Katrina Murray
MP for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch · Labour · United Kingdom
“My very first experience of employment was waiting at a van to try to get a day’s work, cash in hand, at the berries, which was what people usually did when they were aged 13 or 14 and looked a wee bit older.”
“I thank the Minister for his statement. New cases are still coming into my office, with tales of failure to get through on the telephone or a lack of online access. They remain common, but most common is the financial distress. My case team keep hearing about people who are about to lose their house.”
“Protecting our interests in the High North depends not only on our armed forces, but on a resilient defence industrial base. Constituencies such as mine are home to highly skilled defence and engineering businesses that play an important role in supporting our national security.”
“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as co-chair of the Unison group of Labour MPs. For too long, many workers have been expected to keep themselves available for work without any certainty over the hours or income that they would receive. The right to guaranteed hours was designed to change that.”
“Before my time in this place, I lived this issue. When the Assembly collapsed in 2022, health workers in Northern Ireland received no pay increase because there was no functioning Executive able to implement the recommendations of the independent pay review body. The eventual award had to be backdated at the end of the financial year.”
“It was unfair on staff, inefficient for employers, and, ultimately, patients paid the price when public services could not plan with certainty. This was not a one-off. It has happened four times in the past five years, regardless of whether or not Stormont has been sitting. I know that the hon.”
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“We all bring different things to this place, including different perspectives, and this Parliament is stronger for it. That is why I also feel really privileged to have heard the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer). I welcome what she brings to this place, and welcome her to her place. As has been said, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “Give to Gain”, but there is also the UN theme: “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women”. It reminds us that we must never accept that the work is done. We must never forget that what advances we have made can still be lost. There are still far too many women and girls across the world who do not have rights, cannot access justice and are denied education, healthcare and financial independence.”
“It gives me great pleasure and pride to contribute to the debate. I have only been here 18 months, but this is one of my favourite debates in the Chamber because it gives us the privilege of listening to experiences from across the House and recognising women who make a difference in everybody’s local communities and globally. It is always inspiring. It also gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). In a conversation that we had earlier this week, I uttered the phrase, “In this place, we cross paths more often than we cross swords”—proverbial, verbal, swords, not physical ones; I will leave those to the Serjeant at Arms. While we are here as women, and this is the most diverse Parliament that there has ever been, we are not homogeneous.”
“This Government’s decision to invest over £2 billion in creating Britain’s first fleet of small modular reactors in Anglesey will create thousands of jobs, and bring significant economic benefits to the whole region. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Scottish Government should join the Welsh Government in welcoming the thousands of jobs and significant economic growth that nuclear developments can bring?”
“We have also talked about the fact that the change has already happened in both Scotland and Wales, and the world has not fallen in. The other point that I want to raise is how we will make sure that we get young people who are leaving care on to the electoral register. That is important.”
“As I listened to the speeches of Conservative Members, I was reminded that at 16, someone can leave school if they want. They can work and can get a national insurance number. They pay tax if they earn enough, and they pay national insurance if they earn above the threshold. They pay into a state pension and the pot builds, but they might never see any of it if they do not live to reach the retirement age. They are expected to contribute to society, but are told that they cannot have a say in how that society is governed. This has been an important issue for me from the beginning. It is clear that these young people are mature enough to vote—certainly no less mature than many who are 18, and we have never queried votes at that age. We all have talked about how important it is to engage with schools.”
“Last summer, along with the other North Lanarkshire MPs, I participated in North Lanarkshire council’s school placement scheme. Two young people, Scott and Shanna, joined my office. At the time, they were 17 and 16 respectively. They began by doing a six-week summer placement, but they now regularly contribute to our team. Even in a relatively young constituency office, they bring a fresh perspective. They ask different questions and challenge assumptions, and they do so thoughtfully and responsibly. I find it particularly abhorrent that they contribute so much to the work of my office and yet are not deemed important or skilled enough to vote. We talked at length about this Bill and why it was so important. When I set about the task of writing this speech, we were thinking about why the voting age should be 16, rather than 17, 15 or 18.”
