YouSaid · the spoken record
Jon Trickett
On the record 2018–2026
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This is everything the corpus holds for Jon Trickett. It is not everything they have said on the record.
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“With her legendary attention to detail, no doubt the Leader of the House has seen this morning’s report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies—an authoritative report showing that so deep now are the class and regional differences in our society that social mobility has been reversed by more than 50 years. Can we have a debate in Government time so that we can address the issue, particularly for poorer families in the north of England whose children find it difficult to share in the success that this society allegedly promises them?”
House of Commons7 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course we need more housing, but in my constituency the sewers are over capacity, Victorian and clapped out. I invite the Minister to meet some of the households where in times of heavy rain raw sewage not only pollutes the environment but floats around the streets, the gardens and even the kitchens. It is simply not acceptable to imagine we can somehow wave a wand to solve the housing problem. Finally, may I draw the attention of the House to an excellent website called “Top of the Poops”, which states that in my constituency there were 4,468 hours of sewage last year alone? That is completely unacceptable.”
House of Commons5 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In a key paragraph of his statement, the Secretary of State appears to envisage that he will either remove or reduce the descriptors giving access to benefits for people who have problems with mobility or are incontinent. Will he explain what he means by that? Will he also tackle problems on the other side of the world of work, including rogue employers exploiting people through low-paid part-time or temporary jobs? One in nine workers are in poverty as a result. Is it not time that he took on the employers rather than the poorest in our society?”
House of Commons5 September 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“From the news today, we know that Britain was in competition with Spain over the location of a battery factory—I am glad we have got it for the UK. There is a Spain APPG, and I do not suggest in any way that it is malign, but foreign countries—allies or not—have an interest in understanding how our Parliament works. I am glad that the Committee has recommended changes. If we can get through today without a vote against, the Committee can go away and reflect on the debate and tackle the malign aspects of APPGs. Parliament would then be in a much better place.”
House of Commons19 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They all have access to the House and to Members of Parliament simply because they have the capacity to buy influence through the APPG system. I am not suggesting that anything about that is corrupt, but people outside, such as Peter, who I met yesterday in my constituency, where the local bank has closed—he is 88 years old and nearly blind—want to know that we operate on their behalf and not purely in the interests of large commercial operators. Then there is the problem of foreign influence. The Committee made it clear in the report that foreign countries have not only attempted to influence our Parliament through APPGs, but succeeded in doing so. Some hostile countries, as we would define them, have sought to influence, but it is not just them.”
House of Commons19 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However—and this is the point that I think sticks in the craw—commercial interests have dominated so much of our political life that that asymmetry of power and access to wealth and to this place is so profound that it is eating away at the body politic itself. We have funding coming from the arms industry, the tobacco industry, polluters, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, private healthcare and so on. They are all putting money into APPGs. Members might ask, “Well, what’s wrong with that?” I am not against the arms industry—I am not a pacifist—but it is one of the largest beneficiaries of state procurement with taxpayers’ money. The private sector in health has an interest in trying to undermine the way in which the health service works. Tobacco is clearly regularly the subject of regulation.”
House of Commons19 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Over the years, I reflected on the asymmetry of power between the people who have money and, as a result, access to power, including access to this place, and the millions of people around the country who also have interests but are not always heard. I therefore resigned from every APPG—I may be the only person here who is not in a single one. Maybe Members will say that I am not a very effective MP, but it seems to me that, if I want to speak to MPs, commercial interests, or private and civil society groups, I am capable of doing so without being in an APPG. On the other hand, I would be happy to be party to many of the groups that have been mentioned today, which seem benign.”
House of Commons19 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This has been a fascinating debate—I almost used the word “delay”, but I would not dare to when speaking about the Father of the House. In the few minutes I have, let me try to make the case against a vote. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee has listened—we all have—and maybe some refinement can be achieved. My hon. Friend might have made a stronger case if he had recalled to the House the distinction that his report makes between two types of all-party group. Many of them are benign, as we have heard. When I came to Parliament in 1996 through a by-election, they seemed relatively benign to me, but then I worked twice in Government—in No. 10 and the Cabinet Office—and then for 10 years on the Opposition Front Bench.”
House of Commons19 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I need to correct a statement I made to the Leader of the House two weeks ago, when I said that the Governor of the Bank of England was earning £10,000 a week. I was wrong and I apologise. He is actually earning £11,500 a week, so when he makes statements to middle and lower-income earners that they should exercise wage restraint, does it not feel a bit like the old ruling class idea, “You lot should do as I say, but not as I do”? Can we have a debate on high pay as soon as possible please?”
