Gareth Snell
MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“My hon. Friend is touching on something really important, because the other part of the issue is the length of time that people have to sit in front of a screen in order to get to the front of the queue.”
“The Minister says that there will be a review within six months, but can she be clearer to give us certainty? Will it start within six months or will it have concluded within six months? If it starts within six months, how long does she anticipate it will take?”
“I would like to declare an interest as the vice-chair of the Unison group of MPs. The Minister rightly says that it is a false choice between good employment relations or growing the economy.”
“The Minister has not touched on the cap on fines for big companies. Does she think that is sufficient? Amazon’s turnover this year was £30 billion—that is 30,000 million. The maximum fine that it could get in a calendar year is half a million pounds—one sixty-thousandth of its turnover.”
“When the Labour party went through a terrible time with our own antisemitism crisis, the hon. Gentleman was a staunch friend of the Jewish members of my party, and I know that many of them remember him fondly for that.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on making a wonderful speech. He will know, because he is from Leeds, that one of the people spending most of their time propagating that sort of virulent antisemitism is the deputy leader of the Green party in Leeds, who once posted a list of British people—some Jewish—saying “bought and sold by Israel”, pur…”
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“So somebody who already had the level 7 qualification, or had been trained somewhere else through a company that could afford it, would come into Stoke, do the level 7 job, attract that level 7-equivalent salary and take it back to where they actually lived. That would mean that the level 7 salaries those young people were going to earn and spend in Stoke-on-Trent would end up migrating to other, slightly more affluent places in the midlands—and, candidly, there are many more affluent places in the midlands than Stoke-on-Trent.”
“They were not at the mid or tail-end of their careers looking for a final bump before they got to their pension; they were young people who had come in after GCSEs, done their basic accountancy skills and had their eyes firmly set on a chartered accountancy qualification. The levy was allowing them to do that. I asked the young people where they were all from, expecting them to be from the city, which they were. I then asked them where they wanted to work once they had their chartered accountancy status and, wonderfully, they all wanted to stay in Stoke-on-Trent and practise the craft that they had been learning. The economic benefit of that to my city is that if it were not for the ability of that company to train to level 7 using the apprenticeship levy, it would have to import that labour from neighbouring areas.”
“The week before last, I visited DJH accountants in Stoke-on-Trent, which is a significant regional player that is training its own generation of chartered accountants at level 7 using the apprenticeship levy that would otherwise just disappear into the Treasury. People there explained to me quite succinctly, and I agreed, that through their own means they simply would not have the available capital or cash to fund the quantity of training courses that they run. The apprenticeship levy allows them to grow a group of young people into chartered accountants. The people I met were all young.”
“I am afraid that anything that seeks to delay the advancement of this Bill, such as new clause 1, new clause 4 and amendment 6, will not get my support this evening. I do, however, wish to spend a few minutes on my own new clause 2, which is a probing amendment. It is not intended to cause any frustration or Divisions; I say to the Whip that I am not seeking to test the House’s opinion on it. However, when we consider what apprenticeships will look like in the future and what they mean for cities such as Stoke-on-Trent, it is important to understand that level 7 apprenticeships, funded by the apprenticeship levy, are a genuinely important part of the educational offer available to young people in my constituency.”
“I do not expect or hope any Government to come over the hill like a cavalry, with a big sack of cash, saying, “Here you go—here is what you need.” It is partly on us to do that, by matching up the skills that we have and the skills that we need in the city to do the jobs of today and the future jobs of tomorrow. That is really important. The local skills improvement plan put together by our chambers of commerce and colleges has gone some way to achieving that. However, as always, it is a bit like wading through treacle, because we get to where we think we are going to be and all of a sudden something appears that makes it more difficult. Then, the people who struggle with that are the young people.”
“Even though I do not have an apprentice in my office like my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), as of next week a T-level student will be in a placement there for the next 18 months, to help their advancement. My impatience stems from the necessity of identifying the skills that we need in the city I represent and of making sure that the next generation of young people coming through education have them. That is the only way I can see for us to fulfil our desire and ambition to rebuild our economy and attract those higher quality, well-paid and long-term jobs into the city that will mean higher wages and the ability to dig ourselves out of our city’s economic troubles.”
