YouSaid · the spoken record
Jon Trickett
On the record 2018–2026
hansard
This is everything the corpus holds for Jon Trickett. It is not everything they have said on the record.
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“In Yorkshire, there are tens of thousands of families desperate for affordable housing. CPRE, The Countryside Charity, says that there are 115,000 potential brownfield sites in our county alone, and tens of thousands of more are land banked, with planning consent already given for housing. Yet there is executive housing popping up like mushrooms in a forcing shed all over my constituency on the green belt. Is the Minister happy that her legacy will be a Government that poured cement and tarmac all over Yorkshire’s green and pleasant land?”
House of Commons27 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the low levels of social mobility, and the levels of poverty and education in my constituency, it is impossible to imagine, how—without dramatic social and economic change—a child born there today can expect to do anything other than die younger than normal and in poverty. The whole idea of social mobility is a myth, unless it is combined with massive structural and transformative change. With that, I will take the hint that I have had my five minutes.”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are 440,000 children living in poverty, despite that fact that their parents are working full-time, and yet Government Members and Ministers continually tell us that work is the way to opportunity in life. I believe in work. I am a member of a party called Labour; the Labour party is about work. We believe in work and want people to be at work. But do not tell me or my constituents that work is a route out of poverty. It is a route into poverty as much as any other system in our country. In my constituency, there has been a 50% increase in the number of children in poverty since 2015. That is in one constituency. My constituency is also in the lowest 20% for young people’s educational attainment.”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The trust identified, out of the 60-odd million of us in this country, 6,000 people who run it; and two fifths of them went to public school, which is five times as many as average. I accept the right hon. Member did not go to public school; I do not know why I am looking at him—I will draw my attention elsewhere. The people who run this country, including this Parliament, tend to come from very privileged backgrounds. Not so many years ago, there were 100 manual workers in Parliament; now there are only seven of us left. There are 200 people with a business background in the House of Commons. If we look at almost every power structure in our society, the same thing applies—other than in professional sports, where more people from working-class backgrounds have access. I will cut to the chase.”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Gentleman has an optimistic view of social mobility in our society, perhaps because his constituency is the 51st most socially mobile in the whole country. There are 533 constituencies in England, and mine is the 529th most socially mobile, so he and I inhabit almost two different worlds. He is right to be passionate about this subject, but the truth of the matter is that the Conservative idea that there is real social mobility available for all who are able to make use of it is simply an ideological myth designed to gloss over the fact that our social structures are ossified and it is almost impossible to break though. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Sutton Trust.”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I eventually finished up at university. My first reflection is this: the stepping stones that were available to me are no longer available to the same extent to the current generation. Further education has been cut to the bone and is simply not available at the scale that it was when I was younger, when I basically left school in some disgrace. The university system is now really a commodified form of education. I voted against the original idea to charge student fees—it was a mistake. I did it because I was thinking about people from my background. My grandad said to me, “The system doesn’t work for people like us.” That is a profound thing to have said, and I have spent almost all my life trying to understand what it is about “people like us” and why the system is not working properly for them. The right hon.”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. It was interesting to listen to the speech of the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett). He is right to emphasise social mobility, and I was very interested to hear him describe his background. It is probably worth referring to my background. I was more or less told to leave school when I was 15. I left with no meaningful qualifications and I went to work as a manual worker in the building industry. I was encouraged by my grandfather to try to understand why the system had failed me or why I had failed the system. I became very curious about it, and eventually I went to a further education college. The right hon. Gentleman said he had been a college teacher, so no doubt he helped many people in my position.”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A mature woman constituent who came to see me had been abused as a child by her father. The police simply did not address the matter for years and years until, through that struggle, we eventually managed to get a prosecution and the father ended up in jail. He is still there now. This is not simply a problem of the Met. What is the Home Secretary doing? Is it not reckless to hand over new police powers, such as stop and search, without suspicion of any crime being committed, to a racist, homophobic and misogynist police force? What guarantee can she give that those very police officers who are not acceptable will not use those powers to pursue their evil ways?”