House of Commons13 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister’s statement proposes that the pay rises offered, which are less than the rate of inflation for every single one of the millions of people who work hard for our public services, will be paid for effectively by what he calls a productivity drive. Is it not the case that productivity in Tory hands means cuts to services and reductions in staff? Why did the OBR say this morning that, on our present track, we will finish up with a debt 300% of our GDP? When he talks about sound money, it simply is not true, is it?”
House of Commons13 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“All those words are just empty rhetoric. It is a con trick. The truth is that in a single decade the Government cut £540 billion from public services, and by March they will only have put about £500 million—one tenth of that—back in through levelling up. Is it not clear that to level up properly, we need an end both to this Government and to the economic system they have established?”
House of Commons10 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T6. While the Government drag their heels on section 21, thousands of families are being evicted through no fault of their own by rapacious landlords—let’s be honest about it—with 2,000 families in May alone this year. That is not acceptable. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State has been having cosy meetings with private landlords’ associations, which gives the impression he is on the side of the landlords and not the renters. Will he at least say now that the Bill will come back in September?”
House of Commons10 July 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Governor of the Bank of England earns more than £10,000 a week. The Bank made billions of pounds in profit from last year’s catastrophic mini-Budget, and the bonuses that are jointly earned by his staff add up to more than £23 million. How can he use his lofty position to criticise workers who are struggling to get a pay increase, when pay rises have fallen so far behind inflation? Can we have a debate in Government time to discuss this issue and bust the myth that wages are somehow creating the inflation problem that we have at the moment?”
House of Commons29 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are families and institutions that benefit from the wealth that originated from that horrible trade to this very day. Why do I mention that? I mention it because Members of the House, who may have stood in the very place where I am standing now, fought against slavery, and it was in this House that the anti-slavery legislation was passed. We built an anti-slavery monument. Where did we build it? We built it next to our Parliament, in the very location now proposed. As other Members have said, the sculpture of the Burghers of Calais, an amazing monument to the human spirit, is in the same park, as well as a statue that is a tribute to the suffragettes. Where else would we put a memorial to what happened in the holocaust but alongside our Parliament, in the same place as those other sculptures?”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Part of our debate needs to reflect upon that, as well as looking at local issues. There is no doubt that a memorial is well overdue, but the Minister may well feel that some of the discussion about location and the nature of the monument is unseemly. I urge the Government to reflect carefully on the debate, and to try to get the discussion about where it is and how it is constructed out of here and into a place where a consensus can be arrived at. In the explanatory notes to the Bill, the Government say the memorial “will help people understand the way the lessons of the Holocaust apply more widely, including to other genocides.” That makes me think of racism, which takes many different forms. For example, the slave trade is a great stain on our nation, and on other nations too.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“After 27 years in this place, I suppose I should never be surprised about the direction in which debates go, but it is slightly unseemly that we are spending so much time talking about such an emotive matter, down to the location of a particular monument. I understand entirely the views of local people, but this is a national—indeed, international—centre of democracy, which has world importance. Of course local residents matter, but so does the site itself, which has been here for centuries. I will make a case for the location that the Government propose, but first let me reflect that today’s debate takes place in the shadow of the most vile and appalling event: the unspeakable capacity of human beings to inflict the kinds of activities carried out by the Nazis against the Jews.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I hope that the House will understand that I have spoken in this way in order to condemn with every single fibre in my body all forms of racism and antisemitism. The holocaust is an appalling crime against our common humanity. It is right that we pledge today never to forgive or forget what happened, and never to let down our guard for a moment—because, while antiracism is a powerful force, antisemitism is still there and needs to be resisted.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Equally, though, I am pleased to record that the individual concerned was confronted by fellow members for his outburst and was told he must never come back to another meeting. Let me turn to one further final anecdote. I was out canvassing not so long ago in my constituency, which is in the wonderful area of Wakefield, when a man who I knew had a reputation for being a Nazi approached me. He was a man who could not control his emotions, a man with extreme anger, and he told me he was going to fill the streets with “patriots”, as he called them, and that they would eliminate people such as me from the area and from the country. It was a terrifying moment, but the police decided to record it as a hate crime and I am glad to say that he was charged and pled guilty to an antisemitic hate crime in Leeds Crown Court.