“If I may, I will start by joining my colleagues on the Government Benches in my opposition to new clause 1, new clause 4 and amendment 6. Well-meaning they may be, but I am impatient for change. Stoke-on-Trent has one of the highest rates of youth disengagement in education, employment or training in the country. As always, when we look at those heat maps, we see the big yellow splodge in the middle of the midlands, which is Stoke-on-Trent, showing that we have one of the highest numbers of workers in the country with no form of formal qualification whatever. Our young people tend to find themselves unable to access any form of training or support that they need to make a future career for themselves. I declare my interest as a governor of the City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College, as we offer T-levels.”
“If I have heard the Minister right, the first report that will come out will include aspects of the implications for higher-degree apprenticeships, but the funding decisions will still sit with the Department, as they should. Will the report refer to the funding decisions made by the Secretary of State, so that when it comes to the impact of the decisions made, we can see correlation and causation?”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I was concerned by what I think I heard the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) say about the rate at which the living wage is paid to young people, almost advocating for a reduction in that rate because of the impact it would have on business. Does my hon. Friend agree that is a rather regressive view, given that what young people need is the ability to pay their bills, live a life they enjoy and build a home for themselves in the future?”
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. I will be clear that St Patrick was not born in Stoke-on-Trent—of that, I think we can all be certain. In genuine sincerity, the fact that we are all here this evening in joyful spirits discussing the potential for St Patrick’s day to be a UK bank holiday demonstrates the importance of the nation’s saints in bringing people together. The hon. Gentleman talked about teaching our children to help them to understand their identity. Too often, the St George’s cross is misappropriated by people for nefarious means. It is our flag and we own it, just as the St Patrick’s cross is the flag of the hon. Gentleman, and it is important that we use and celebrate them. I think he will agree that by doing so, we can teach our children about their history and their future.”
“It is clear that the Government are making a serious attempt to remove the barriers preventing people with mental health conditions from entering work. May I issue an invitation to the Minister, and commend to her the work of the combined healthcare trust in Stoke-on-Trent and its peer support mentors? These are people who have overcome mental health challenges and now work with other people struggling with their own mental health to build confidence and opportunity. Whatever plan the Government introduce, work of this kind should be central to it, and I think that if they came to see it, they would be very impressed.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. The Forum theatre in her constituency sounds like a venue that I should put on my to-visit list, because she is making such a great pitch for it. I am very lucky in my constituency to have the Rep theatre, the Mitchell arts centre, the work by Restoke at Fenton town hall and the Dipping House, which is a community venue running high-profile performances. Those venues bring opportunities for local people not only to engage in the arts, but to hear their stories reflected back in the stories of our community played out on stage. Does she agree that such stories are often overlooked by national production companies? If we do away with community theatres, we end up losing our history to what is commercially viable nationally.”
“The other point that the Minister is making is that community theatres tend to solve the problems that drive the demand in those acute and expensive services in the first place, by giving people a social outlet.”
“I am happy to declare my interest as a member of three trade unions, but I got less from them than the shadow Minister got from a small business—I think his declaration is £12,500. Does he feel the need to declare that, given that he is now making a case against legislation that would impact that company?”
“We can find out, Madam Deputy Speaker; I believe it is. Can you advise whether Conservative Members who received money from businesses affected by this legislation should make a declaration in the same way that we trade unionists do?”
“I guess that the hon. Gentleman has never been a member of a trade union or participated in an industrial ballot. Members choose to go on strike once the ballot has finished; no one forces them to go on strike. When members give up a day’s pay to go on strike, they do so because they are fighting for improvements to their terms and conditions. He is making out as though they are somehow compelled to strike. When members turn out for a strike, they do so because of their strength of feeling about the conditions they face—nothing more.”
“Through support for jobs, support for skills, the prominence of the industrial strategy and support for a clean transition, the Minister has demonstrated what is possible when there is political will. To quote her words back to her, when will we be able to give the sector the support and clarity it needs to continue operating for some decades? The ceramics sector would love a package like this—or is the ceramics sector not sufficiently important enough?”
“These are people who have lived their entire life in hope for the land that they and their families have come from, with which they still have a deep bond and connection. I know the Minister well. She is a thoughtful, diligent member of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office team and I know that these matters weigh heavily on her shoulders. Can she give us some indication of what we in this House can look forward to? What can we say to our constituents in, for example, Stoke-on-Trent, Bradford, Birmingham or even Strangford, when they ask what action we are now taking to deliver the self-determination and human rights that have been denied to the people of Kashmir for the last 77 years?”
