the most job opportunities and increase your visibility to casting”. That sounds reasonable enough, but I suggest it would also be reasonable to put all the jobs on one site and not charge at all. We can debate the morality of this business model another time, but I wonder whether the Minister thinks it is right for a profession that is notoriously difficult to access to be exploiting people and charging them just to look at what jobs are available. I conclude by asking the Minister another question about where social mobility lies in the Government’s list of priorities. As we have heard, if social mobility is to be tackled properly, we need to tackle more than just access to work. It is about tax, welfare, housing, transport and health.”
“I mention them because they are a new way of exploiting young people’s ambitions. Most acting jobs now are hidden behind paywalls, costing anywhere from £15 and £19 a month to access. What kind of world do we live in where someone has to pay a subscription just to see whether there are any jobs they might want to apply for? There are three companies that seem to operate in this way: Spotlight, Mandy and StarNow, which I see regularly advertising on social media. I say three companies advisedly, because Backstage and StarNow seem to have almost identical websites, and Mandy and StarNow have the same registered office and similar directors. Perhaps I am missing something about why I need to have three separate subscriptions.”
“Three quarters of senior judges, more than half the top 100 news journalists, more than half the Cabinet and two thirds of British Oscar winners are privately educated. We have already heard the statistic that someone is 24 times more likely to be in medicine if their parents are already in it. Our report is six years old but just as relevant today. I would really like to see some of the practical recommendations in it implemented, such as a ban on unpaid internships, which really take the ladder away from many who are trying to get on the first rung. Exploitation is taking place at entry level. Drama is one area where opportunities are limited. I should point out, for the record, that my son is an aspiring actor and uses some of the services I am about to mention.”
“Social mobility ought to concern us all. I am not comfortable living in a country where the chances of success are heavily influenced by where someone is born and who they are to. The Sutton Trust’s report “Elites in the UK: Pulling Away?” found that one in five men in professional occupations who were born between 1955 and 1961 became socially mobile, but the figure drops to one in eight for those born between 1975 and 1981. In other words, as generations go by, we are becoming a less mobile nation. When I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group on social mobility, we did a report on access to professions, including medicine, law, politics, media and art. Those are the areas where the lack of opportunity is most prevalent.”
“That uncertainty and anxiety should weigh very heavily on the shoulders of Conservative Members.”
“We need to get the banking hubs up and running in every town and city in the country, and to ensure that businesses are required to accept cash. Let me end by quoting the words of a disabled constituent who, because she is on legacy benefits, has missed out on thousands of pounds of extra help already, but whose situation is becoming steadily worse. She told me: “I am out of pocket now by well over £400 a month—due to mortgage payments, energy costs, food costs and petrol. I’ve had to sell furniture to cover this cost! Does this government think this is acceptable?... And what happens next month?...How am I supposed to live?” I do not know what will happen to my constituent next month, or the month after that, or what will happen to the many other constituents in the same position.”
“That is not what devolution is about. It is a diktat from the top, and the Government ought to be ashamed of themselves for attempting to bully areas into accepting a Mayor when there is no public appetite for one. I want to say a few words about access to cash, as I was unable to attend a Westminster Hall debate on the subject earlier today because I was in the Chamber. As we know, millions of adults rely on cash to a great extent in their daily lives, and many of them are vulnerable or disabled. I know from talking to constituents that it is getting harder and harder to put cash into bank accounts. That means that lots of businesses cannot accept cash because the branches in which they used to put the cash have gone.”
“So far, no official rationale has been offered for the removal of support from us, and there has certainly been no offer of an alternative scheme or support. We are being treated with contempt. It is particularly galling that, when we look at the areas that have been chosen, it looks as if we are being punished because we do not have and do not want an elected Mayor. Only two weeks ago, during a Westminster Hall debate, three Cheshire Members asked for a meeting with the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), so that we could try to make progress with our devolution plans. Needless to say, we have not received a response, and now we learn that we are to be consigned to the devolution dustbin because we will not dance to the Government’s tune and give them an elected Mayor.”
“Last year, we in Cheshire did think briefly that it would be recognised that areas outside the city regions might need some special attention when it was announced during the September “fiscal event” that Ellesmere Port’s industrial area would be one of 40 investment zones, but last week we mysteriously disappeared from the list of investment zones, with no explanation, no apology, and no refund for the time and money that had been wasted in preparation for something that will not now happen. For us, as for so many areas, last week’s announcement came as a crushing blow. In fact, it has been estimated that local authorities spent some £12.5 million on preparing bids that are now completely redundant. What a waste of resources, when local authorities are already stretched.”
