Antonia Bance
MP for Tipton and Wednesbury · Labour · United Kingdom
“We all support greater production here in the UK, but the details of these tariffs need more work. Black Country MPs, such as me and my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes), have heard huge worries from our downstream industries, including stockholders such as Amari, fabricators such as Angle Ring, and trade associatio…”
“T4. We now know what was going on in the economy before the attack on Iran. Growth was up. Unemployment was down. Borrowing was lower than forecast. The Chancellor took the right decisions and it was working. Does my right hon.”
“I thank my hon. Friend and fellow member of the Business and Trade Committee for giving way. We have sat in a number of hearings where different industries have expressed to us the competitive disadvantage that they experience because people in the industry use the gig economy or platform work to avoid responsibilities.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for this announcement, which will make a big difference to so many young people in our area of the Black Country who are looking for work or training but unable to find the opportunities they need.”
“Given the global situation, what discussions has the Chancellor had with Cabinet colleagues on helping to keep industrial energy costs manageable? Will she work with colleagues to bring in the British industrial competitiveness scheme, which would cut manufacturing energy costs by 25%, as soon as possible?”
“As a manufacturing MP and manufacturing champion from the heart of the industrial revolution—indeed, where it started—I stand here to champion our industrial strategy, and particularly the work that the Department has done, as evidenced in these estimates, to support our automotive industry: the £2.5 billion to support DRIVE35 and the tra…”
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“Following the question asked by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), the Standing Orders set out the role of the sponsoring Member in nominating Members to sit on the Committee considering a private Member’s Bill, but they do not recuse the Committee of Selection, which is dominated by Government Whips, from a duty to ensure that the strength of opinion expressed in any Division at Second Reading is properly reflected. Will the Leader of the House reassure us about the principles that guide the composition of Public Bill Committees?”
“Q15. I represent loads of hard-working mums and dads in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley. Last week, the Leader of the Opposition’s campaign chair, Rachel Maclean, said it was not the right decision for the Tories to expand childcare provision. Will the Prime Minister confirm that this Labour Government believe in supporting working families and will work to get them the childcare they need?”
“The impact assessment published earlier was 900 pages long, which compares pretty well with some of the impact assessments published under the last Government, a number of which I had the misfortune to read. It confirms that the cost to business will represent less than 0.4% of total employment costs across the economy, and the majority of that will be transferred directly into the pockets of workers, helping to raise living standards and offset the last 14 years of standstill wages. Has the right hon. Gentleman managed to read the impact assessment yet?”
“Contrary to what Opposition Front Benchers say, workers are the dog, not the tail. We all deserve security at work and a decent wage. I will be so proud to vote for this Bill—”
“That is why unions need the right to go into workplaces. As a side note, the rules on access have to be practical, so I gently say to my right hon. Friends that the access agreements as drafted in the Bill give rogue employers just a few too many ways to keep unions out, and I hope we can sort that. This is not just about getting unions into workplaces; it is about getting unions recognised, and having the right to negotiate as equals at the table with the boss on wages, conditions and more. The changes on recognition are fantastic, and are to be celebrated. I hope we can go just a little further and end the three-year lockout, following a failed recognition ballot, that has kept unions out of the workplace, just as GMB workers are kept out of Amazon. The working class are the backbone of this country.”
“We will ban those disgraceful contracts and—listen up, colleagues —we will do so with the support of reputable businesses, such as Julian Richer’s Richer Sounds. Raising of collective bargaining is indispensable if we want to drive down poverty and inequality, and that is what this Bill will do. This Bill will allow unions to get into more workplaces and tell more workers why they should join a union. No employer needs to fear unions if they are confident that they act fairly towards their workers, and that their sites are safe, so we will legislate to make sure that unions can get into every workplace. After all, do we really think that ambulances would have been at those Sports Direct warehouses 76 times in two years, including for a woman who gave birth in the toilets, if there had been unions checking safety on that site?”
“As a proud member of Unite and a former TUC staffer, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. In addition, I think ASLEF and the GMB for their kind support of my election campaign. During the election, I met a young man in Great Bridge in my constituency who was living in a caravan on his parents’ drive, working in a warehouse on a zero-hours contract and not knowing what his pay packet would be from one week to the next. I say to him, to the one in eight black and Asian workers trapped in insecure jobs, and to the 1 million fellow citizens denied the security and the dignity of secure work: “We get it. We know you didn’t choose a zero-hours contract.” Eight in 10 workers on zero-hours contracts want regular hours.”