“T8. Cumbernauld will get its first direct service to London in the spring, when Lumo’s new Stirling to London Euston service starts stopping at Greenfaulds station. How will the Department ensure that rail reform allows communities such as mine to continue to benefit from open access services?”
“There have been plenty of times when the standards of behaviour of holders of political office at all levels have fallen below what is acceptable. None of us has the moral high ground on this, as every party has had issues—some dealt with quietly and some in the court reports. While my question is to the Minister, I want us all to reflect on it. How do we work collectively to make this better to ensure that no woman and no victim is left unsupported? How do we collectively make a change?”
“2. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the new town of culture and UK city of culture 2029 competitions support communities.”
“I am seeking advice from the Secretary of State. What advice would she give to my local cultural organisations in Cumbernauld, including new and emerging arts and music spaces and the local theatre, which are excited by the prospect of the town of culture competition? How can they engage with and benefit from the competition and ensure that community-led culture is at the heart of any bid?”
“Another resident told me that they do not believe they would ever have gone to university if they had not escaped Glasgow and attended a Cumbernauld school that treated children with dignity and ambition.”
“It looks a bit like next week’s lottery numbers, but residents know—and delivery drivers very quickly discover—that it is designed to make sense on foot, as it works by paths and walkways through neighbourhoods. It may confuse the satnav, but it has been the postal worker’s friend for decades. Behind those quirks, however, there was a serious purpose. Cumbernauld, which was designated in 1955, was built to meet urgent housing needs and offer better living conditions, access to work and a strong sense of community. It was part of a wider post-war belief that planning done properly could improve people’s lives, and for some families it changed the course of those lives entirely.”
“It was not just about building houses quickly; it was about planning whole communities, with homes alongside jobs, schools, services and green space, so people could build decent lives. For those of us who grew up in or around new towns, there were some very familiar signs. You know you live in a new town when your second driving lesson is entirely about roundabouts—not because your instructor has it in for you, but because there are so many of them. Let us be honest: the only traffic lights in a new town are generally on a roundabout. You also know you live in a new town when housing numbers make no sense to anybody arriving by car, because No. 1 is across from No. 25 and can be seen from No. 43, while the next street starts at No. 420.”
“To understand new towns we have to remember why they were created in the first place. Post-war Britain faced severe housing shortages, overcrowding and poor living conditions, and there was a clear recognition that simply expanding existing towns and cities would not be enough. For many families, that was not abstract policy, but daily life. One local resident, who is now a close friend, described moving from a top-floor slum with damp walls, no hot water and a shared toilet on a stair landing to a three-bedroom home with a bathroom, her own bedroom, a garden and space to live. That move was life changing. The new towns programme was a deliberate choice to do things differently.”
“I went to school there, and like many people growing up in and around a new town, it simply felt like home. It was a place shaped by decisions taken long before I was born, but that defined everyday life. It feels like a fitting symmetry that, years after leaving school in 1989 and embarking on my own career journey, I now have the privilege of representing another new town in this House. Cumbernauld has just marked its 70th anniversary, and its story of ambition, achievement, challenge and renewal mirrors the experience of so many new towns across the country, which is why I am so pleased that Members from across the House are taking part today. This debate gives us the opportunity to reflect not only on what new towns have delivered, but on what they can still teach us.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered new towns. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this important debate. As we reach the 80th anniversary of the New Towns Act 1946, it feels like exactly the right moment for the House to pause and reflect on what was, at the time, a bold and radical idea, and one that sought not just to build houses, but to shape communities. Eight decades on, as we again face the challenge of large-scale house building and the prospect of a new generation of new towns, it is right that we reflect honestly on both the shortcomings and the successes of that legacy. This debate has a personal resonance for me. I was brought up in Markinch, on the edge of the new town of Glenrothes.”
“The fact that you could not go anywhere in the ’80s without seeing that statement meant that people across the country knew about Cumbernauld. I remember seeing that wording on the tube on my first trips to London. Other new towns tried to get in on the act. “Living in Livingston” did not quite hit as well, but those ideas showed the beauty of development corporations shining a light on design more widely.”
