Nadia Whittome
MP for Nottingham East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I welcome many of the measures in the Budget: policies to lower energy bills and the price of a food shop, support for our high streets, the assurance that every penny of the mineworkers’ pension scheme surplus will go to former miners, and our continued commitment to supporting Ukraine’s defences.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The current system encourages people to convert labour income into capital gains, hoard wealth and leave the UK without paying their fair share. This measure could raise £20 billion a year—enough to fund a national care service. We could expand national insurance contributions to cover investment income and partnerships.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Despite the increase in funding in recent years, public services are still under severe pressure. We cannot expect people to endure this fall in living standards, and to keep going without, while the super-rich get richer.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Councils have spent considerable time and resources building the case for local government reorganisation, including by producing robust financial analysis, housing data, work on the social care impact and work on the impact on travel-to-work areas. Today’s announcement raises serious questions for any future timetable.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government claim that approving Jackdaw will help fund clean energy—making them, if you like, both the arsonist and the firefighter. The North sea is a declining basin, though, meaning that it is a rapidly shrinking tax base.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I very much welcome the Minister’s statement, and I am glad that the Prime Minister has already committed to a national care service that is free at the point of use—a vital principle that mirrors our NHS. Does the Minister agree that one of the key problems in our current system is our reliance on private providers?”
House of Commons15 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“It is not the Tory party’s billionaire donors, who have increased their wealth during the pandemic by more than £100 billion, who are paying the price; it is key workers like my former colleagues in social care, shop workers and teaching assistants. For many of the families I represent, £20 is the difference between eating and not eating. International law is very clear that cuts should not occur if human rights violations would occur, so is the Secretary of State still “entirely happy” with a cut that will plunge 730,000 children into poverty? What does she have to say to the 14,250 families in Nottingham East and the 6 million families across the country who will lose £1,000 per year?”
House of Commons15 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I got into politics in 2013 because I saw the devastating impact of the bedroom tax on my community, my friends and my neighbours. In 2013, we were angry and we were tired of three years of public sector cuts, but never for a minute did I think that I would be here, eight years and billions of pounds of cuts later, asking the Government not to implement the biggest welfare cuts in the history of the welfare state. It is not only the universal credit cuts that will hit low-income families; those cuts are combined with the 3.2% rise in inflation, the national insurance rise, the end of the furlough scheme and the resumption of evictions.”
House of Commons15 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Government believe in a social care system that is free at the point of use, why are they not delivering a social care system like that, one like the NHS, which is universal and available to everyone?”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Anything less than a national care service, funded by a tax on wealth, not on workers, would be a great disservice to the people we are elected to this place to represent.”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think that this House and working people across the country deserve to know why a wealth tax was dismissed in favour of a tax on the poorest and the lowest paid, and what is more, to fund a plan that will not even work. We have heard during this Committee that the Government’s excuse for not ring-fencing the money raised for social care is that health and social care are interlinked. I agree, to an extent, and that is why, to fix our social care system, we need a national care service, like our national health service, which is free at the point of use. We need to redesign the system so that the needs of care users, for want of a better word, and care workers are at its heart. The money to do that is there but it is in the pockets of the richest and it is the political will from this Government that is sorely lacking.”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“—this is City A.M., not “Das Kapital”—calculated that one wealth tax option would be to tax wealth progressively between £1 million and £10 million, with all wealth beyond £10 million taxed at 3%. That would bring in a total of £55 billion over five years. Alternatively, the economist Richard Murphy calculated that, if wealth was taxed at the same rate as income, that could raise up to £174 billion a year. Will the Minister explain why none of those options was considered and what the Treasury makes of those calculations? And perhaps the Chancellor could explain to us, as a multimillionaire, why he cannot dig deep into his own pockets and why it has to be my constituents—in fact, all our constituents—instead.”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), 2.5 million working households will be hit by the cut to universal credit and the increase in national insurance. Working families will be losing, on average, over £1,000 next year. Meanwhile, the furlough scheme is ending and evictions are resuming. There is, however, a group of people who have benefited from the pandemic—who have done very well, in fact: British billionaires. They have increased their wealth by over £100 billion. That is why now is the time to get serious about taxing wealth. The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), said earlier in the debate that this tax hike would raise more than a wealth tax, but I am afraid that that is not true on any measure. City A . M .”