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thinking about the six-day war, it is probably worth recording that our family knew that people could disagree with an elected Government and its actions, but that that is not the same as hating a whole nation or even a race. We can clearly see today that there are many Israelis who oppose their Government, and no one would suggest that they are being antisemitic in doing so. I come now to a distasteful few sentences. When I joined the Labour party in 1969, there were many working-class Jewish socialists in our part of Leeds, and I never witnessed any antisemitism in any of those meetings. However, and I regret to have to record this, when I entered my constituency as the MP, only 12 miles away from Leeds, I was subjected to the most shocking antisemitic comment by a party member. It was vile.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We got on pretty well, and I do not mean to say that the school was a bad place at all, but there were antisemitic actions, language and bullying in that school. I am not a violent man—my mother taught me to believe in non-violence—but I will not hide the fact that at times there were fights and there was resistance to the antisemites at the margins of the school, all motivated by anti-Jewish racism. As I entered my teens, my mother began to say to me, “Let’s get out of here.” She wanted me to go to Israel to be on a kibbutz. The kibbutz seemed to offer a different way of living communally, inspired perhaps by some notions of common ownership, mutual endeavour, equality and peace. We decided that I would go to live on a kibbutz, but then the six-day war happened, and in any case we needed me to go out to work and earn a living at 16.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thirty thousand Jewish people turned out to resist the fascists. Jewish and gentile, socialists and communists, Liberals and Tories, trade unionists and fair-minded citizens, community groups and others rallied against Mosley. There was a battle and Mosley retired injured. Members of my family were there. My mother and our family talked about that victory, but we did not fool ourselves that antisemitism had been quelled. Then came the second world war and the ghastly news of the concentration camps, which I imagine even today chills the bones of all of us in this House. I do not want to exaggerate. Leeds is a tolerant place. Most people would say, “Live and let live”. That is the kind of people they are in West Yorkshire where I come from. When I was at school in the ‘50s and ‘60s, we lived on the edge of a large Jewish community.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Before the second world war, a stereotypical English gentleman who had attended Winchester College, a public school, launched the British fascist party. He was supported by a section of the establishment as well as by people from all sectors of society. This was Oswald Mosley. He decided to lead his blackshirts through the Jewish quarters in Leeds, where my family lived. It was a naked attempt to mobilise antisemitic sentiments to distract residents from the post-1929 depression and the conditions that prevailed in Leeds at the time. As a Leeds-born citizen who eventually become leader of that great city’s council, I am proud to tell the House that Mosley was refused permission to march through the Jewish areas. He did, however, rally his supporters on Holbeck Moor, in south Leeds, not far from where I came to live.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My grandmother regularly told me that she lived in fear of the pogroms, from which she, her parents and grandparents had suffered in Russia. She said to me, “Here Jon, I need to tell you something. Whenever anyone unknown knocks on your door, you kid to be daft.” That might not mean much to Members in this place, but what she meant was to pretend to be stupid if somebody in a shirt and tie—a bit like I am dressed today—knocks on the door. In other words, do not comply with the wishes of strangers, especially those who look like they are in authority, because they may well be representatives of a hostile force. That was her experience. She had a lifelong fear of strangers and of authority. Perhaps it was just one of her foibles, I do not know. Equally, though, it might have reflected a part of the wider Jewish experience.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is odd in a way to reflect that those cousins have almost circumnavigated the globe across four generations of my family. Let me focus on the Leeds part of the family. They were hard-working cobblers—boot and shoe makers. They worked in a small place next to the synagogue on North Street, Leeds. There was a great Jewish community there. Although it was a tight-knit working class community, I heard many stories of harassment and racism, including violent attacks. The housing conditions were appalling—three generations living in slum housing, sharing one or, if they were lucky, two bedrooms. My grandparents had three children, one of whom was my mother. They lived in similar conditions. The house that I was brought up in was declared a slum and cleared. They were the generations of people who were building a life here.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They stopped off in London—the great port of London—first. In Victorian times, Britain welcomed asylum seekers—Jews escaping the tyranny of the time. It is hard to imagine whether that could happen today. Although that is not the point that I wish to make, it is important to reflect on that. As I said, my family were on their way to America from what is now Poland. They were heading for Liverpool to get the boat across to New York and to freedom, as they saw it. They passed through Leeds. The older generation had by then become aged and infirm, so it was left to my grandmother, the youngest daughter, to stay and care for them—that was the tradition. The rest went on to Liverpool and then to Chicago. I have cousins who finally arrived in the west, in California.