“Through sheer determination and tenacity, she brought parents together and worked across the development corporation, the council and social work to create community housing, day centres and respite care. Her drive was the difference, and the services she helped to build became so strong that families later moved to Cumbernauld specifically because of them.”
“What went wrong was not the new town concept itself, but the failure to plan properly for what came next. That is the lesson we cannot afford to ignore. If we are serious about learning from new towns, and about building new ones, the ambition at the start has to be matched by responsibility over the long term. When we talk about new towns, it is easy to focus on plans and buildings. What really made places like Cumbernauld work were the people who stepped up, saw what was missing, and got things done; that early generation who made sure that this was their community. One of those people was Sheena Walker, a true pioneer in disability care. When she moved to Cumbernauld in the late 1960s, there was no local support for children with learning disabilities. She refused to accept that.”
“In Cumbernauld, areas such as Ainslie Road were affected by concrete deterioration, leading to homes having to be demolished, while flat-roofed housing—very much of its era—proved less suited to Scotland’s climate as buildings aged. But that experience has also supported local expertise, including firms like BriggsAmasco—a Cumbernauld-based flat roofing specialist investing highly in skills and apprenticeships. These challenges were not unique to my town. Across the new towns, infrastructure and housing aged at the same time, without the funding or the governance structures to renew them properly. When development corporations were wound up and assets sold off, responsibility became fragmented. In many cases, ownership passed from hedge fund to hedge fund, with no real long-term stake in the place beyond what appeared on a balance sheet.”
“Decades later, that same town centre went on to win awards of a very different kind, including the Carbuncle awards and the Plook on the Plinth in the early noughties. That contrast tells its own story. It is about not a lack of ambition, but what happens when bold design is left without sustained investment, renewal and long-term stewardship. Today, the town centre is undergoing long-term regeneration, made possible with the investment of the UK Government focused on making the centre work for modern life, rather than erasing what came before. The same issues can be seen in parts of the housing stock. Houses that were built quickly, using methods that were innovative at the time, did not always stand the test of time.”
“Cumbernauld is sometimes judged by its built form, but it is also defined by its green space deliberately woven into daily life. That is the new town model at its best. It is impossible to talk about Cumbernauld without mentioning the town centre. In the 1960s it was genuinely celebrated: award-winning, internationally recognised, and seen as a confident expression of modernist and brutalist design. It was officially opened by Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon. For families arriving at that time, that optimism was real: with the modern buildings, light, space and public services, they felt like stepping out of the 19th-century conditions they were used to and into the modern world.”
“People moved to Cumbernauld for work and opportunity, and to put down roots. As industries changed, the site evolved into what is now the Wardpark industrial area, which continues to support employment in different forms. Around that, neighbourhoods were designed to function as real communities. Social housing was central, not marginal, and each area had its own shops, post office, parking, garages and public transport, with regular bus services connecting people into Glasgow and beyond. When new towns are discussed now, the focus is often on buildings or concrete. What often gets overlooked is the thought given to how people would actually live—how housing, employment, transport and green space all fit together.”
“The hon. Gentleman must have read the other parts of my speech, as I will come to that point. As I was about to say, new towns were never meant to just be housing schemes. They were meant to be places: planned communities, where jobs, homes and services developed together, so people could build stable lives close to where they worked. That vision is clear in how Cumbernauld was developed. It brought together families moving out of overcrowded parts of Glasgow, alongside others, often younger people and professionals, who moved there specifically to work. Employment was central, not an afterthought. Major employers, including Burroughs, played a central role in the town’s early growth. It provided skilled employment at scale, initially manufacturing mechanical adding machines—remember those?—and later moving into computers and printers.”
“I hope this debate will help to ensure that as we build again at scale, we are not simply creating new places, but committing to them for the long term. I look forward to hearing the contributions from across the House.”
