Jade Botterill
MP for Ossett and Denby Dale · Labour · United Kingdom
“Eligible working parents of children aged nine months and older are now benefitting from 30 hours of funded childcare per week, which can save families up to £7,000 per eligible child every year. We are improving access by creating tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Maya Ellis) for opening this debate on the Government’s support for healthy relationships. It was great to hear hon.”
“Rich, healthy relationships thrive in a context of shared purpose and understanding. We all know that from our experiences of taking part in sport, putting on plays or even confronting and understanding differing points of view.”
“When parents are struggling to support their children, family hubs can give them new skills to help their children’s social, cognitive and emotional development. That is why we are building on this year’s £126 million funding boost for family hubs and the Start for Life programme.”
“That is why we are investing £11 million in support for schools; £8 million to support the RSE curriculum and £3 million to provide targeted support for children who are displaying harmful behaviours. We believe that every child deserves the support needed to develop healthy relationships. Hon.”
“The Government continue to prioritise and protect investment in the early years. That is why we are investing more than £1 billion more in the early years entitlements year on year, and we will continue to go further.”
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“I am committed to never treating them with the same injustice they experienced at the hands of uncaring, short-termist Conservative Governments.”
“This Government’s approach must go further, and does, to revive these communities for generations to come. That is why we are investing in schools and hospitals, roads and rail, high streets and homes. We are restoring pride in our town centres, combating antisocial behaviour and crime. We are financing the green industries of the future to ensure that what happened to the mineworkers never happens again. We are committed to growing the economy in towns right across our country, and not just London. As people in my area know all too well, strong communities must be nurtured generation after generation, but people in post-industrial northern towns such as mine often feel ignored and forgotten by the powerful. It is my job in the House to ensure that those thoughts and feelings are heard.”
“Other Members have spoken eloquently about the action taken to end the historical injustice of mineworkers and their pensions, which former mineworkers in my patch often raise with me. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Keir Mather) has been fighting for his constituent, Tony Rock, whose compensation case in the past few years has been delayed and delayed by the Department for Work and Pensions as his health worsens. That sort of case must become a thing of the past, and my Labour colleagues and I will keep fighting until retired members across Yorkshire receive the dignity in retirement they deserve. I know that this Government share that feeling and are acting, and I was proud to run on a manifesto that made a concrete commitment to miners and mining communities.”
“Yes, that is a plug to visit the National Coal Mining Museum in my constituency. It remains a place where we are reminded of our community’s contribution to this country. Every time I visit, I am filled with pride, anger and determination: pride in my region’s national contribution and the spirit of hard work, humour and solidarity still present in the ex-miners who remain there today; anger at the arrogance and ignorance of previous Governments who decimated our communities without a thought for what would come next; and determination to change this great injustice and to give our community not just what it needs, but what it has earned. We do not need to just preserve the legacy of coalfield communities; we must also fight for the dignity of retired miners who made that proud legacy possible.”
“Successive Conservative Governments ignored them, neglected them and insulted them, but they refused to be forgotten. Although Kellingley is not in my constituency, many mines like it were closed in similar circumstances and with similar results right across Ossett and Denby Dale. I cannot help but imagine that the scenes were similar on each occasion. Caphouse colliery in my constituency closed in 1985. In that refusal to be forgotten, the mine was converted into a museum, conceived, created and now staffed by ex-miners. It is run by Lynn Dunning, who embodies the often-forgotten role of women during the strikes. We must remember those who helped heat our nation for generations. With good old Yorkshire miners taking people down the shaft at the mining museum, there is not a better place to remember our rich industrial history.”
“The devastating, ruthless impact of closures was clearer to me that day than ever before. The mine was not just a place of work, but the heart of the community. Built around it were schools, sports teams, brass bands, social clubs, places of worship, families, friendships, hope, security and prosperity. When Kellingley closed, I saw on the faces of the men and their families the fear that the death of the industry would take the community and the culture with it—the culture and the industry of his father, and his father before him. However, they rejected victimhood. The next day, the miners, the families, their friends and their community marched together and met at the miners’ welfare club. For too long, people in post-industrial northern towns were promised nothing but empty slogans.”
“I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) for securing this important debate. I am proud to see so many colleagues speaking so passionately about their communities. Despite years of under-investment from the Conservatives, most of whom could not be bothered to show up to the debate today, it is nice to see people on the Government Benches who feel the same commitment to rejuvenating their communities and, importantly, to celebrating the social, economic and cultural contributions of the areas we have grown up in and now have the privilege of representing. I was there when Kellingley, the last deep pit in the UK, closed a week before Christmas back in 2015. I spoke to some of the 450 miners who had been made redundant, whose fathers and grandfathers had worked down the pit.”
“Before Christmas, I was pleased to meet some of the many microbusinesses operating in Osset and Denby Dale. They told me that they previously felt that they had fallen through the cracks of Government policy and economic ambition. How will the Minister’s business growth service assist those microbusinesses, as well as broader measures that the Government are taking to help smaller organisations to grow?”