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have never spoken about this before, either in public or in private, but it has been on my mind throughout my life and I want to go through some issues, because antisemitism is on the rise. It has long disfigured so many parts of our western European culture, as well as parts of our nation. It is a vile, centuries old, unforgiveable hatred that gave rise to the most appalling crime here in Europe in the last century. As I have said, we all still live in its shadows. Fascism and the holocaust occurred in Germany, but we must never pretend that antisemitism is solely restricted to that nation. I wish to reflect on the lives of previous generations of my family and on what I have seen. My ancestors escaped antisemitic pogroms not in Germany, but in Tsarist Russia. They came to Britain on their way to the United States.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Father of the House, who I always listen to with respect. He is widely respected, but on this matter he may be wrong. I occasionally go to the anti-slavery monument and to look at the Burghers of Calais, which is an amazing sculpture. I then sometimes quietly go and sit on one of the benches, watch the river go by and think about the struggles for emancipation over the centuries, so many of which happened in this very building. I am not sure that putting a monument of the kind we are talking about in Parliament Square, surrounded as it is by traffic, is necessarily conducive to the quiet reflection that I and many others experience in the park. I want to reflect on antisemitism, which was the root of the holocaust, and on my family’s history.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I agree with him. With my kind of politics, it is very rare that I agree with anybody on the Conservative Benches, but it is good to recognise that these strong pulses of hatred towards racism are shared by all of us in the House. Finally, let the memorial stand as a reminder of the need to fight injustice, just as our country did in the second world war. This is not a battle that can be finally won; it is a battle that we need to fight in each generation, and each one of us must stand in witness to what has happened. Let the monument stand as a reproach to humanity, that our species is capable of the most unspeakable crimes—but equally, as a sign that we are prepared to sacrifice ourselves, as so many people in our military did, to fight for a better world.”
House of Commons28 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I return to the issue of nominations into the other place. Is the Minister aware that 27 members of the Lords donated £50 million to his party and that one in 10 Tory peers have given more than £100,000 to his party? Is that all just an unfortunate coincidence, or are we seeing a return to cash for honours? Would it not be simple just to say that nobody who makes donations to political parties can receive an honour in the future? Would that not be the simplest way of dealing with this utter scandal?”
House of Commons22 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are 9,900 families—20,000 people—in my constituency facing an increase in their mortgage of about £1,800 per household. They are facing a crisis already. Is it not the case that the Government are using the old philosophy first expressed by John Major: “If it isn’t hurting, it won’t be working”? The truth is that it is not working for the many, but it is working for the few—it is hurting the many, but only working for the few. Can we have a debate in Government time to discuss this cruel, unequal and devastating economic orthodoxy that is damaging so much of our country? We need a new economic settlement.”
House of Commons22 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But the problem is that in my constituency in the Yorkshire coalfield, there are 20 times fewer people employed in science and technology innovation than in Cambridge. We can be proud of what Cambridge has achieved, but why should areas such as mine be so left behind? There is no economic reason why the golden triangle between Greater London, Cambridge and Oxford should be preferred over the rest of the country, so is it pure politics?”
House of Commons14 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have had a Government who, through austerity and the particular form of economic society they have created, have developed a major mental health crisis and then cut the required services. There is no prospect of their doing anything else to improve the situation. This is a serious problem. We must imagine ourselves in the situation of the family in the case I illustrated. This is a crisis that echoes throughout the land and it is not acceptable. I finish on this point. We do need money putting into our mental health services, as everyone would agree. But why do the Government not start by saying that the staff—the carers, cleaners and all the clinical staff—get a proper rise? That would at least be a decent way to try to retain some of those people in house for now.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It then said, “This home isn’t working, so you’ve got to move everybody out.” There are people there who are close to the end of life and others who have serious mental health issues. Closing that home is going to kill some people: let us be honest and blunt about it. It appears that its private owners are removing all the people in there with these mental health issues and putting them somewhere else, with no reference whatsoever and no care for people who have basically been commodities for them to use—but they are investing in the home. I have spoken to the CQC and asked: are those fit and proper persons to run such a home to care for people with mental health crises? My argument is that they are not and they have proved the point. They did not even go to appeal and the staff are being left on the scrapheap.