“It has to involve communities and to respect the identity of places that people care deeply about. This feels particularly relevant as the Government look to build a new generation of new towns in England. If we are serious about doing that well, we have to learn from the first generation: planning for stewardship from day one and giving communities a real voice as places grow and change. Our first generation of new towns are no longer new towns in any meaningful sense; they are simply towns with families, histories, challenges and pride built up over generations. People were born there, raised there, worked there, stayed there, left there and came home—that is what matters when we talk about the future.”
“Both those stories matter because they show that new towns were never just about infrastructure, but about people with commitment and imagination shaping communities from the inside and making places work for those who lived there. So what does all of this tell us not just about Cumbernauld, but about new towns more broadly? One clear lesson is that long-term responsibility matters. Building homes and infrastructure is only the beginning. Without clarity about stewardship, places struggle to thrive decades later. Another lesson is that homes and jobs must be planned together. New towns worked best when people could live close to where they worked, and not allowed to become purely commuter settlements. Renewal has to start with people. Regeneration is not just about buildings and masterplans.”
“I very much commend my hon. Friend’s suggestion. What is clear is how important it is to have intergenerational towns and accessible housing. Another local legend was Danny McGowan, who taught generations of Cumbernauld’s children to swim. He founded Cumbernauld swimming club and built it into a competitive force, driven by his passion for the sport and for giving young people confidence in the water, all despite the small challenge that the council had built the swimming pool to the wrong size for it to be a competitive pool. Rather than being put off, he worked around it, and thousands—probably hundreds of thousands—of children benefited as a result.”
“I encourage the next generation of development corporations to include town artists in the workforce. I thank everyone who took part in the debate. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of new towns.”
“Friends the Members for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) and for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia). If those are not enough, I will introduce them to my mother, whose village was subsumed into the Glenrothes new town, but she recognised that that was the only way she could stay in her area and raise a family; the jobs and her life were there. I particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Chris Vince) and for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) for their references to town art. It does not matter if it is concrete cows, polar bears, hippos or elephants. In my case, it is totems. They were a strong part of the development corporations making ready use of the concrete at their disposal, and town artists provided beauty in the built environment.”
“When I applied to the Backbench Business Committee for this debate, I said, with bravado, that there was a lot of interest, even though I had some concerns that the subject might be a little bit niche. I am therefore very glad to have seen the debate this afternoon. It has been a debate of the mothers and the grandmothers, and I wish Yvonne Bonavia a very happy birthday. It has been a wonderful opportunity to do what has been described to me as writing love letters to our towns, our garden cities and our villages, as they currently are—places that we love. This has also been a debate about real concerns, and I hope that the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) have heard the experiences of my hon.”
“Writers such as the Brontë sisters, George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell went on to write very different kinds of novels, but they did so in a literary world that Austen herself had helped to open up. She showed that stories centred on women could be complex, rigorous and enduring, and that women novelists themselves deserved to be taken seriously. Her influence runs through literature, films, television and popular culture, and it continues to invite us to question how power really operates, often behind politeness and convention. I will end with Austen herself again, who wrote: “One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it”. Some 250 years on, Jane Austen remains beloved, not because she smoothed over difficulty, but because she understood it, and because she trusted her readers to do exactly the same.”
“Most recently, historians such as Lucy Worsley have reminded us that Austen’s radicalism lay in insisting that ordinary women were worthy of being heroines and that their inner lives mattered, which is why she continues to speak so powerfully to young women today. Her heroines think, judge, change their minds and, crucially, are allowed to say no. They are underestimated, patronised and sometimes dismissed as trivial, only to prove otherwise. That theme has not entirely lost its relevance. By writing women’s lives seriously—their judgment, their intelligence and their everyday experience—Austen helped to shift what was considered worthy of literature.”