“He said that wonderfully, but the UK also has a global responsibility; if we do not take our responsibility seriously, if we do not say that now is the time for action, if we do not go beyond the conversations, the debates, the words, the petitions, the conferences we all attend in Portcullis House where we rehearse the same arguments and we hear the passionate cry for assistance from the people of Jammu and Kashmir, then we will have failed to do what we, as legislators in one of the most powerful Parliaments in the world, can do. Minister, we all know of Security Council resolution 47 from 1948 and we know of the 77-year wait that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have had for the right to self-determination. There is a generation of people who are ageing, and they would like to see some action on this before it is too late for them.”
“With my hand on my heart, I cannot honestly say that the discussions that we are having today and the passionate arguments that I have heard from my hon. Friends and other hon. Members in Westminster Hall are any different from those that I listened to seven years ago. If we are still having this conversation in seven years’ time, it will be a catastrophe for the people in Jammu and Kashmir. It would be a dereliction of the responsibility of any Government of any political party to allow an issue of this significance to continue in the way it has without some form of intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) has, I am afraid, temporarily left. He said in his speech that the UK has a global role and a global reputation.”
“They told me about the challenges faced by their families in 2017; issues escalated significantly during that Parliament with the revocation of article 370, the suspension of basic human rights, the curfews, the discontinuation of telephone services and the suspension of the internet. The fact that today, in 2025, we stand in Parliament having this debate again means that in many ways we have failed them. We have failed those people I spoke to seven years ago. We failed people like Raja Najabat Hussain of the Jammu and Kashmir Self-Determination Movement International, because we are still only talking about this issue. What are we doing about this issue? What are the actions that we can say have happened, since I was first elected seven years ago, that will make this issue better for the people living in Jammu and Kashmir.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) on securing the debate. I think that it is the first substantive debate on this issue in this Parliament. Given that we are now seven months into this Parliament, that is probably something we should all reflect on, and consider whether we have given due attention to this pressing international issue. I will begin, much like my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) and Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), by paying tribute to Councillors Amjid Wazir, Majid Khan and Javid Najmi, as well as former Lord Mayor Bagh Ali. When I was first elected to this place in 2017, they were the first group of people to come and see me to talk about what was going on in Jammu and Kashmir.”
“I thank the Minister for replying in such detail to the points made, and I fully accept that she and the Government are raising the article 370 suspension with India. Is she able to tell the House what the Indian response was, or share some detail of the importance with which India took that intervention from the United Kingdom?”
“I thank the Minister for being so generous with her time. I want to pick up on her point about it not being for the UK to prescribe a solution. I entirely understand why that is the position that she and previous Governments have had, but in 1948 there were eight votes in favour of the special resolution of the Security Council. The USSR abstained. The UK was one of the countries that voted in favour of that resolution, which said a plebiscite should happen. Does the UK no longer support the position that we adopted in ’48—I appreciate that that was a long time ago—or do we think that, although it is a potential solution, we do not necessarily want to push it?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this timely debate. The stories she has told about her community match those I heard when I was out with Councillor Laura Carter in Sneyd Green on Repington Road only two weeks ago. We discussed with residents that this is about not just the noise and pollution, but the associated criminality that goes with those bikes—the drug running and the movement of stolen goods. Stoke and Staffordshire have the wonderful Operation Transom, which I urge all Members of this House to look at. It brings together partners to use drones and aeroplanes to chase bikes down and seize them. Although I am sure that this debate will focus on the menace, everyone should look at the solutions that we are trying to deploy in Stoke.”
“I am slightly worried about Conservative Members, who appear to be the arsonists complaining that the fire brigade has turned up too late to put out the fire, when they were the ones who lit it in the first place. I worry that they do not understand the scale and magnitude of the challenge that they left behind, which I have heard about from constituents who have been waiting years for their court cases.”
“It is getting worse. If the right hon. Gentleman spent more time providing leadership, rather than auditioning for it, he would own up to his failures in the House, and admit that the Conservatives left the country in a mess. Courts are not run just by judges; there are many support staff in courts who make the system work. What cross-governmental conversations has the Lord Chancellor had about ensuring that those staff are available, so that as many courts as possible are operational? [Interruption.]”
