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Category: Speeches

  • Suella Braverman – 2023 Statement on the Windrush Lessons Learned Review Recommendations

    Suella Braverman – 2023 Statement on the Windrush Lessons Learned Review Recommendations

    The statement made by Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, on 26 January 2023.

    Today I am updating Parliament on Home Office delivery of the recommendations set out in the Windrush lessons learned review, published in March 2020.

    Since my appointment as Home Secretary, I have made a commitment to resolving the outstanding issues related to Windrush and have met members of the Windrush Working Group both to hear their feedback and more formally at the most recent cross-government Windrush Working Group which I was honoured to co-chair with Bishop Derek Webley.

    Since the injustices of Windrush came to light, there has been a concerted effort across the Home Office to right the wrongs suffered by those affected. This work continues and we are making sustained progress delivering on the recommendations and the commitments made in our comprehensive improvement plan.

    In her report last year, Wendy Williams concluded that 21 out of 30 of her recommendations had been met or partially met. She acknowledged that the scale of the challenge she set the Department was significant and that change on this scale takes time.

    Since then, we have made further progress in delivering against Wendy Williams’ recommendations. For example, in June 2022, the “Serving Diverse Communities—Acting on Our Values” learning package was launched across the Home Office, starting with recommendations 24 (learning for senior civil servants) and 29 (diversity and inclusion). The learning package for recommendation 6—the history of the UK and its relationship with the rest of the world, will be launched in the coming weeks.

    The Department continues to make progress on compensating those unfairly impacted. As of December 2022, the Windrush compensation scheme paid out or offered £64.08 million in compensation to Windrush victims across 1,417 claims. £53.98 million of this has been paid and over 59% of claims—3,025—have received a final decision.

    The Home Office regularly reviews the best way to deliver against the intent of Wendy Williams’ Windrush lessons learned review. As such, after considering officials advice, I have decided not to proceed with recommendations 3 (run reconciliation events), 9 (introduce a migrants commissioner) and 10 (review the remit and role of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration) in their original format. Extensive consideration has been given to how to deliver these recommendations in appropriate and meaningful ways: ensuring that individuals have opportunities to tell their stories; amplifying the voices of individuals engaging with the immigration system; and driving scrutiny of the Department.

    On reconciliation events specifically, on the balance of expert advice received on how to approach this incredibly sensitive subject, I am persuaded that there are more effective ways of engaging with those impacted.

    The Department has undertaken a significant programme of face-to-face engagement with the communities impacted by the Windrush scandal since 2018. Surgeries were held in community halls and places such as churches, mosques and care homes, as and where the need was identified. The engagement events were held in most major cities across the UK and including regions such as the west midlands, London and south-west. The events were hosted by senior members of the Windrush programme and provided individuals with the opportunity to speak to them about the impact the scandal had had on their and their family’s lives. Over 3,000 people were reached through these events.

    This engagement with communities is further supported by the £500,000 Windrush community fund which was launched in 2020 and provided funding to grassroots organisations and charities with grants of up to £25,000 each to promote the Windrush schemes in innovative ways. Regular dialogue hosted by senior officials are held in forums with external stakeholders from Windrush communities who provide feedback and scrutiny of our engagement and communication efforts. This type of engagement will remain an important part of our work. Further, I look forward to celebrating the contribution that the Windrush community has made to our country in the upcoming 75th anniversary celebrations.

    Recommendations 9 and 10 relate to the establishment of a migrants commissioner and a review of the role of the ICIBI. As Home Secretary I remain committed to the importance of scrutiny, both internal and external. There are a number of ways in which we are inviting this challenge and scrutiny in a more efficient way. In October 2022, the Department established the Independent Examiner for Complaints. This office will ensure that customers who are not satisfied with the final response to their complaints have an opportunity to have their case reviewed independently by the IEC, helping the Home Office to identify learning and wider lessons from complaints to improve its service.

    The IEC provides scrutiny of the Department’s complaints procedure. Beyond this, I remain committed to the importance of scrutiny. I welcome the insight and challenge that I and the wider Department have received from our colleagues in the Windrush Working Group. Professor Martin Levermore, in his role as independent advisor, has been constructively challenging and very supportive in the development of the Windrush compensation scheme. This has included proactively providing suggestions on improvements to the scheme, such as enhancing linkages between the compensation scheme and the Windrush status scheme, which the Department is now actively working on delivering.