“There should be an OBR forecast of how many more people are expected to use food banks, but in its absence I will quote our local citizens advice bureau: “The scale and size of the crisis is unlike anything we’ve seen and it’s affecting people we haven’t helped with crisis support before with this being nearly 50% higher than 2021 and more than double the numbers we helped in 2020.” The number of people it has helped who are in employment has also doubled since 2020, which tells us everything we need to know about how wages have not kept up with costs and how our economy is stagnating.”
“The OBR has forecast that real wages will not return to their 2008 level until 2026. That really is a dramatic statistic that shows how badly we have all done under this Government. If wages had continued to increase at their pre-2008 rate, every single one of us would have been £233 a week better off today, and that gap would grow to £304 a week by 2027. As we have heard, the Resolution Foundation has put a figure of £11,000 a year on what 15 years of wage stagnation has cost every family in this country. That should really give us a warning about the direction we are travelling in. By the end of this decade, average incomes will lag behind those in Poland if we carry on as we are. We are paying more for worsening public services and earning less in the process. This is hitting the majority of people really hard.”
“It is a telling sign of how low expectations have got that last week we had the absurd spectacle of the Chancellor standing up at the start of his speech and telling us we would not be going into a recession this year, as if that were some kind of triumph. It does not get much better beyond this year, either: over the entire Parliament, growth is forecast to be just 0.5% a year on average, which is way below historical standards. What makes all this worse is that we have sky-high inflation right now. As we have heard, real wage growth has been non-existent since 2010, and real wages are projected to be 5% less at the beginning of 2025 than at the start of 2019. Before Conservative Members use the pandemic as an excuse, we must not forget that that is part of an 18-year pay squeeze.”
“When we are the only economy in the G7 that is still smaller than it was pre-pandemic, it is not unreasonable to expect greater urgency from the Government when dealing with turning that around, but I came away from last week’s Budget thinking, “Is that it?” The Opposition recognise that this is not a moment for tweaking the current, failed approach to the economy. When the major tax change announced is a tax cut for the richest 1% that is badged as a plan to help the NHS, we have embarrassing levels of spin that would make even the hardiest spin doctor blush, as well as making real doctors cringe at the thought of being used as a cover for a tax giveaway for the richest.”
“May I suggest to the Minister that, as part of this, he looks at reforming statutory sick pay? The pandemic laid bare the inadequacies of that system. Millions of people do not qualify at all, and the rate is one of the lowest in Europe. If we are genuine about getting people with long-term health conditions into the workplace, we need a proper safety net for when they fall ill.”
“The activities of bailiffs have been closely examined as a result of the prepayment meter scandal of recent weeks, but can we look at their wider activities? My constituent’s life is being made a misery by one such company, Bristow & Sutor, regarding a parking fine that they have paid but about which they are still being harassed and threatened with the vehicle being taken away. The company will not respond to her or to me, and it seems completely unaccountable and unaware of the distress that it is causing. As a House, we should be looking more at what bailiffs are doing.”
“We are seeking devolved powers, particularly in transport—on buses, for example. As we know, we are currently at the mercy of bus companies pulling out services at a moment’s notice. We also want to improve economic regeneration and get more housing in the right areas to meet the local housing need. There is a well-developed plan, which has been on the shelf for many years now, and we just want the opportunity to deliver it. Leave preconditions about mayors who do not have local support at the door and, instead, talk to us about what more we can do to improve the lives of the people we represent. Do not dictate to us; liberate us. That is what genuine devolution is all about.”
“People already feel they do not have the power to take important decisions about the things in their lives that are most important to them, whether it is a local hospital that should stay open, where a new school might go or even how often the buses run. To empower local areas, we need a different, long-term approach that actually attempts to tackle the underlying issues and to really empower local communities by giving them the responsibility, power and resources to shape their own futures by—dare I say it—allowing them to take back control. My plea to the Minister is to meet us and give us the keys to unlock the potential for our area. I have been in this place for nearly eight years, and throughout that time we have heard many times how the Government are prepared to allow greater devolution in Cheshire, but we always get left behind.”
“I do not believe that we should forgive such a petulant and inflexible approach; I suspect the public we represent will not forgive such an approach either. Genuine devolution is not about telling areas what governance they must have, creating extra layers of bureaucracy or dictation from the centre. As we know, in this country power and wealth flow towards London and the south-east, then upwards into Westminster. Any power and resources that are given away usually go on Westminster’s terms, with Westminster’s priorities at the forefront. I believe that is the wrong approach. For too long people have felt left behind and held back by a system that does not work for them.”