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If I could sum up this policy—if we can call it a policy—in one word, it would be “unfair”: unfair on the working people who are funding the tax rise; unfair on the care workers who will not see their pay and conditions improve; and unfair on those relying on social care, whose needs will continue to be unmet. Figures released this week show that nearly 70,000 people in England could die waiting for social care before these changes even come into force. If the Government were interested in fairness, they would tackle the soaring housing costs, low-paid jobs and inadequate benefits that my constituents are facing. Instead, their policy agenda is fuelling inequality and impoverishment. As we heard from the hon.”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How can it be right to ask those who are already saddled with extortionate housing costs, poverty wages and mountains of debt to pick up the tab for this Government’s failures on social care? To put it simply, the Government are choosing to protect the interests of the wealthy who fund them at the expense of low-income workers and renters. While landlords and the super-rich who are hoarding wealth and housing pay nothing under this new tax, my constituents will be having their pockets raided. Since 2010, under this Government’s watch, £7.7 billion has been cut from social care budgets.”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With your permission, Dame Eleanor, I will speak to new clauses 3 and 5, tabled my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing North (James Murray) and for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare). New clause 3 requires the Chancellor to assess the impact of the Act on tax revenue from different sources of income and new clause 5 calls on the Government to publish an equality impact assessment of the Act. Dame Eleanor, given that even in Committee this has been a wide-ranging and broad debate, I hope you will allow me to set out the context of those new clauses. It is people in poorly paid jobs who will bear the brunt of the national insurance increase, at a time when in-work poverty is already at a record high.”
House of Commons14 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“] Will Government Members be quiet while we talk about the service that care workers have given during the pandemic? They deserve a pay rise, but instead Members on the Government Benches will be voting tonight to make sure that care workers are paying so that their wealthy donors do not have to. How much longer must my former colleagues in the care sector wait for change? How many more families will be consigned to poverty because their care worker mum brings home less than the minimum wage? How many more disabled and elderly people will be confined to their homes, unable to live the kind of life they want? Anything less than a national care service, funded by a tax on the wealthy, not low-paid—”
House of Commons8 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She works extremely long hours to make ends meet and often earns less than the minimum wage once she factors in travel and expenses. At the same time, her mum is terminally ill and has been waiting for five weeks to get support. She wants to be with her mum in her final weeks, but she is doubtful that she will be able to afford to get time off. Sadly, disgracefully, her story is not unusual, because our social care system does not work for those who rely on it or for those who are employed in it. Instead of grappling with these deep-rooted problems, this Government are yet again, as the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) admitted, kicking the can down the road. Instead of giving our care workers the pay rise that they deserve— [ Interruption.”
House of Commons8 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have seen at first hand, as have my former colleagues in Nottingham, how social care was in crisis well before the pandemic, and this Government cannot use covid-19 as a cover for 11 years of Tory failings, and they cannot use it as an excuse to take money from those who have been on the frontline and not from the billionaires who have profited from the pandemic, increasing their wealth by more than a fifth. When I use the word “plan”, I am being generous. This is not a plan. It does nothing to fix the system that is broken at its core. A constituent emailed me about her experience. She is a care worker in the community. Her wages have not increased for four years. She does not get any travel expenses, pension contributions or sick pay.”
House of Commons8 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a triple whammy that the Government are presenting us with today: nowhere near enough money; not ringfenced for social care; and low-paid workers are funding it. Why is it that Amazon is paying only 7.5% of its income in tax while a graduate on a standard starting salary is expected to give up around 50%? Let us be clear what this is really about; it is about protecting the inheritances of the very wealthy. What is the Government’s excuse for raising taxes on struggling people and for breaking their manifesto pledge? It is covid-19. We have heard it again and again today.”
House of Commons8 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The NHS is there for all of us if and when we need it from the cradle to the grave. It has long been time for the social care system to provide the same. We need a national care service funded by progressive taxation, including a wealth tax. The Prime Minister’s plans could not be further from that. Even the free market Adam Smith Institute condemned them as “morally bankrupt”, saying that the Government was asking “poorer workers to bail out millionaire property owners.” That comes just weeks before the Chancellor will plunge hundreds of thousands of families into poverty with his universal credit cuts. Mr Deputy Speaker, you would struggle to design a more unfair and economically illiterate social care policy if you tried. Less than £1 in every £6 of the money raised will go to social care in the first three years of the plan.”