    External bodies are not the only source of scrutiny. As Wendy Williams identified, the very culture of the Department needed a fundamental shift, bringing policy development and service delivery into contact with those who are impacted by it, including those who might not agree with it. This is how we shift culture and subject ourselves to scrutiny and this is how we are changing.

    I am proud of the efforts made by teams across the Home Office, but we know there is more to do. Many people suffered terrible injustices and the Department will continue working hard to deliver a Home Office worthy of every community served. Wendy Williams acknowledged that our ambition to achieve genuine cultural change requires ongoing reflection and a commitment to constant improvement. She acknowledged that the scale of the challenge she set the Department was significant and that change on this scale takes time. The Home Office keeps the Home Affairs Select Committee updated on progress against the recommendations and will continue to do so.

    An update on each of the recommendations is provided in the table available as an online attachment.

    Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2023-01-26/HCWS523/.

  • Mark Spencer – 2023 Statement on the Agricultural Transition Plan

    Mark Spencer – 2023 Statement on the Agricultural Transition Plan

    The statement made by Mark Spencer, the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    We are undertaking the most significant reform of agricultural policy and spending in England in decades as we take England out of the EU’s bureaucratic and damaging common agricultural policy. Today I am setting out detailed plans for the nation’s farming sector, supporting farmers to be profitable and resilient as they produce food sustainably while protecting nature and enhancing the environment.

    These plans build on the announcements made at the Oxford farming conference earlier this month. They provide clarity and certainty to farmers, allowing them to make business decisions and cover costs as direct payments are phased out while getting involved in environmental land management schemes.

    The roll out of the sustainable farming incentive will be accelerated, with six additional standards added this year, meaning farmers can receive payment for actions on hedgerows, grassland, arable and horticultural land, integrated pest management and nutrient management. They build on the three existing standards to improve soil health and moorlands introduced in 2022—which nearly 1,900 farmers already have in agreements.

    Farmers will also be paid to deliver more through an enhanced version of the countryside stewardship scheme, which will see around 30 additional actions available to farmers by the end of 2024. The expansion builds on the more than 250 actions farmers can take at present. The scheme has seen a 94% increase in uptake since 2020 and is now part of thousands of farm businesses. The next round of the countryside stewardship higher tier will open in February, with mid-tier following in March.

    Countryside stewardship-plus will reward farmers for taking co-ordinated action, working with neighbouring farms and landowners to support climate and nature aims. The countryside stewardship scheme will also be improved so farmers benefit from greater flexibility over when they can apply and how they manage their agreements, with improved access for tenant farmers and increased access to higher tier options and agreements.

    Applications for the second round of the landscape recovery scheme will open in the spring to support ambitious large-scale nature recovery projects, focusing on net zero, protected sites and habitat creation. We will take on up to 25 projects which could include projects creating and enhancing woodlands, peatland, nature reserves and protected sites such as ancient woodlands, wetlands and salt marshes.

    Taken together, the environmental land management schemes will offer something for every type of farmer. This includes tenant farmers, with a range of actions relevant to their holding, especially through the sustainable farming incentive which has been designed with them in mind. The schemes will make food production more resilient and efficient over the longer term while contributing towards the UK’s environmental goals on climate adaptation, biodiversity, water quality and net zero. Together this will safeguard the long-term prosperity of the farming industry and protect the environment for future generations.

  • Richard Holden – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    Richard Holden – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    The speech made by Richard Holden, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) for securing this fantastic Adjournment debate. It has come at a particularly appropriate moment as I was in the west midlands just earlier today. I know that this is a vital project for him and for my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), as well as for other Members in the region. I actually visited the Black Country Living Museum, but I have never been to the zoo, so I hope my hon. Friend might be able to take me there at some point.

    I met Andy Street today, and I mentioned this and other projects to him. As Minister for roads and local transport, I am always keen to get out and about, and I pledge to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency in the near future. He was very kind in his opening comments, and I pay tribute to him for the work he has done. I can tell the House that West Bromwich West may have been forgotten for 50 years under previous Members of Parliament, but it is now one of the few places I hear about in this House.