House of Commons21 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Stroud is of course right to say that we might look again at how we spend that money, but to imagine that the aggregate sum of money that the Government are providing is satisfactory—those who want to make that argument are living in a fool’s paradise. We need to do something very radical indeed. Why should it be that a child born in a hospital in my constituency today, in one of the poorer communities, will probably die younger than people elsewhere in the country from more prosperous areas, and that during their time they will have less of a chance to achieve their full capacity in life? It is simply immoral, it is wrong, and the Government need to get a grip on it in the Budget next week.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is totally unacceptable that Government Members simply—I don’t want to say this, but I will—whinge on about the need for more early years childcare, but do not will the means, which would be to provide proper finance and to abandon the whole process of austerity that has had such an impact on so many children across our country and in the area that I am proud to represent. We claim to be a society that is based on the ability of every person to fulfil their capacity. We have seen how important development is in the early years—I have described it; scientists are still working on it, but we already know quite a lot. The country has to get a grip on early years, and that means putting money in. The hon.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As a consequence, it is on the edge of closing. I opened Little Gruffalos eight years ago, and I was proud to do so. It is a great institution, and the people working there care, and obviously the mothers and fathers do, too. It is on the brink of closure, due to escalating food prices, heating costs, building costs and all the other things, as well as the cost of paying the staff, to the extent that it is now unable to pay some of the staff. Emma Percy told my office that she has not been able to take an income, but she is so committed that she is trying to continue to provide care.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She does see it as the provision of education, as well as of care and love, and all the other things we want our young children to have. But here is the problem: almost every single family who use that centre are already in receipt of all the assistance they can get. We heard my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) mention cross-subsidy. What happens is that wealthier parents, who are not in receipt of some of the assistance that the state offers, are charged more, which then cross-subsidises the children who come from deprived homes, because of the failure of the funding formula to provide properly for children coming from needy families. However, there is nobody in this institution in Hemsworth, Little Gruffalos, who is not in receipt of benefits, and there is therefore no possibility of cross-subsidy.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Therefore, urgent social action needs to take place to provide social mobility to the children being born today in local hospitals in such areas up and down the country. Doing so absolutely depends on us getting this issue of early years childcare and education—I insist on using that word—correct, and we have not got it correct. Let me turn to the experience of Emma Percy, a constituent of mine who eight years ago asked me to open a centre she called Little Gruffalos. I will spell that for the Hansard writers in a minute or two. This is an amazing initiative taken by local people, and she understood exactly that she was directing her work at the most disadvantaged children from year 2 up in one of the communities that I represent, and trying to give them a better start.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is the same for educational attainment when it comes, for example, to national vocational qualification level 4 in my constituency. The fact is that we are in the lowest 20% for early years and, given what I have just said, Members would expect that to feed through to attainment. For NVQ level 4, which is first-year degree level, we are at 22% in my constituency. The average for the country is twice as high at 40%. Members can therefore see what happens to social mobility, because the ability of a child to take advantage of all that society is meant to offer them depends on poorer people in deprived communities being able to rise up the so-called social ladder. I have some reservations about that expression, but let us use it for the moment. Of the 533 seats in England, my constituency is the 529th least mobile.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members have talked about the role of mothers and fathers, grandparents, and so on and so forth, and they obviously play a key role—the most important role in the development of a child—but childcare is now a social and economic necessity, and from the figures I have just given about the changes in the architecture of a young person’s brain, it is clearly essential that work is done on this. Let me give Members one more figure about my own constituency. I have given the figures on the level of poverty, but when we look at the level of early years attainment in my constituency, we are in the lowest 20% of all constituencies in the country. That feeds right through the whole of life and through the structure, social structures and stratification of constituencies such as mine.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is hard to think about the Government’s fiscal strategy, particularly as it impacts on the early years, and not come to the conclusion that what they have done has been tantamount to a form of institutionalised child neglect. It is impossible to avoid that conclusion, and I say that having thought carefully before using those words. In my constituency, child poverty has risen by 50% since 2015. There are 4,272 children in poverty. It is a very poor area. In the real world that we live in—let us be honest across this House—childcare is now an essential if we are going to meet the needs of the contemporary world, the world of work, and the world of women and parents more generally.