“I looked at the shortage occupation list this morning and it is frankly an indictment of our skills system that so many vital jobs in manufacturing and construction are listed: bricklaying, welding—something those in my own area are expert in—roofers, carpenters, joiners and retrofitters. No more. Skills England must start to direct support to fill these skills gaps so that we can grow our own. Above all, Skills England must work hand in glove with our new industrial strategy and deliver the skills training that will make the strategy real.”
“I hope that Skills England, alongside our industrial strategy, can help with that. One of the aspects of Skills England I am most pleased about is that it will be tripartite, with unions on the board as of right. Our movement has always taught working people to read, write, do maths and, more recently, use computers, to help them get on in life. As we face another industrial transition out of energy-intensive and carbon-reliant industries, we need to plan and manage with workers and use their insights too. Workers’ voices need to be around the table on skills, and with this Government, I know that they will be. Secondly, Skills England must be co-ordinated across Government and, most importantly, with the Migration Advisory Committee and the industrial strategy.”
“It will have three key jobs: to assess skills needs, to oversee the suite of qualifications and courses on offer, and to co-ordinate all the players in the sector, of which there are many. The point is to bring order to the skills system, joining it up and making it more responsive to what employers need. I want to say a bit more about the nature of Skills England and how it goes about its job. I have five key points. First, Skills England must spot and respond to genuine skills needs through the best available data and intel. We sometimes forget how hard it is, caught up in the day-to-day, for employers to predict the shape of the market for their goods and services in the future, how the supply chains will change and what that means for their workforce, products and quality.”
“Judging by the number of people here, there is some interest in this topic, and perhaps we should seek further opportunities to talk about these issues. I am sorry that in my inexperience, I asked only for a 30-minute debate. We are here today because the Conservatives oversaw a decade of decline in skills, and it has made our country poorer. Employers are unable to fill job vacancies, more than a third of vacancies are down to skills shortages, learners cannot get the training they need and industry is left without the skills to tackle the challenges of the future. That is why Labour have pledged to overhaul our skills system and set up a new body for skills: Skills England. Skills England is a central part of our plan for growth, good jobs and prosperity.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Skills England. It is an honour to serve under you as Chair, Sir Christopher. I am so glad to have the opportunity to raise the urgent need to reset our adult skills system in England, to press my case for my constituency and region, and to seek further information about the Government’s plans. The argument I will make today is this: Skills England cannot be just another quango. We need a confident and directive organisation that takes what our economy needs, directs provision, drives learner uptake, and delivers more workers with higher skills ready for better jobs on higher wages. I will also press the case for my constituency, for the Black Country and for the wider west midlands.”
“If that means that young women in an area cannot do low-level hair and beauty courses that set them on a path to a life on the minimum wage, but are instead channelled into a higher-wage, higher-skilled job that offers a career path, such as being a lab tech, so be it. That is Skills England doing its job. It may be easier and cheaper to run a business management course in a classroom at a college, but given the shortage occupation list and the industrial strategy, we need bricklayers and welders. Yes, it will cost more to make the facilities available and we may have to pay the lecturers a bit more too, but that is what is needed.”
“However, Skills England must respond not just to industrial strategy and migration, but to all of Government, as it touches skills such as our agenda for getting people back to work. We want people helped into real jobs that offer a route out and a route up, and not just any job. That means no more jobcentres running their own skills and education programmes separate to the priorities of Skills England. Third, we need a Skills England that is directive, not hands-off; one that sees its role as supporting training that meets the industrial strategy, not courses that do not. I will give an example: one shortage occupation is lab technicians for our world-leading life sciences sector. If the gap is lab technicians, then it is Skills England’s job to make sure that the courses for lab techs run, are funded, are supported and are filled.”