“I regularly meet talented, hard-working and intelligent young people across Ossett and Denby Dale who often feel detached from politics. How quickly can the Government make progress on this legislation so that all young people have an equal chance to make the laws and shape our future, not just those born into privilege?”
“Many people in my community rely on in-person banking and access to cash. I was pleased to recently open the banking hub in Ossett town centre. Ossett was previously one of the 55 bankless towns in the UK. How are the Government looking to further support those who rely on those services, particularly in towns and rural villages?”
“The UK’s social mobility commissioner has highlighted the “geography of disadvantage” being experienced by young people in northern post-industrial communities like those in Ossett and Denby Dale. Does the Secretary of State agree with the commissioner that decisive and bold Government action to improve educational attainment and opportunity is required for these children?”
“When they see the sky widen and the moors roll out before them, with Emley Moor mast standing tall on the horizon, young people should see somewhere that is ready to be remade once more by their talent, by their graft, by them. England is a nation of towns and villages like mine—of community, of culture, of graft. For England to succeed, towns and villages must succeed, and it will be my mission in this place to see that happen.”
“I found myself having to speak eloquently so folk down here could actually understand me. The only problem with that was that when I got back home, my friends and family would ask me why I was speaking so posh. It actually made me feel quite lost. Young people in Ossett and Denby Dale, and in towns and villages across our country, should not feel like they have to get out to get ahead—and yet so many of them do. To talk solely about what was once possible in our community is to betray those young people. Instead, our politics must be built on their dreams and on their potential: decent, secure jobs with reliable public transport to get them there; good affordable housing where they can build their families and their future; high-quality education and skills training; access to creativity and culture; aspiration, hope.”
“But I refuse to talk about my community only in the past tense—about opportunities we used to have and industries we used to lead. Indeed, I want my successors in this place to be celebrating the creativity and achievements of children being born in my constituency today. Sadly, however, the Social Mobility Commission recently reported that many young people in Ossett and Denby Dale, and other post-industrial communities across our nation, face an uphill battle. Growing up in a rural town, I know that feeling all too well: that the place you are from is overlooked—forgotten, even; that opportunities are few and far between; and that the only path to success in life is leaving your family, your friends, your home. After briefly living in London in my twenties for work, I remember feeling like the token northerner with the funny accent.”
“We are also home to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, with its Barbara Hepworths and Henry Moores, and the National Coal Mining Museum, which roots us in our proud history. I am enthusiastic—sometimes maybe a little too enthusiastic—that my constituency contains so many wonderful pubs and brewers. We have the ever expanding Ossett Brewery and our famous yearly festival, Ossett Beercart. Just as we work hard and play hard, we also pie hard. Indeed, for over 200 years, the people of Denby Dale have marked special occasions in the only way I think appropriate: by baking enormous pies to feed thousands —some even as long as 40 feet, with nine tonnes of filling and 200 pints of bitter. That history and that culture must be championed. It is Yorkshire culture; it is our culture.”
“You see it in the town markets, which have bustled with small traders, craftsmen and local farmers for generations. That landscape is not just the cradle of talent, but a product of it. Each town, each village has its own community, its own culture—all quietly, proudly distinct. As well as hard work, these towns and villages are famous for their culture, their creativity and their heritage—home to brass bands, Morris dancers, maypoles and even a Doctor Who, but most importantly of all, the world’s greatest rugby league team, Wakefield Trinity. Labour may be a party of the Union, but in West Yorkshire, when it comes to rugby, we watch the proper stuff and as you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is league.”
“Driving from Ossett towards the Wakefield rural villages and into Denby Dale, the sky widens and the moors roll out before you. On that drive, when I see the Emley Moor mast appear from the horizon, built taller than the Eiffel tower, I know I am home. It is beautiful, it is Yorkshire and it is the place that made me who I am today. It is not just those moors and views that move me; it is also the people who call them home. We are people of talent, community and, as good Yorkshire folk say, hard graft. In fact, that beautiful landscape is the fruit of exactly that graft, of that talent. You see it in the pits dug across the countryside that served to fuel and heat our nation. You see it in the fields—ploughed, planted and grazed by countless generations to feed not just Yorkshire but the rest of the country.”
“I would also like to take the opportunity to thank my parents for their support, as well as my brother, who has always been there for me during some of the most challenging times. I am delighted that they have travelled from Wakefield to be in the Public Gallery today. Their own commitment to our community in their long careers of public service—working hard and talking straight—are principles that I hope to emulate here. My mum is so committed to the north that this is her first ever trip to London—proof, were it ever needed, that us northerners only come south if somebody makes us. I know many Members have already spoken about the beauty of their patches, but with respect, I must make the case for Ossett and Denby Dale.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to deliver my maiden speech in this important debate on international investment, the benefits of which will be felt right across all regions of our country. I want to begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, Mark Eastwood. He was a dedicated servant to his previous constituency of Dewsbury. On behalf of myself and our community, I say thank you. Being the Member for the area in which I grew up is truly the honour of my life. I will forever be grateful to the people across Ossett and Denby Dale who put their faith in me to represent the area that I proudly call home. I pay tribute to the Labour members across the constituency, especially stalwart member Robert Gosling, without whom I would not be standing here today.”