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We looked it up and found it will be £3,000 per month to get the treatment. This is treatment that should be provided by a civilised Government, but we do not have a civilised Government—it is shocking. This morning, that young woman of 18 was left on her own on a sofa—not even with a commode provided—with two glasses of water and a bloomin’ sandwich while the family went off to work to try to earn the money to pay. It is a disgrace that that happens in our society. Finally, I come to the issue of people with mental health issues in care homes. These care homes are in some ways very good, but in other ways this is a racket. We have a care home in my area that the Care Quality Commission condemned in 2020. Nothing was done by the owners to improve the situation but the CQC did not go back, presumably because of covid, until November.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is shocking, but this is the kind of society that the Government have created and they have then cut the services that would provide the basic support that a civilised society should provide. Let me refer to two profoundly shocking cases, which I am sure are reproduced everywhere in the country. The first involves a family who have an 18-year-old daughter. She has a mental health issue and it has led to her becoming immobilised physically. She was admitted to an acute hospital over the weekend—she is unable to move. The hospital insisted that she left yesterday, but there is no care package and no assistance for her. The doctor said, “My advice to you is to get some treatment, but you won’t get it on the NHS because you’ll wait for years. Your need is urgent. Go to a private practitioner.” That was what he recommended.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us just think about this: we are talking about people with mental health problems being sent to an area that is unfamiliar to them, miles away from anywhere they know or feel comfortable and loved in, in order to receive basic treatment. It is not acceptable that that is happening in Yorkshire. Suicide has been mentioned by a number of colleagues, from all parts of the House. In West Yorkshire, the figure for men committing suicide is over 20 per 100,000, whereas the figure for the country as a whole is 16 per 100,000. Let us just think about that. It is because of the deprivation and the problems we face in our area. Why should we put up with a postcode lottery that fails to address the mental health needs of young people, with the result that we have a quarter more suicides in West Yorkshire than in the rest of the country?”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The same applies to the loss of nurses and other qualified staff; these things are in decline. So it is no good the Minister standing there and repeating stuff that has been provided to him by the civil service. It is scandalous that in my area of West Yorkshire 10,000 people in a single year were released from acute hospital with a recommendation that they receive mental health treatment and all of them failed to get a mental health appointment. They were then removed from the list without any opportunity to receive even the basic courtesy of a single half-hour meeting. Beyond that, in the same year, 60,000 patients in Yorkshire had to be referred to a provider outside their area.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Even the Minister seemed to concede that in one of his responses, although the idea that the Government will somehow address the problems they have created after 13 years is preposterous. The Minister talks a good talk on the Government’s intentions, but under his Government NHS staff wages have fallen, and nursing bursaries have been cut, as have mental health beds. In my area of Yorkshire we have lost a quarter of our mental health beds since 2010—since the Conservatives came into power and Labour was last in government. The loss of a bed may not sound much, but if we think about it, we see that dozens and perhaps hundreds of people would use that bed in a year. Every bed lost has a huge impact on a series of individuals, families and even communities.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituency is 529th out of 533 English seats in social mobility—it is one of the most immobile socially. A child who is born today in the local hospital will die younger than those elsewhere in the country if they are in deprivation; there is no chance whatsoever of getting out of the crisis that so many families face, given the absence of social mobility across the country, but especially in areas such as mine. I am talking about deprivation where, in a constituency such as mine, access to a house, green space, healthy living and all the things one should expect to be able to achieve as a human being in one of the richest countries in the world are simply not available. That is the seed bed for the mental health crisis. I speak about my area, but this is a generic problem, as we all know.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think the whole House agrees that there is a mental health crisis, but the Minister’s presentation simply will not do. It was like a series of numbers read from a brief prepared by somebody who is remote from the reality of life in our country. It sounded complacent and like it was coming from on high, rather than from real experience. I hope the House will not mind if I illustrate the general points I want to make by referring to my own area, as the experiences I am going to relate have a general significance for the country as a whole. First, let me agree with my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), that the seed beds that are creating the great demand for mental health services lie in the social and economic conditions that have been created following 13 years of failed government.”
House of Commons7 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On any index we choose—social mobility, inequality, deprivation, the funding of public services and so on—our constituencies in the so-called red wall have been sinking throughout this Administration. A Minister recently told the House that we will get £20 million from the levelling-up fund, but it never came. In any case, £20 million would not transform our constituencies. What does the Secretary of State say to the old miner I met in the Co-op on Saturday afternoon in our village, who said, “Will you say to Mr Gove, ‘Levelling up, who does he think he’s kidding?’”?”