House of Commons8 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that universal social care would be too expensive. That is exactly what the Conservatives said about the NHS in 1945 when they voted against it 21 times. They have argued that since and they will do so again if given the chance, as we heard from the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) who, just minutes ago, described the NHS as a “socialist construct”. A universal need demands a universal and freely accessible solution. None of us knows with certainty what will happen in our lives. Through disability, illness and old age, many of us will come to rely on social care if we do not do so already. The care we receive should not be a lottery based on wealth and postcode. We should all have the security of knowing that there will be someone to look after us no matter what.”
House of Commons8 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, I would like to stress the importance of devolving and investing in a way that is truly transparent, democratic and empowering for our local communities, because devolution should not mean handing power and money from one man in Whitehall to one man in a region. Communities need a real say in how this money is spent, so that they can be part of building the kind of economy that works for them and creating stable, well-paid jobs in the here and now, investing in industries that will protect the environment, and ultimately giving their children the future that we all deserve.”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) mentioned, they include deals for Cornwall, Tees Valley, the west midlands, London, south Yorkshire—the east midlands is nowhere to be seen. For how long can our region be overlooked when it comes to Government investments? We saw that the Chancellor’s constituency—among the fifth most prosperous in the country—has benefited from levelling-up money. In constituencies such as Nottingham East, more than one third of children are living in poverty. When are we going to get our fair share? Can the Minister tell us whether the east midlands will get at least the £8 billion that the west midlands received with the Conservative Mayor?”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can the Minister provide a figure on Government investment in green economic development in the east midlands over the last five years? Can he provide details of conversations he has had with representatives of renewable and green industries about economic investment in the east midlands? Will he agree to meet me and representatives from local green industries to discuss capital investment in our region and opportunities for support from the Government? With the scale of the climate and ecological emergency, that demands nothing less than post-war scale investments and economic transformation—a green deal. All of us, regardless of party politics, would be letting down those we represent to demand anything less today. The Local Government Association website provides a list of devolution deals over the last decade. As the hon.”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Booming manufacturing once dominated Nottingham’s economy and our city was renowned as the centre of textiles, but from the 1980s manufacturing declined. For my grandparents’ generation, half of Nottingham jobs were in manufacturing, compared to just 4% in 2021. There is a huge potential for a new generation of green manufacturing jobs in and around our city and region; good-quality, well-paid jobs in sectors such as recycling and reuse. Rather than exporting our recycling content abroad, where much of it ends up dumped in the ocean, when will the Government bring these jobs to Nottingham and Nottinghamshire? Will the Government put the money where their mouth is when it comes to tackling climate change and levelling up?”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Retail and hospitality sectors dominated by low-paid workers —often women—have been particularly hit hard. Many are trying to get by on furlough pay that is less than the minimum wage, or even without any financial help at all. In Nottingham East alone, more than 14,000 families are set to lose £1,000 a year when the universal credit cut comes into place. Most shameful of all is that the majority of people in poverty are in working families. Coming out of the pandemic, we need well-paid, secure jobs that help produce the kind of society that we want to live in. It is not enough just to develop our economy; we need to decarbonise it as well. There are no jobs on a dead planet and we must invest with the future in mind, not just the present.”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for securing the debate. As my right hon. and hon. Friends have already detailed, a decade of cuts has devastated our communities and people’s lives. People have been pushed into poverty, there is a homelessness epidemic, bus routes have closed and schools are falling apart. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said earlier, in 2019, the east midlands had the lowest public spend on economic development and transport and the third lowest on public services. On top of more than 10 years of austerity, the Government’s failure to protect lives and livelihoods during covid has caused further economic misery and injustice to our region. Businesses have folded and people have lost their jobs.”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister publish the metric by which those calculations are made? I do not understand why the Chancellor’s constituency, which is among the top five most prosperous in the country, has been considered a priority for levelling up, but not constituencies such as ours, where the Minister has heard that over a third of children live in poverty.”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My former colleagues where I used to work as a care worker sacrificed so much during the pandemic and now, under the Prime Minister’s plans, their pockets will be raided with a tax that will hit hardest those who are older, young and less well off. Does he agree that it is now time for a national care service and a wealth tax to fund it?”
House of Commons7 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It hands unaccountable power to the police—the same police who were forcing women to the ground at Clapham Common on Saturday night. I will be voting against the Bill.”