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On top of that, 4,500 facilities for young children and the early years closed in a single year, which is staggering. It is clear and widely accepted that the funding per child is £2 an hour less than is needed. The IFS—hardly a Labour party think-tank—has said that the Government are simply failing to provide the funds required for proper childcare in the early years. It estimates that the total funding for the free entitlement will be 8% lower in real terms in 2024-25. Those cuts are having an impact on human lives throughout the country today, especially in areas such as mine that suffer from major deprivation, as I will illustrate.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members on both sides of the House about the emphasis that should be put on the early years for the reasons that I have just given. It is self-evident, but science is also telling us a lot about the way in which our brains develop as human beings, although there is more to do. I will break that consensus, however, because it has been fascinating to hear Government Members say, “We need more money,” but not to face the truth, which is that the austerity programme of Conservative Governments has had a dreadful impact on early years provision. Some 1,300 Sure Start centres have closed since 2010. The hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) said that a lot of them are still open, but 85% of them have been closed on the watch of Conservative Governments.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“By 8 o’clock, when I was back at our house, my daughter had been born, so it was not a good experience for me as a father. With all my children and grandchildren, I was struck by the pace at which I could see the human brain of that infant or young person developing. We now know quite a lot about that from science, as other hon. Members have mentioned. In the early years of a human being’s life, the brain will create 1 million new neural connections every second—let us think about that. That is extraordinary. By the time we are about five years old, there are about 1,000 billion neural connections in the human brain, which is staggering. Those figures show how important the early years are for our intellectual, social and physical development. In this interesting debate, there has been consensus among hon.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It has been an interesting debate. We have heard a lot about the experience of mothers in the House. On International Women’s Day, it is right to celebrate the contribution and role of mothers and women generally. We have heard some personal and interesting birthing stories. I have three children and eight grandchildren; the oldest grandchildren are probably ready to have children themselves, but I hope they will not just yet. With our first child, I vividly recall—I guess we all do—the 6 o’clock news was on and my wife said, “I need to get to the hospital. The child’s on its way faster than we thought.” When I got to the hospital, they said, “Well, thank you very much. You can go home now and we’ll see you tomorrow,” which is how fathers were treated at the time.”
House of Commons8 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That led to a major breakdown in confidence in the Met, although that was already in process because it was a serving police officer who had committed the crime. The police used the covid rules that were then in place, the appropriateness of which had been debated in the House.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Several of those who spoke in the debate in the other place said that the only comparison they could think of was in the laws that were passed against terrorism. Protesting about injustice is not terrorism, and to conflate the two is a mistake. I have not heard the Government make the case for that, and I will be interested to hear what they have to say. The police have said that they do not want these powers, and previous members of the judiciary in the Lords said that they were concerned about how the Bill could be interpreted. The Bill as it stands will lead to a further breakdown in confidence between the police and other parts of the state on the one hand, and communities on the other. One example is the Sarah Everard case, where police moved in to prevent what was effectively peaceful and justified protest.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It will hand unprecedented, draconian powers to the repressive arms of the British state, but we have been given only three hours to discuss it. The debate on protecting people going for abortions could take three hours in itself, but we are faced with a series of amendments that were debated in the Lords over days. We have been given three hours, and that is outrageous. Why have the Government provided so little time to discuss these matters, some of which go back a thousand years in English history? Lords amendment 6 deals with stop and search without suspicion. The police will be granted the power to intercept people who are not even suspected of committing a crime. That is an extraordinary power after more than 1,000 years of the struggle by the British people for a state that protects our liberty.