“Austen is never heavy-handed. Her greatest strength is irony. She exposes hypocrisy, entitlement and self-importance by letting her characters speak for themselves, often while being entirely convinced of their own virtue. It is a technique that has aged extremely well and still feels uncomfortably familiar in public life, which is why her influence today is so extensive. She wrote about structures, not fashions, which is why her work travels so easily more than two centuries later. We have already talked at length about “Bridget Jones’s Diary”, but we also have Bollywood’s “Bride and Prejudice”, modern queer retellings such as “Fire Island”, and let us not forget “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, which suggests that if a writer’s work can survive both the literary canon and the undead, their cultural legacy is in a really good place.”
“Her novels examine money, inheritance, reputation and power with real precision, particularly in how they shape women’s lives or, as she puts it clearly in “Sense and Sensibility”: “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” That line does feel a bit less romantic than totally economically literate. The clearest example of Austen’s seriousness is “Mansfield Park”, which to my mind is a novel that is often overshadowed by “Pride and Prejudice” or “Emma”. Through Fanny Price, Austen explores dependence and what it means to be grateful, constrained and constantly reminded of one’s place. Fanny’s refusal to marry wealth at the cost of her conscience is not dramatic rebellion; it is moral resistance under pressure. Austen shows us that integrity, especially for women, is rarely rewarded quickly or loudly.”
“As has already been said, we are meeting just after the 250th anniversary of her birth, and what strikes me is not simply that her novels are still read and in great demand, but they are still being argued over, still being adapted and still capable of illuminating modern debates about power, class and gender. To my mind, that is the clearest measure of her literary and cultural legacy. Jane Austen was a woman who was often presented as a writer of romance and— sometimes dismissively—the original chick lit, but she was a woman who never wrote escapism. As we have been reminded during this debate, she was writing social commentary, delivered lightly but never casually.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) on securing this timely and welcome debate and, to be honest, on allowing us to reread and rewatch the great works of Jane Austen, all on the grounds of pure research. I begin by quoting Jane herself from “Persuasion”: “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures.” Those words were spoken by Anne Elliot, a character who knows exactly what it is like to be overlooked, underestimated and quietly right all along, and they seem like an entirely appropriate place to begin discussing Jane Austen.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker; I wish you and your staff a very merry Christmas. Yesterday, my constituent Liz Buchanan stood down after 15 years as chairperson of Cumbernauld Seniors Club. During Liz’s tenure, the club has become a safe place to meet friends, chat, have a hot meal and enjoy countless activities and celebrations. Liz’s fellow committee members say that this is down to her enthusiasm, determination, wit and amazing powers of persuasion. Will the Leader of the House join me in paying tribute to Liz and all those who volunteer to make our communities much better places to live?”
“This week’s exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall is a memorial quilt produced my members of the South East Fermanagh Foundation. It is a very moving way to remember the innocent victims of terrorism. The dates on the quilt panels remind us of how long the families have been fighting for justice. Can I ask the Secretary of State what message he wants to send out to every person who has produced one of the quilt panels for SEFF and to all the other families?”
“I pay tribute to all the Ministers across all the Departments who have worked together to get this over the line. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) for not giving up and making sure that it happened. Grangemouth matters to all of us; we all have constituents who work in the complex or the supply chain. There has been real investment. As a result of announcements over the last few months and again today, we can talk about new highly skilled jobs for a generation. We are again able to talk to people locally about how important it is to get jobs in the advanced manufacturing and chemical sectors. Given that skills are devolved to the Scottish Government, how is the Minister liaising with them to make sure that we are getting that investment for our young people?”
“There has been more than one week during my time in this place where every piece of casework that has come to my office has had a violence against women and girls component to it. The complexity of this issue cannot be underestimated. I do not want to pre-empt the launch of the strategy, which is eagerly awaited by all the agencies in my constituency that deal with this issue on a daily basis, but can the Minister confirm what engagement there has been with the Scottish Government so that we have a joined-up approach for the parts of the services that are devolved?”
“For UK businesses, Fairtrade certification makes absolute sense. Colleagues have expressed that in much greater depth. Support for Fairtrade across my constituency shows that the public already understand that, but the Government and business must keep pace and ensure that Fairtrade certification plays a central role in building a fairer, more resilient and more responsible UK trading system.”