“My right hon. Friend’s point about energy costs and opening markets chimes with everything that the ceramics industry is telling me about what it is facing. He is right about the need for growth, and as well as being a wonderful Chair of the Committee, he is a doughty campaigner against inequality and inequity. I am sure that he will agree that we need to ensure that the benefits of growth are felt in every community, be it in Birmingham or Stoke-on-Trent, and particularly in those communities that sadly, under the last Government, did not get the benefits they deserved.”
“The Minister is making an excellent speech setting out this Government’s ambitious plans. While he is looking at the industrial strategy and those eight high-growth areas, can I make a pitch for him to remember those foundational industries that sit below them, including ceramics? Without ceramics, refractories and those foundational industries, delivering the growth that the Department wants in those eight high-growth areas will simply be impossible.”
“I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. Like me, he will have heard that advanced ceramics carbon filters are going into submarines being built not just for the UK, but for the Australian navy. With the commitment that this Government have rightly made to huge increases in defence spending, perhaps he will allow me to join him in suggesting to the Minister that one way we could help the entire ceramics sector is by redirecting some of that commitment to defence spending to ensure that those ceramic component producers get the help and support they need right now.”
“Perhaps the public sector decarbonisation scheme, which is currently undersubscribed, could be used in some way to help energy-intensive private companies to access new technology that would reduce not only their carbon output but their long-term energy costs through efficiencies.”
“The Minister probably knows as much about ceramics as those of us from Stoke-on-Trent, as she is constantly on her brief. On the transition, one of the challenges facing ceramics companies in Stoke-on-Trent and around the country is that the margins on their products are not sufficient to allow big up-front capital investments, which means that going from a gas kiln to an electric kiln is often beyond their reach as they simply do not have the cash flow. One solution that the Minister could potentially take back to the Department is some sort of VAT exemption for energy-intensive industries and companies that are looking to move towards more low-energy, low-carbon equipment.”
“Although I welcome the Minister’s commitment to hydrogen, I hope she can bear those two points in mind, because ceramics are a unique challenge. However, we are willing to work with her to find a solution.”
“Again, I am grateful to the Minister for her generosity in giving way. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) is right that hydrogen could be the thing that helps our industry, but electrolysis requires electricity. Electricity generation is capped to the gas price, and therefore the gas price drives the hydrogen price. Unless there is a way of decoupling that rather difficult circuit, we will find ourselves replenishing fuel without a particular discount. Our other unique challenge, as my hon. Friend expertly laid out, is that these factories are in communities, because that is how ceramics worked—a potbank was built and then houses were built around it. Connecting to hydrogen would not be suitable if the hydrogen has to be contained in large towers, which are better suited to large out-of- town factories.”
“I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for securing this incredibly important debate. He has described in his very good speech how inconsistency can occur across different platforms and providers. As a parent of a 14-year-old daughter who uses multiple apps and platforms, I want confidence about how they are regulated and that the security measures to keep her safe are consistent across all platforms she might access. My responsibility as a parent is to match that. The right hon. and learned Gentleman rightly highlights how Ofcom’s interpretation of the Act has led to inconsistencies and potential grey areas for bad faith actors to exploit, which will ultimately damage our children.”
“The towns of Stoke, Longton and Fenton in my constituency will soon have no banking facilities at all. Link’s assessment of a banking hub is that it considers an hour’s bus journey, and a return cost of almost £5, to be acceptable parameters to say that my constituents can access banks in Hanley. Does my hon. Friend agree that, further to what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, we need not only to roll out banking hubs more quickly, but have the criteria change so that every town in every community can access a banking hub or high street banking facility?”
“I thank the Minister for that point. His brief reference to access to cash is vital, but the word that was missing was “free”: access to free cash. One of the by-products of the closure of high street banks is that the cashpoints that remain tend to have a transaction fee, and that is particularly the case in the communities that can least afford it. That means that people in some parts of my constituency pay up to £3 simply to withdraw their money. For people who do not have a lot to start with, that is a huge barrier to getting the cash they need.”
“I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving way. Will he spell out the specific rights in the Employment Rights Bill that he and his party believe should not be afforded to working people in this country?”
“I will happily declare an interest, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a proud member of many trade unions. My declaration is up to date and free for all to see. I very much enjoyed the shadow Chancellor’s answer to my question, but perhaps I could pose it again, taking a lesson from the leader of his party, and say that he might want to answer it this time. What are the specific rights in the Employment Rights Bill that he and his party oppose? The motion says that the Employment Rights Bill should be stopped. Which rights in the Bill does he oppose working people having?”