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker: I just wanted to be clear. I have some sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), although clearly the ability of people to go about their lawful business at work, including clinicians, administrative assistants and women going to have procedures, must be protected. I am not convinced that his amendment (a) would achieve an absence of harassment, so I will not support it and the House should not do so either. I have some sympathy with the points the hon. Gentleman made, however, because the whole Bill is an assault on British liberty. That is the central point, and I will illustrate it in several ways later in my speech. This is an extraordinary Bill.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is the point I was just making, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for repeating it. The police used the covid rules, which had been passed by the House, possibly regrettably. But under this Bill, the police will need no excuse whatever, because the law will allow them to arrest people even if there is no suspicion of any kind. It is quite extraordinary to see a clause in a Bill brought before this British House of Commons proposing that people can be intercepted by the police on no suspicion whatsoever.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It so happens that those are the areas where there is industrial action—where people are taking action to protect their living standards, a right they have had for more than a century. Why is the list that has been provided to this House in this amendment proposing those particular areas of action? How can minor disruption to services now be regarded as a criminal offence? This will provoke a breakdown in trust between the police force, the state itself and people taking action. I represent a mining community. I went there just over 27 years ago, and during the strike— [ Interruption. ] Are you trying to say something, Madam Deputy Speaker?”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have spoken to Lords amendment 6, but I will briefly speak to Lords amendment 1 and the attempt to define what the Government mean by “serious disruption”. The amendment is now being replaced by the Home Secretary, who is proposing amendment (a) in lieu. The amendment in lieu is quite astonishing. It suggests that anybody may be arrested if they have taken action that might, in more than a minor degree, affect work or supply of goods and services. Subsection (2)(b) of the Home Secretary’s amendment in lieu refers to the following activities: the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel, communication, places of worship, transport, education and health.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why is it suddenly necessary now, after more than 1,000 years of our history, to empower the state to operate in these ways? We have many other Acts; the Riot Act was read on the steps of the town hall, I think, in my home city of Leeds, against the gas workers who were on strike in the 19th century. In Featherstone in my constituency, the Riot Act was read and people were killed. All they were doing was striking to protect their wages and incomes. How can it be that there is no legislation in place that might deal with the kind of actions we can envisage taking place? Why is it that suddenly, in this century, we are about to abandon 1,000 years of our history? I will come to an explanation in a moment.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It may be said, “Well, in the light of what’s happening in the country, with the protest movements and so on, we need new powers.” Just a minute, though—will the Minister in responding perhaps tell us why a breach of the King’s peace, or the Riot Act 1714, or other items of legislation which have gone through this House and have protected our liberties over the centuries, might not be appropriately used? A breach of the peace is an act of common law going back before the year 1000, to King Alfred—that is how deep the attachment to liberty is in our country, yet it is about to be broken. The Justices of the Peace Act 1361, preventing riotous and barbaric behaviour that disturbs the peace of the King, also went through this Parliament.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Habeas corpus, the right of individuals not to be intervened on by the state or its apparatuses without good reason, goes back centuries. Protection against arbitrary imprisonment by the state was incorporated in the Habeas Corpus Act 1679. The Bill of Rights 1689 went through this House of Commons, and now the House of Commons is being asked to surrender at least part of the principle of habeas corpus, and on no suspicion whatsoever. I add that point one more time, because it is extraordinary that that is what is being said.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is right that the British state claimed historically to be the bastion of our liberty, but today it is proposed that it become an engine of our suppression. An authoritarian state is being created here, and it is not acceptable. When I said earlier that these rights go back centuries, I was not exaggerating. The right to freedom of association—for people to meet with whoever they choose, on the streets or anywhere else—is part of the very structure of our society. The rights of free speech, freedom of association and freedom of assembly were built into our constitution for generations and centuries. They will all be fundamentally disrupted by this piece of legislation.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I appreciate your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am about to finish on this point. The definition that the Lords tried to introduce was not perfect but it was far better than the amendment before us. We have a failing political and economic system, and consent has broken down across wide parts of the country. There are two ways of moving forward: either we try to produce a just and more equal society or we move from consent to repression. That is where this Government are taking us, and it is a seriously bad step. This legislation, and certainly the amendments, ought not to go through.”