“I am proud that those values are being lived in my constituency. North Lanarkshire council, which covers Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, is a recognised Fairtrade zone. That reflects a commitment across schools, community groups, workplaces and public services to choose Fairtrade, and the steering group has recognised North Lanarkshire as one of the major distribution hubs in Scotland. Working with the wholesale market on Fairtrade is just as important, so we must ensure that all companies, including small businesses, are able to do that. In Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire council has made similar commitments. The School Yard Kitchen, which is just over my constituency boundary, specialises in how to grow a community between Kirkintilloch and Ghana through chocolate. Fairtrade is not abstract.”
“The good companies—ironically, the ones that had leadership from Scandinavian countries—saw that treating workers fairly is important, that it is good to pay good wages and that Fairtrade is worth shouting about. Although Fairtrade is important for bananas, it is also important for tea, coffee, cotton, wine, cocoa and sugar cane. Millions of people around the world depend on those products for their livelihoods, yet only a tiny shave of what consumers pay for them reaches those who grow and pick them. That imbalance is not accidental but a result of supply chains that prioritise low prices over fair outcomes. Fairtrade challenges that model and proves that there is a better way. It is not all international; hon. Members have talked about the choices that we make here at home.”
“We saw at first hand the exploitation that the banana workers experience: the complete control by the companies and multinationals, the non-payment of wages, the non-provision of healthcare—healthcare is provided only by the plantation owners—and products being sold only in the stores of the companies that people get their wages from. I live close to Robert Owen’s New Lanark, and I was reminded of the things that we got rid of 200 years ago at the beginning of the co-operative movement. We saw the effect of the environmental pressures. Banana plants showed ash from volcanic eruptions hundreds of miles away. We also met small producers.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for securing this debate. Clearly, fair trade matters, and it does to all of us. I will spend a little time outlining why it matters so much to me and where I first came across it. Too often in global trade, people who grow and produce the food that we enjoy here in the UK take all the risks—unstable prices, poor conditions, climate pressures—while others further up the supply chain take the reward. Nearly 20 years ago, I was fortunate enough to be part of a delegation organised by Banana Link, where we met those working on the plantations that produce the majority of the world’s supply of bananas for export, across central and South America. Yes, among those exporters and suppliers was Del Monte.”
“I welcome the Minister’s response. I am a long-standing member of the NHS credit union, which is one of the credit unions affected by the withdrawal of the family protection plan by CMutual on 30 November. Policyholders over the age of 70 who have paid premiums well in excess of what they would have expected to have paid out have been left in the lurch with no alternative provision given. I thank the Minister for what she has done so far in pursuing peace of mind for those who have tried to do the right thing and planned for their funerals, but in the interim, can she bring all the stakeholders to the table to try to reach a solution that benefits those policyholders in particular?”
“I commend the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for securing the urgent question. We have talked about the experiences of the Kenova families in terms of having confidence in the process, and we recognise the complexity of the 28 years of the troubles. The Secretary of State has highlighted how the lack of transparency and answers leaves a void for relatives that is filled by their worst fears. That makes the provisions on the grounds of disclosure in the troubles Bill, which is currently going through the legislative process, even more important. How will we make sure that the best experiences of Operation Kenova are built into the next stages of the legislation?”
“Does the Minister agree that in my constituency, where people are struggling to access healthcare, it is vital that the SNP Government make effective use of the recent funding uplift to finally deliver the long-promised elective treatment and diagnostic centre in Cumbernauld, so that we can cut waiting lists and get my constituents the care they need?”
“Next week marks 70 years since Cumbernauld was designated a new town on 9 December 1955. It was part of a visionary programme that reshaped communities across Scotland and the UK. While we rightly celebrate that legacy of ambition and innovation, many new towns, including my own, face significant challenges, from ageing infrastructure to pressures on public services and town centres. Will the Leader of the House allocate time for a debate on the past, present and future of the UK’s new towns so that we can consider how best to support their regeneration and ensure that places such as Cumbernauld continue to thrive for decades to come?”