House of Commons16 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I attended the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Nottingham East, and the protests and vigils at Scotland Yard and Parliament on Sunday and yesterday. We took to the streets because people are angry. We are hurting. We are sick of male violence, whether it is at the hands of the state, our partners, our family members or strangers. We march because some people do not survive male violence: Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry, Christina Abbotts, Naomi Hersi and many more. The public realm belongs to women too, and women should have the right to go wherever we choose without men harassing us, assaulting us and raping us. We have a right to walk home. This Bill does nothing to protect women. In fact, the Bill protects statues of dead men—slave owners, even—more than living women.”
House of Commons16 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is so much wrong with the Bill that three minutes could not possibly cover it. It marks a descent into authoritarianism. We are debating the Bill today because the Home Secretary despises Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter, having described them as hooligans, thugs and criminals. The Bill is designed to make it more difficult for working people to hold the powerful to account by expanding police powers to a level that should not be seen in any modern democracy. In fact, if this proposed legislation was being debated in another country, I am sure Members of this House would be condemning that country as an authoritarian regime. Make no mistake, this is the biggest assault on our rights and freedom to protest in recent history. It moves to criminalise Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.”
House of Commons16 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Modi spoke alongside David Cameron when he visited the UK, our Home Secretary is an active supporter of the BJP and there are billionaire donors who bankroll both parties. In the 2019 election, Hindu nationalists mobilised for the Tories, and the Tories are responsive to their bigoted agenda, like their opposition to banning caste discrimination. Modi and Amit Shah decried the truth as propaganda and divisive, but it is not protesting farmers, Rihanna or Greta Thunberg who are dividing India; it is the BJP. This Conversative Government need to decide which side they are on: the side of farmers or the side of fascists.”
House of Commons8 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They suggested that women farmers were not real farmers, but the women workers of India are refusing to be silenced, from farmers’ leaders, such as Jasbir Kaur Nat, to jailed climate activist Disha Ravi, to Dalit trade unionist Nodeep Kaur, who was wrongfully imprisoned, reportedly sexually assaulted and tortured by police. These women could not contrast more sharply with their sexist Government and the misogynistic movement that supports it. When Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat, he was banned from entering the EU, Britain and the US for his part in instigating the 2012 riots that saw more than 1,000 Muslims killed, so it should concern everyone that this Conservative Government are a close ally of the far-right Hindutva regime in India.”
House of Commons8 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the granddaughter of Punjabi farmers, I am proud to speak today in solidarity with the millions resisting Modi’s regime. Farmers from across India—of all faiths and none, of all genders and all castes—are protesting against laws that threaten livelihoods. In total, 250 million workers went on strike in solidarity. That is the largest strike in world history. In response, in order to stoke communal violence, the Indian Government-controlled media has demonised protesters as Sikh separatists. Protesters have been met with state repression and brutality. It is timely that the debate is being held on International Women’s Day because women are leading this historic revolt. In January, the courts told women protesters to go home.”
House of Commons8 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need a permanent transfer of wealth and power from billionaires profiting from the pandemic to workers who have got us through it, but this Government do not want to tackle a broken economy that works for their super-rich friends instead of for my constituents. They have failed catastrophically during the pandemic and this Budget shows that they will fail to deliver the recovery that we need.”
House of Commons4 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Make no mistake, this Budget has paved the way for more misery, more austerity and more hardship just over the horizon. Today, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Resolution Foundation said that the cliff-edge cut in universal credit will bring down incomes to levels that we have not seen since the early 1990s. It is set to plunge 500,000 people into poverty. Does the Minister consider those people, including many of my constituents in Nottingham East, to be collateral damage? We all want a secure job, healthcare we can rely on and a good home in a community that we can be proud of, but poverty pay, underfunded hospitals and catastrophic climate change threaten our lives and our futures. This Budget should have tackled the root of these problems—our rigged economic system—but instead, it rearranges the deckchairs on the Titanic.”
House of Commons4 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The wealth of British billionaires has already soared by a third in the last year. The Government talk of a green industrial revolution but they are slashing green homes grants, freezing fossil fuel duty and continuing to back coal mining. There is a lot of talk about looking after Brits, but the Chancellor did not mention the NHS once in his speech. He had no plan for the crisis in social care and he is freezing public sector wages instead of giving our key workers the pay rise that they deserve. The Chancellor has taken the rhetoric of Labour’s policies but none of the substance. The centrepiece of yesterday’s Budget was the switch to fiscal austerity in April 2023, which will involve around £68 billion of spending cuts and tax rises until 2026.”