House of Commons7 March 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The land in our case has never been developed; it is ancient woodland that has never been touched, ever, but is is now under threat from the development at Huntwick Grange in Featherstone. Will the Minister reflect on the ecological impact? Only a couple of weeks ago, when the United Nations discussed biodiversity, the Secretary-General, in a very striking phase, said that humanity is in danger of becoming “a weapon of mass extinction.” What are we doing? We are building on sites where there are species that are under threat, and that may well become extinct in due course. Some species now have a very fragile hold on existence. Can we really say that our planning policies should just ignore threats to our biodiversity? I think not.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That survey discovered on the site to be developed 26 or 28 separate species of birds, mammals or other forms of life that are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, or birds that are on the Red List. Nobody had done that work, yet all of these species are protected, as far as I can see. There ought to be no development that destroys their habitats, yet that is what is being threatened. It is a curious situation, because there is legal protection, but no attempt was made to identify which species were threatened by the development. It seems to me that the Minister could helpfully go away to the Department and discuss that point. Every time we build on green belt, rare species of flora and fauna are threatened.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The loss of amenities matters a lot: they should be not for just the middle classes, but for everybody, and yet we are seeing incursions that I think are a disgrace. The main point that I want to finish on—it will take me one or two seconds—is that there is no obligation on planners, developers, councils or anybody else to do an analysis of the ecological impact of a development before it has been approved. In my view, that is completely wrong. We have one development that could be 4,000 or 5,000 houses, if they get away with it. I commissioned, because nobody else did, an ecological survey by the reputable West Yorkshire Ecological Service.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She is unclear whether she will be applying the new rules as they come into place, or whether she is now obliged to work according to rules that are no longer extant, or will no longer be very shortly. Some guidance on that question would be helpful. The green belt is very important. I want to focus on one single aspect of it, or maybe two, because other Members will develop other arguments in favour of it. First, I represent many old miners. If a person lives in poverty and perhaps has a bad chest, as many of those old men do, they should not be deprived of access to the countryside, but the more we build up, the fewer amenities will be available. That is what is happening throughout all the villages I represent, every one of which was a mining village.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have made statements about preferring brownfield development, and a “Dear colleague” letter has come from the Secretary of State that indicates—it uses the present tense, rather than the future tense—that he has issued orders about preferring to move away from green-belt development. Now, an inspector is looking at our local authority’s plans, and I have spoken at those hearings. That inspector started her inspection prior to the new legislation that the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills has referred to, and prior to the issuing of that “Dear colleague” letter and, apparently, some changes to the way in which the planning frameworks operate.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), say that he is going to bring back control for local communities, and I think some rhetoric about the same principle has been heard from the Government as well. If we are going to develop villages that need development, that should be done from the bottom up, not from the top down—that is my central point. Green-belt incursions should be a last resort, not the easy resort. I am asking for a presumption against green-belt land and in favour of brownfield land, and I think the Government have said that there will be one. Does the Minister have time to reply, or else to write to us, about the following point?”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The coal was taken out by rail, so roads that would carry large amounts of traffic were never built, because people lived in the village where they worked, and they went to the local pub, club, football club or whatever social activity, and to the local school. Our roads are not built to carry the amount of traffic that is being generated by increasing numbers of vehicles, particularly now that there is no work in our communities either, but the highways engineers seem prepared to approve almost anything as long as it is going to deliver housing targets that have been imposed from above. I was so pleased to hear our leader, my right hon.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, to some extent, it is greedy of developers to want green-belt land, which is often easier to develop than brownfield land, particularly in a mining community such as mine where much of the brownfield land has been polluted and needs to be cleaned up. There are three sites in my constituency, all in the green belt; a lot of people want to speak, so I am not going to go into detail, but Springvale Rise, Highfield Road and Huntwick Grange are all under threat of development at the moment. The first thing to say about my constituency is that these villages were mining communities.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I can look from the top of our village down into Pontefract; it is creeping closer and closer, and there are plans to develop more of those fields. The village I live in is a rural community, with its own identity. We do not want to be part of Pontefract, and the same applies to all the other 22 villages that I represent. At the present time, we have three developments, all in the green belt and all for housing. I want to say two things about that: first, it is lazy for planners to simply draw lines on maps that look tidy without first having thought about the social, economic and environmental consequences.