“As my hon. Friend might expect, I agree with him on all those points. I hope very much that our current Skills Minister’s tenure is significantly longer than the average, and that Skills England proves long-lasting and effective in responding to the industrial strategy. We expect the Green Paper on industrial strategy perhaps as early as next week, but certainly by the Budget. This may be a tangent, but it is important. I want an industrial strategy that makes choices and sets out which sectors are our priorities—yes, clusters where we are already world-beating, or could be, but also places that are our priorities for industrial development and catch-up. Good growth must level the playing field, and national growth cannot be at the expense of left-behind places like the one I represent.”
“Thirdly, we hear much about higher-level skills, but I am also always here to champion basic skills. Having solid literacy and numeracy skills gives workers a massive wage return and makes a big contribution to our economy. We could add over £2 trillion by the end of the century if we ensure that all young people get good basic skills by the end of the decade. I will always stand for high skills, good jobs and decent wages in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley. I hope hon. Members have heard from me today what approach Skills England should take to deliver for the country and for areas such as mine—it must deliver for areas such as mine.”
“In Sandwell, 1,000 firms and 21,000 jobs are in manufacturing, and we could make so much more than we already do with a determined effort to get local people into the right manufacturing skills courses to position us for advanced manufacturing supply chains across our region. The second skills priority is construction. Our aspiration as a Government—something that is so close to my heart—is to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years. For that, the construction industry training board tell me that the current workforce needs to grow by 30%, with 150,000 more people working in construction. Everywhere in the country will need construction workers, but if we seek to bring up areas that have been left behind, we could turn that massive skills need into an opportunity, train those workers and bring those jobs to places such as ours.”
“We are industrial towns shaped by factories, foundries, mines and canals. In my area, 42% of young people leave school without English and maths at grade 4 GCSE, and 2.5 times the national average have no qualifications. Round our way, 40% of job postings are looking for people with level 4 skills and above, but just 16% of the applicants have a level 4 qualification. That is why our wages lag behind the national average, employment rates are low and poverty rates are high. I have—indulge me—three skills priorities for Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley. The first is manufacturing skills, and I wear the “Made in Britain” badge.”
“Union learning reached people that other initiatives just did not. Most importantly, it reached basic skills learners. In union learning, over two thirds of learners with no previous qualifications got their first qualification. The fund added over £1.4 billion to the economy through the boost to jobs, wages and productivity. It cost £12 million, and that £12 million levered in £54 million from employers, unions and training providers in its last year. I very much hope that our new Government—so clear about the role of unions in social partnership—will make use of the reach of unions to workers and into workplaces that may otherwise not be reached by learning. I will finish by setting all this in the context of my constituency of Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley in the west midlands.”
“I hope that a clear skills strategy will start to change that, sitting alongside, for the first time in a number of years, a stable Government giving business the confidence to invest. Skills England has to see its role as not just anticipating but driving demand among learners. It should raise hopes and aspirations and make it possible for young people to get the skills they need, as well as for people in their 30s, 40s and 50s to retrain and get on in life. I will mention the role of unions again, because one of the least comprehensible acts of the previous Government was the sheer vandalism of ending the union learning fund in 2020. In 2020, 200,000 workers were supported into learning or training through the union learning fund. It was open not just to union members or in union workplaces, but to everyone, and it worked.”
“Finally, combined authorities are not just one of a range of stakeholders for Skills England; they should be represented at board level and in working groups as part of its structure. If this work is led only from Whitehall, missed opportunities will mean that local places are left behind. Those places may well be best placed to support the join-up required for coherent labour market policy, strategy and delivery when different Departments are intervening in the same place. I will say one further thing—my fifth point—about how Skills England must work: it has to see its role as levering more money into training, pushing employers to do more and making it easy for them to do so. Employer investment in training has fallen over the past decade. Investment per employee is down 19% since 2011.”
“As a country, we are still working out how to move away from the hugely over-centralised government machine, not least in places like my own west midlands where we are still in the infancy of having a set of institutions, people, power and money that help us determine our own future. I hope that Skills England will be a trailblazer not only for skills, but for a model of real partnership between regional and national where combined authorities can actually input into national policy. I have three specific asks for the west midlands. Would the Minister consider moving responsibility for commissioning local skills improvement plans to combined authorities? Combined authorities such as ours could have more of a role in shaping the growth and skills levy.”
