Darren Paffey
MP for Southampton Itchen · Labour · United Kingdom
“Three million passengers come through each year, and it is an important gateway for vehicles, manufactured goods and international trade, dealing with more than £71 billion of value every year. It supports 45,000 jobs nationwide, and anchors a wider Solent maritime cluster, worth £10.6 billion.”
“If the one UK port that is already leading on shore power cannot fully utilise that potential for another decade—we have been told that the grid expansion will not come until 2036—how much later will the rest of Britain be?”
“The investment we are asking for is not just about expanding ports for the sake of it; it is about redistributing that value back into the communities that generate it. That investment locally can be a catalyst for national growth.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) for securing a debate on this important issue.”
“I am grateful for his engagement with me and the sector recently. First, can we bring forward the grid supply point upgrade at Southampton? A 2036 timeline is not compatible with our 2030 shore power obligations or our sector’s decarbonisation ambitions.”
“I want to speak directly to anyone watching the debate, because the words of the campaigns that the Royal Life Saving Society, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and others have all got behind could save a life this summer: “If someone gets into difficulty in the water, ‘Float to Live’. Fight your instinct to panic and thrash about.”
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“I certainly would not be here without my wonderful wife, children and siblings, who have supported and often tolerated my journey to Parliament, or my parents, who are no longer with us to share this moment, but whom I thank for the values they instilled in me and the opportunities they provided me with in life. I pay tribute to my predecessor, Royston Smith. Before he was an MP, Royston was the Conservative leader of Southampton city council, and it was as council leader that he visited HMS Astute when it was in port. A dreadful and fatal gun attack broke out, and Royston showed enormous bravery by tackling and disarming the gunman, preventing further bloodshed. For this, he was rightly awarded the George Medal by Her late Majesty.”
“The Secretary of State has said: “I will help working-class children defy the odds to succeed—just as I did.” As someone who grew up as a working-class foster kid, I will do everything I can to back that mission, especially for my constituents. If I achieve just one thing as an MP—obviously, I intend to work hard and achieve more than that—I hope it will be to say to those whose backgrounds look anything like mine, “Let those challenging times and that stigma that often comes with social care never ever hold you back, but instead forge in yourself a steely determination to achieve your fullest potential.” I would not be here without some measure of that.”
“As a cabinet member, I worked to get better support for our care-experienced young people, because too many do not get the start they deserve or the help they need, and we must do more to fight for them. I look forward to working with, among others, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), who has done excellent work on the need to review social care. I know that he will continue to be a great champion for care-experienced children. In the Gracious Speech, His Majesty set out the Labour Government’s mission to “break down barriers to opportunity” and to “promote children’s wellbeing”.”
“In addition to being part of the small crack squad of Darrens, I find myself in an equally small cohort of only a few MPs known to have grown up in foster care and to have been adopted. The public services that we are talking about today, and that this Government will rebuild, are the services that made me who I am—the NHS staff, the social workers and the inspiring teachers. When I was made cabinet member for children’s services in Southampton, it felt like life had come full circle, and it really did so again just a few weeks ago during the campaign when Peter, who was the social worker for the first 10 years of my life, got in touch to wish me well. It was excellent to hear that he is a lifelong Labour supporter.”
“Another privilege is to be one of only three Darrens ever elected to this place. Since the summoning of the first Parliament over 750 years ago, there had been no MPs called Darren, but, like buses, three of us have turned up in the last few years. The biggest privilege of all is to make my very first speech as the Member of Parliament for Southampton Itchen in this debate about education and opportunity, because, like my right hon. Friend, that is my story. As a former university lecturer married to a secondary school teacher, with children in secondary school, primary school and preschool, I feel like I have some skin in this game. None of the privileges that I feel at the moment is anyone’s birthright; they are privileges for which I and many other people—my team and activists—have worked very hard, so I do not take them for granted.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I begin by congratulating you and wishing you well as you take the Chair? I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on her new position. People in my constituency—parents, teachers, pupils and professionals alike—will be heartened by the vision she set out for how this Labour Government will build opportunity once again. As I stand here as a new MP—I have to keep saying it to believe it—I want to thank the people of Southampton Itchen for the incredible privilege that they have given me. In fact, this feels like a moment heavy with lots of privileges. One is the privilege to be in the Chamber as many of my colleagues make their maiden speeches, and I congratulate them in advance on the excellent speeches we are going to hear this afternoon.”