House of Commons4 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker— [ Interruption. ] Gosh, I am really sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; we have building work going on in the house at the moment. The pandemic has shown us the impact of a decade of austerity forced on us by Conservative Governments. We have seen that a cocktail of poverty pay, job insecurity and cutting public services to the bone has resulted in one of the worst death rates and the worst recessions in the world. This was not inevitable and the Budget was the Chancellor’s opportunity to put it right with a programme that meets the scale of the challenges we face. Instead, this Budget is filled with half-measures and wrong priorities. There is a rise in corporation tax in 2024 but a huge £25 billion giveaway to big businesses before that.”
House of Commons4 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My generation deserves better than to be robbed of secure housing, secure jobs and proper mental health support. Austerity was never necessary. People who did nothing to bring about the financial crash were made to pay for it. Our Prime Minister promised no return to austerity and we have to hold him to it.”
House of Commons23 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We cannot go back to an exploited workforce, to families hardly surviving on universal credit or to tenants being evicted at the whim of their landlords. From the rubble of war, the 1945 Labour Government built a new settlement; we built the NHS and the welfare state. Just as the national health service was built from ruins, our society today is crying out for a national care service. We need the green new deal to bring hundreds of thousands of well-paid green jobs to every city, region and town in our country; tenants need a long-term ban on evictions; and the key workers whom Ministers applauded last year deserve nothing less than a pay rise. If this is not the time to demand courage and ambition, when is? People who lived through the war and rebuilt this country afterwards deserve better than to die alone.”
House of Commons23 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and many apologies for the tech troubles earlier. This pandemic has revealed the impact of a decade of cuts and deepening inequality. It is not just Government failures this year that have left us with the worst death toll and worst economic recession in Europe. The last 10 years of Tory austerity have paved the way to disaster. It was because of austerity that we went into the pandemic with insufficient hospital beds; it was because of austerity that care workers across the country—I sounded the alarm on this last year—were left without adequate personal protective equipment; and it was because of austerity that the social security net that had been built over many years was destroyed. After covid, we cannot go back to life as it was before.”
House of Commons23 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In May 2019 this House declared the climate and ecological emergency, but that means very little without comprehensive legislation. We cannot simply declare; we must also act, and the Bill is essential to ensuring the commitment that we made almost two years ago.”
House of Commons9 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Lady how little progress we have made on that. The Bill really offers the most viable way for us to tackle the climate and nature emergency at a national level. It provides a clear framework to deliver the UK’s commitments to the Paris climate agreement. For example, the Bill would introduce measures to dramatically reduce our emissions, restore and regenerate our soils, biodiverse habitats and ecosystems, and lessen the negative impacts that we have on our environment. In short, it would mean that the Government would have to take immediate, radical action of the sort that the crisis demands. The Bill has been written by scientists, lawyers and climate activists. It is backed by a broad range of campaign groups, businesses, charities and individuals and, as will be evidenced today, it has huge cross-party support.”
House of Commons9 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a real privilege to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), and I am very proud to co-sponsor her CEE Bill. The emergence of coronavirus has thrown into focus the way in which environmental degradation can have profound impacts on society, and of course the escalating ecological crisis will make future pandemics more likely, so we must make sure that our recovery is a green one right from the start. We cannot wait until the pandemic is over to take these urgent steps. We cannot afford to lose sight of the climate crisis, because it threatens our very existence. The 2018 special report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that to stop runaway climate chaos we need “rapid and far-reaching transitions” that are “unprecedented” in scale, yet we have heard from the hon.”
House of Commons9 February 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Eagle. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) for securing this important debate. From wasting taxpayers’ money on PPE that was not fit for purpose and Serco’s inept contact tracing system, to setting up a VIP procurement channel for people with political connections, this Government have disregarded their own rules, operated secretly and made dangerous decisions that have jeopardised public health. The OECD foreign bribery report found that public procurement is particularly vulnerable to corruption. It is worth bearing that in mind when we look more closely at some of the eye-watering examples that Members have set out.”