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I represent a rural community of 23 separate villages. It is important for Members who represent urban communities to understand the importance of the independence of a local community, its local identity and local culture. Ribbon development, which gradually takes one field, then another and then another, results in the bringing together of communities that historically were often rivals, or certainly have different identities that they want to retain. Take the village that I live in, which is a Quaker village in a mining community. We are now two fields away from Pontefract. If we go back far enough—back to the civil war—we stood for Parliament and Pontefract stood for the Crown. That is some time in the past now, but we get the point.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think it is the second time this week that you have guided us through a Westminster Hall debate that I have attended, Ms Fovargue. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing the debate and on her comments, which resonated with some of the problems we face in my area. Obviously the country has a housing problem as our population increases and household size falls, but it seems to me that, as the right hon. Lady just said, a large amount of brownfield land in the country remains undeveloped. There are also large numbers of planning consents in land banks held by developers that are sitting on their assets and allowing them to grow while seeking further planning consents, on which they will probably sit as well. It is time to think carefully about our green belt.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has my hon. Friend had a similar experience to ours, where the houses built on the green belt are often not accessible financially to local people? It adds insult to the injury of losing green belt land when their children or grandchildren cannot afford to live in the houses that are being built.”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Given the social and economic division created by the Government over 13 years, the announcement of levelling up led to a reasonable expectation that money would be directed to the areas of greatest deprivation. Having listened to several debates on the subject this week, I now have doubts that that is the case. Will the Minister confirm that the single criterion for the direction of funds will be based on deprivation? Will he publish the details?”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I represent a rural community with 23 separate villages, and there are 24,000 people in households with no access to a motorised vehicle. We are totally dependent on public transport, so yesterday’s announcement in the media by the bus companies—which was not discussed first with me, as the local MP—that they intend to again cut services in Rthe communities I represent will send a shudder of fear through all those villages. Does the Leader of the House agree that the deregulation of buses has been a disastrous mistake for rural communities such as mine and many others throughout our country? Can we have a debate in Government time to see whether we can find a different way of operating public transport services, and particularly buses, in the future?”
House of Commons9 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is the problem Conservative Members face: how do they reconcile their embrace of austerity with the fact that their constituents are now suffering because the austerity has bitten deeper and deeper? Their answer is to say, “Well, it’s the formula that’s wrong.” But the truth is that the aggregate sums available for policing and local government are the problem; austerity itself is the cause of the problem. I have now heard two speeches from the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) in which he made similar points about the formula.”
House of Commons8 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Listening to this debate and the earlier one on the police grant—I have been in the Chamber for several hours listening—has been a fascinating exercise in politics. Those on the Government Front Bench have made valiant efforts to claim that the aggregate made available for policing and local government has been splendid, while almost every single Back-Bencher on the Government side made a different argument, that the formula is not working. That argument was first made in quite a crude way by the right hon. Member who is now the Prime Minister, when he said they were going to stop money being shovelling into deprived areas—that was the expression he used—in order to look after places such as the one where was speaking, Royal Tunbridge Wells.”
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“I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but let me put a point to him first. Does he agree that the aggregate amount of money made available to local government is simply inadequate to meet the needs of the communities that he and I represent?”
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“Well, we will let people read the record and see what conclusions they arrive at. The hon. Gentleman’s case was based on rurality. I represent a rural constituency with 23 villages. The problem for my constituency, and perhaps for his as well—I listened to what he said, but it is not for me to say—is not rurality but deprivation. That is the core problem. The Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag when he said, “We’re going to stop shovelling money”—to use his expression—“into deprived communities and put it elsewhere”. That was the truth, and it is what the Minister and all his Back-Bench colleagues are valiantly trying to avoid addressing by developing arguments about their constituencies all being special cases. The truth is that our services have been radically underfunded.”
House of Commons8 February 2023Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