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I was heartened to see that in her letter to the School Teachers Review Body my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education referenced the need to ensure that the implications for further education teachers are taken into account. I hope that, over time, we may be able to hear a little more about the plans in that area. My most recent point raises a number of questions because Skills England does not hold the resources, although maybe it should—or at least some. I will leave that with Ministers. Fourth, we need a Skills England that is relentlessly co-ordinating and engaging.”
“For once and for all, we will end the ability of landlords to throw people out of their homes “just ’cos”. For 40 years, the cards have been stacked in favour of the landlords. Today, we bring forward plans to rebalance the rules, so landlords can run their businesses, shouldering the appropriate level of risk, and renters know their home is theirs for as long they want it.”
“Over the past 15 years, I have met renter after renter living with damp dripping down the walls, infestations, faulty electrics, and landlords who just do not care—they do not fix it, but still take the rent every month—with temporary accommodation landlords often the worst. Bringing in Awaab’s law and decent homes, and supporting councils to enforce the law will make the change and make every home safe. I wish to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). At Shelter, a decade ago, I worked with the Lullaby Trust to make sure that babies were safe in temporary accommodation and I am sad, angry and shocked to hear of the deaths of 55 babies in temporary accommodation in the years since. But, without doubt, my favourite measure in the Bill is the end of section 21.”
“Representing Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley, I stand to speak for those renters who use housing benefit to pay their rent. I am so glad that the Bill will end the disgraceful “no DSS” policy. In the long term, the answer for most of my constituents who rent privately is a social home, and I would like to see the proportion of private rented properties in my constituency reduce as we build the social rented homes that we have promised. There is so much that is so good in this Bill. I think my second favourite measure is the application of the decent homes standard to private renting.”
“It is an honour to stand here today. I have worked on these issues for more than 15 years. A decade ago, I ran the “Evict Rogue Landlords” campaign at Shelter. I spent a decade on the board of the Nationwide Foundation, funding renter groups and campaigners such as the Renter’s Reform Coalition, and a happy year on the board of Generation Rent, which was ended only by my election. There is so much to welcome in this Bill, but I am so sad that the Opposition Benches are so empty and that Conservative Members have wasted so much time. I thought that the shadow Secretary of State’s speech was curious, trampling on previous Conservative promises on section 21, citing stats sourced from landlord lobbyists about landlords leaving the sector, and rewriting history about why the previous Tory Bill failed. It was quite a performance.”
“Take heart!” If the landlord tries to raise the rent so high as to amount to a de facto eviction, renters will finally have recourse: they can go to a tribunal and stop a rent rise above market rates. I gently say to the Minister that it would be good to understand how the tribunal will find out what market rates are; as we all know, looking at Rightmove will not help—that covers only new lets, not all lets in an area. But that detail is for later stages. What matters is this: no more no-fault evictions; security and predictability for renting families; rights rebalanced between renters and landlords; safe homes; and proper action on rogue landlords. This has been a long time coming, and I am so proud.”
“My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I do agree. I have met many of his constituents in Southampton Itchen while campaigning with him over the years. I have seen the conditions that many of them and families in my own constituency live in, and I look forward to the security that the Bill will give them. I am so pleased and proud that we will bring this Bill forward straight away—no delay, no hold-ups. Loads of renters out there are saving for their next unwanted house move; it takes, on average, £1,700 to move house. They are worried that they may lose their homes and be forced out of the area where their kids go to school. I say to those renters today, “We’ve got your backs. You will be able to stay in your homes—this will be law inside the year.”
“Does the hon. Member agree that it is precisely those small individual landlords who struggle to keep up with decent renting regulation, even as minimal as it is now? They make up the majority of the rogue landlords that many of us have heard about in our constituency surgeries. Frankly, it is often a good thing that small landlords who are unable to provide decent properties and keep up with legislation get out of the market in favour of those who can.”
“That is a reminder that once we turn our minds to something, the ingenuity and drive of the British working class can rarely be equalled. It is for us, here, to set it free. I will always stand against decline and for progress. After all, I grew up in a world where people like me could not get married, but now our beloved daughter has both her mamas’ names on her birth certificate. To believe in progress is to believe that once again this country can work for working people. It is time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so my final words are to the people of our towns. Tipton, Coseley, Wednesbury, Hateley Heath: I am here to serve you always.”