“The figure in Stoke-on-Trent is even more stark, with 22% of young people not in education, employment or training. We have a wonderful ecosystem of colleges, with Stoke sixth form college, Stoke-on-Trent college and the University of Staffordshire, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) said, we also have small and medium-sized organisations. Can the Secretary of State set out how this Bill will help an organisation such as the Spark Group, run by Dan Canavan, to tap into opportunities in order to spread his ability to help those young people into well-paid jobs in my community?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for being so generous with her time. I absolutely support her ambition of ensuring that we have the skills for the jobs of the future. Will she say a little about how Skills England will support foundational manufacturing industries, such as ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent, which will not be prioritised in the industrial strategy but still have a lot to offer our economy and are crying out for skills from local people? If we can get that right, we can grow our own economy, and that is true levelling up in my opinion.”
“I was in opposition when we had ferocious debates about Brexit, and Conservative Members used words like “surrender”, “traitors” and “weak”. The shadow Home Secretary is now doing the same in opposition. Does he honestly believe that such language is conducive to getting to a solution? Does he think that it makes any person in this House feel better about themselves? Does he think that it gives him the moral high ground? I think it exposes his inability to conduct an argument in a way that is vaguely civil.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. These points are obviously going to come from Conservative Members. Have they read the comments of the noble Lord Winston in the other place on 27 November 2023, when he outlined that while scientific equipment may be used, the analysis that comes from bone density checks or X-rays is entirely flawed? The results depend on the calcium deposits and the food that was eaten by the person being X-rayed, as well as other health reasons. Has the hon. Gentleman read those comments? If not, could he read them? If he has read them, does he disagree with what Lord Winston said and think he knows better?”
“Eighty-three proud pottery workers woke up on Monday morning with no job, following the collapse of the 200-year-old Royal Stafford pottery firm. It is a crisis in our ceramics industry, with escalating prices for energy, and fake and foreign imports causing a real problem. Will the Prime Minister, through his offices, arrange for the energy companies to meet Ceramics UK and the GMB, as the voice of the workforce, so that we can hammer out a new deal? Will he promote, through public procurement, buying British so that proud manufacturing jobs in Stoke can be protected?”
“The shadow Minister, like so many Conservative Members, was supportive of the health and social care levy, which was a larger and more wide-ranging increase in national insurance than anything proposed by this Government. I have just checked Hansard for the entire time that he has been a Member of this place, and not once did he speak out against that tax hike and not once has he referenced police funding, until today. What is it about being in opposition that makes him think he now has the moral high ground?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The shadow Minister suggested that I had misled the House, by suggesting that what I said was not true. I would like to be absolutely clear that the shadow Minister mentioned police funding on three occasions prior to the election, and each of them was an obsequious pleasantry about how wonderful the last Government were. That is not what I suggested he could have said.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In today’s Prime Minister’s questions, the Leader of the Opposition alleged that a donor to my party was funding a court case challenging the consent to develop the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields. That is entirely untrue. She went on to suggest that the Government’s decision to accept the court ruling was swayed somehow by a previous relationship with Dr Rausing. This is a very serious allegation for which no evidence has been provided. I seek your advice and guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the recourse available to me and other Members to ask the Leader of the Opposition to come back to this House and present the evidence, and if she cannot, to apologise, withdraw the comment and correct the record.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is one of the more reasonable of his party’s Front Benchers—not that he needs my praise. Between 2010 and 2024, Stoke-on-Trent city council had a cumulative loss of £411 million. In cash terms, if the budget had been frozen and there had been no increases, we would have had that much more in spend. Does the shadow Minister accept that the damage that his party did in local government cannot simply be fixed in one settlement after seven months of a Labour Government?”
“Under the formula that has been proposed and on which we will vote this evening, Stoke-on-Trent city council will receive a recovery grant of £8.2 million. I hope that the shadow Minister is not saying that, were the Conservative party still in Government, we would not receive that additional cash, and would therefore be £8.2 million worse off.”
“Stoke-on-Trent will get £8 million from the recovery grant, and we are the fifth poorest city in the country. The hon. Member and I want to see services in our communities funded, so I urge him not to fall into the false trap that the Conservatives are setting by trying to pit our councils against one another. I want services, and he wants services; we need to agree to fund them properly and not be put into some sort of “Hunger Games” competition.”