House of Commons9 December 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“People die when the Government get these things wrong. People have died. Does the Minister unequivocally accept the recommendations of the National Audit Office report, and by what date will they be implemented? The Government need to immediately outline a list of all contracts awarded during the pandemic that are unlawful, terminate them and procure further services by way of fair and lawful competition. Will the Minister commit to that today? Ultimately, procurement for the public sector needs to be re-established, with the reliance on management consultants scrapped. People deserve to know that their money is being spent on keeping them safe, in a way that is fair and above board. We demand action and we demand answers.”
House of Commons9 December 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No. The hon. Lady has made many interventions already. Let me tell Members here, on behalf of our key workers in Nottingham and across the country, that these dodgy dealings might feel like games to Ministers, but they have very real life consequences for people across the country. Myself, my colleagues and thousands of frontline care workers struggled during the heat of the pandemic, when it was widely reported that a lack of adequate PPE and staff testing in care homes created a major risk of the virus spreading. We were smeared in the media, including by Members on the Government Benches. Let me state again for the record: the lucrative contracts that this Government were handing out to their pals led to failures and delays that had a direct impact on frontline workers during the pandemic.”
House of Commons9 December 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chancellor did not pledge a single extra penny yesterday towards a green economic recovery, while wasting tens of billions on polluting new roads. Will the Secretary of State explain how that fits with the Government’s so-called green industrial revolution and net zero strategy?”
House of Commons26 November 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I hope that everyone in this House can join me in condemning the cynical and ridiculous way that people, and the far right in particular, are exploiting people’s suffering to spread lies.”
House of Commons11 November 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am also concerned that some people are exploiting people’s pain to spread their hateful agendas, like the British National party, which, for the first time in my living memory, has been sending letters to small businesses in my constituency, or those ready to sacrifice human lives in order to stay relevant and boost their careers. I am referring here of course to, among many others, Nigel Farage, who in March was criticising the Government’s herd immunity approach and is now rebranding himself as the leader of the anti-lockdown movement. My constituents have made it clear to me that they are not having any of it and that our city is not having any of it.”
House of Commons11 November 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When we spend time home alone isolated, it is easy to fall down dangerous rabbit holes and to start believing that it is all a lie, that the virus is a conspiracy or that lockdowns are unnecessary and merely a tool to control people. But we know that that is not the answer. I think all of us, in our heart of hearts, know that, even the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), who has vacated his seat. It is our responsibility, as Members of this House, every single one of us, to fight this pandemic of misinformation, which is spreading like a virus and is sabotaging people’s efforts to save lives.”
House of Commons11 November 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is painful to know that, while we have had to sacrifice our friendships, passions and mental health, those in power have failed us over and again: from ignoring their own scientific advice, which made this lockdown longer and harder, to failing to protect jobs and livelihoods, failing to plan and leaving our frontline workers without PPE, and reportedly spending £12 billion on a privatised test and trace system that proved to be a shambles. It is hard to blame people for becoming suspicious when they see the Government awarding multi-million pound contracts to their friends and donors, often without even a competitive tendering process, or when they see the Prime Minister’s closest adviser flout lockdown rules without any consequences.”
House of Commons11 November 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They have seen stickers saying that covid was a plot by a shadowy elite, or come across websites making false and disproven claims about vaccinations. Anti-lockdown protests have also been happening across the country, often featuring placards with known antisemitic tropes, or promoting the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon. When I hear from people who become interested in these ideas, I get it. I do get it. I understand why people are scared and frustrated, and why they are looking for answers. It is hard being separated from your loved ones for months on end, worrying about how you are going to pay the rent and make ends meet and, in the meantime, watching the Government make a complete mess of the handling of the crisis.”
House of Commons11 November 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would like to begin by thanking the many frontline workers in in my constituency in Nottingham—my friends, my neighbours and my constituents—for the hard work that they are doing to get us through this virus. Like everyone here today, I was excited and hopeful to hear the news of Pfizer’s promising new vaccine. After months of painful sacrifices, there may finally be a way out of this crisis. It is early days, and we have to be cautious in our optimism, but we must do all that we can in the House to make sure that once a vaccine gets the go-ahead, we make its roll-out a success, and keep people safe in the meantime. That is why I am concerned about the rise of conspiracy theories. People across the country have had leaflets dropped through their doors warning against wearing masks.”
House of Commons11 November 2020Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