“I want to turn the thoughts of those in this House to the young people in my constituency, almost none of whom go to fee-paying schools. Four in 10 kids in my constituency did not get grade 4 GCSE in maths and English last year. That has to change, and we will change it. As I stand here today, the obstacles to delivering prosperity, and more than that—comfort, security, leisure—to every worker and every family seem almost insurmountable, but we take heart from our history: from Ernie Bevin, who forged the working-class women and men of the UK into an industrial machine that, from a standing start, equipped our country for victory. In my area, those in saucepan factories made grenades, and car makers built the machines to defeat fascism.”
“My friends at the TUC worked out that if wages had risen in the last decade by the amount by which they rose between 1997 and 2010, the average worker in my constituency would be £93 a week better off. That is nearly five grand a year more in people’s pockets. In the Black Country, we work hard, but forces bigger than any individual—deindustrialisation, Thatcherism, and the cruel austerity of these last 14 years —mean that good folk there earn less and have fewer chances and fewer choices than people elsewhere. Fully half of our kids grow up below the poverty line, in infested B&Bs, in homes with damp dripping down the walls, or in flats made for two, but home to three times that. For many, most weeks, the money stretches, just about—until the week when it does not.”
“We may be the Black Country, but modern manufacturing is clean, high-skill and high-wage. In Sandwell, 1,000 firms —with 21,000 jobs—make everything, from street furniture to hinges to locks to the precision metal forming for aeroplanes and power plants. I am proud to wear the “Made in Britain” badge, and to back our new deal for working people. If we are to have a new industrial revolution here in the UK as we meet the challenge of climate change, let us make it with our hands and our brains, in the place that was the crucible of the first industrial revolution, the Black Country. I stand for no more and no less than this: prosperity for every family.”
“Workers have come to the constituency from Ireland, the Caribbean, Bangladesh, Kashmir and Punjab; they left their homes to provide for their families, facing racism but prevailing, building churches, temples, mosques and gurdwaras, and seeing their children succeed. We are a proud, working-class community. Too often, people have stood in this place and talked our area down. I will never. Of course, the name “Black Country” is for the smoke of heavy industry; there has been coalmining, steel fabrication, metal finishing, and nail, brick and chain making. We are where the industrial revolution started. James Watt’s first steam engine hauled coal in Tipton, at the Bloomfield colliery. Today, despite everything, a quarter of all workers in our area are still in manufacturing.”
“But more than anything, we have the people of the Black Country—creative, ingenious, hard-working and down to earth people like Thomas Barratt. Born in Coseley, he stopped the enemy advance and saved his patrol at Ypres. He was a boilermaker, awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously at just 22. The workers of Tube Town, the metal finishing capital of the world, went out on strike for two long months in 1913 for a decent wage. They were backed all the way by their wives, heroes in their own right, who somehow kept 25,000 families fed amid near destitution. They won. I am proud to say that their union became my union, Unite.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am honoured to speak for the first time in this House as the Member of Parliament for Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley. I represent the village of Coseley in Dudley, as well as the towns of Tipton, Wednesbury and Hateley Heath in Sandwell. In the last Parliament, Shaun Bailey was a tireless advocate for this special corner of the Black Country, and I wish him well as he resumes his legal studies. Let me tell you about Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley. We are an industrial constituency, shaped by factories, foundries, mines and canals. We have beautiful parks, laid out for the leisure of working people, and civic buildings of grace and gravitas, such as the grade II listed Tipton central library and the 16th-century St Bart’s in Wednesbury.”
“My right hon. Friend will be aware of the disgraceful union-busting tactics and intimidation employed by Amazon against GMB members seeking union recognition at the Amazon warehouse in Coventry. Despite more than 1,000 votes in favour, union recognition was lost by just 28 votes. What steps is he taking to ensure that workers, such as the brave and determined GMB activists at Amazon, can more easily win union recognition?”
“Many residents in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley are sick of the noise and disruption of illegal off-road motorbikes. During the election campaign, we promised to change the rules so that the police could crush illegal off-road bikes that they seize within 48 hours—something that the Tories failed to do in 14 years. Can the Leader of the House update us on when those measures may be brought forward and when Members may have an opportunity to discuss actions to cut anti-social behaviour?”