House of Commons5 June 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Leader of the House has been generous several times in talking about the problems with leasing. Section 24 allows no-fault evictions. Is it not shameful that since the Government first committed to dealing with this issue 40,000 families have been evicted through no fault of their own, some in my constituency? Some have even been evicted via text, saying, “Get out of this house because we want it for something else.” That is not acceptable. A constituent put it to me this morning that 50 Members on the Government Front Bench are landlords. The best way to reassure people in the country that they are not having an effect on this is for the Leader of the House finally to say when this legislation is coming and whether that loophole will finally be sealed off completely.”
House of Commons11 May 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituents in Yorkshire are brassed off with the fact that public transport is so badly damaged that it is not unavailable. There are 20,000-odd people in my area with no access to a private car, but only 3,000 use public transport. That is because the Government have an ideological drive to privatisation, even though every time those private companies get into trouble the state comes in to support them. It is also because the Government have a pathological hatred of the trade unions. Is it not time that the Government stood aside and made way for a different, better system that serves the public rather than the interests of a particular ideological group in the Tory party?”
House of Commons11 May 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us try to calm things down. In my hand, I have a senior railcard, which allows me to enter a polling station and vote. A young person’s railcard, which is almost identical and carries a photograph, will not give them permission to vote. The Minister will be aware of allegations of vote rigging by this Government against younger people. What does she have against younger people? When a note is taken of who is turned away because they do not have identification, will the person’s demographic characteristics be identified so that we can see whether or not the vote rigging against young people and other groups that has been alleged has taken place?”
House of Commons27 April 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I ask the Leader of the House to imagine the position of a family who are unable to acquire a house, then rent one, and suddenly —having put all their love and money and investment into that house—receive, with less than a month’s notice, a section 21 notice to quit from the landlord? That happened to my constituents Chris and Sandra Taylor, as was highlighted in the television programme ITV Calendar. May I just quietly say to the Leader of the House that Ministers, over the years, have made commitments to end this situation? As she looks to the next parliamentary Session and the King’s Speech, will she give an undertaking to the House that that loophole will finally be closed?”
House of Commons27 April 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As always, my hon. Friend is making a powerful contribution. I was in Northfield Primary School in South Kirkby on Monday, where there is a serious antisocial problem. The policing is lacking because of the cuts that he just referred to. I do not think we should be demonising a whole generation of young people. The Tories cut £1 billion or more of funding for youth services, so there is no youth provision in the villages I represent—there are no youth clubs—and all sorts of other facilities simply closed down as a result of those cuts. Does he agree that the backdrop to this problem of antisocial behaviour is, first, inadequate policing because of poor funding and, secondly, cuts to services upon which so many people depend?”
House of Commons26 April 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course we all thank police officers who work diligently within the rules, but I came to Parliament this week from Northfield Primary School in South Kirkby, where there is an urgent problem with antisocial behaviour. Two points were made to me. First, where are the police? We do not see them in the villages in our area. Secondly, the 20,000 police officers who were lost each had many years of service and they are being replaced by people who are new to the job. In the vacuum that was left during the years when the Government cut the police service, criminality and antisocial behaviour became rife. Of course, they then cut £1 billion from youth services and mental health services. The Government’s record is a disgrace. They left communities ill defended and we are now seeing the consequences.”
House of Commons26 April 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Women in my constituency have a healthy life expectancy of only 56 years. Could the Minister explain why the difference between West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire—where the Prime Minister has his constituency—is 10 years? Why should women have to put up with that kind of experience? What is his explanation of how that has happened?”
House of Commons25 April 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“An hour and a half ago, we were able to identify and source online a machete for under £11 which could be delivered to my house tomorrow. That is totally unacceptable. My constituents do not want to hear any more words; they want action. The Minister talked about diversionary tactics for young people. The 23 villages I represent tell me the Government have abandoned them: no youth services anymore; very little access to mental health services for young people; and very often we do not see any community police officers in our villages. None of that is acceptable. The issue requires a holistic approach by the Government to tackle the sense of abandonment that so many people feel in our area, which is the breeding ground for so much violent crime.”
House of Commons18 April 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the Secretary of State seen the recent report on the BBC that billions of pounds—my words, not the BBC’s—are being squandered on agency labour from private providers, with huge profits being generated? Is it right that one doctor alone received £5,200 for a single shift, as was reported by the BBC? What does the Secretary of State think the impact of that would be on his own staff? How can it be right for him to use bellicose language about the staff associations and unions while larding money into the pockets of the private agency providers?”
House of Commons17 April 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