    The Government are wholeheartedly committed to delivering on their vision of levelling up all areas of our country, not least my hon. Friend’s constituency and the broader west midlands, ensuring that we have a transport network that caters for all users, helps to drive economic prosperity and minimises environmental impacts as far as possible. Responsibility for much of the transport connectivity in the west midlands, including the metro services, rests with the West Midlands Combined Authority and Andy Street, the region’s metro Mayor. Our drive to create mayoral combined authorities has been key to joining up transport, economic development, housing and planning in our largest city regions, and empowering areas to deliver their plans for sustainable economic growth. I was glad that my hon. Friend mentioned that comprehensively in his speech, as it is his vision too.

    The west midlands has an ambitious metro programme, and the Government have provided significant funding already. As part of the transforming cities fund, my Department agreed a settlement of £321.5 million for the west midlands. The region allocated £207 million of that funding to the extension of the metro, which is very important for the whole Black Country—it is an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South has mentioned to me too. I recognise the importance of the project in enhancing transport connectivity in the constituencies of several of my hon. Friends and the wider region, and welcome the current plans to open the first phase of the scheme to passengers within the next couple of years.

    My Department is keen to work with Mayor Street to understand the funding challenges involved in this scheme, and to identify potential solutions. The Government’s funding support for the expansion of West Midlands Metro has not been limited to the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill scheme, but has included investment in a number of other key projects, and we will continue to work with the Mayor on those as well. West Midlands Combined Authority is currently exploring opportunities with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to make use of an in-year capital investment to fund strategically important projects, aligned with levelling up. The region’s metro extension programme is among the projects under consideration, and I understand that a funding decision is expected imminently. My hon. Friend should definitely contact my colleagues in that Department as well. I shall also seek the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South, the oracle of Brierley Hill, on this matter.

    I recognise the role that trams and metros play in our largest towns and cities, helping people to access jobs, education, healthcare and society more widely, which is why we supported our trams and metros throughout the pandemic, when the Government provided more than £250 million for the light rail system. That funding helped to keep services running and enabled key workers to get to work, and West Midlands Metro received over £13 million of it.

    England’s largest city regions, including the west midlands, are a key priority of levelling up and driving growth and productivity. Our ambition is for every region to have at least one globally competitive city at its heart. That is why we are investing £5.7 billion in transport networks through the city region sustainable transport settlements. We have agreed a five-year funding settlement from 2022, and I look forward to seeing all the transformational projects that it will bring about, particularly in the west midlands.

    More than £1 billion is going to the west midlands. My hon. Friend spoke about enhancements to the metro, but, as he also mentioned, this is not just about the metro, although the metro is a part of it. Schemes proposed in the region include an upgrade of the depot at Wednesbury, which I understand the Mayor visited earlier today, and the integrated hub at Dudley Port, which I know is vital to my hon. Friend.

    This investment programme represents the principal transport funding for eligible authorities to invest in their local priorities, and Mayors are responsible to their communities for delivering the agreed outcomes. We recognise that there will always be challenges, but I know that my hon. Friend will continue to work with me, and with local representatives, to address them. We in the Department are always willing to be flexible, while retaining—this was an important point made by my hon. Friend—the degree of transparency and oversight that must be maintained at all times to ensure that public money is always well spent.

    I agree that the extension of the metro is vital for the west midlands and my hon. Friend’s constituency. West Bromwich West could not have a more foot-slogging, hard-working, campaigning local Member of Parliament. He has addressed me regularly about these issues: he grabs me in the Tea Room, he corresponds with me by email and in person, and he collars me in the Division Lobbies. He really is batting for his constituency, and I wish him the very best of luck in getting more councillors of his ilk elected in Sandwell in the coming months.

    My Department has provided significant funds to support metro infrastructure in my hon. Friend’s region, and is committed to investing in wider improvements to its transport network over the coming years. I look forward to working with him to deliver for the people of Tipton, Wednesbury and beyond. There are acute transport needs there, and this is not a panacea, but it will be a big help. I want to go on working with West Midlands Combined Authority, and also holding its feet to the fire. With financial freedom comes financial responsibility: that important point was made by my hon. Friend.

    My door is always open to my hon. Friend if he ever wants to go on pressing the case for his region and his constituents. Transport and regeneration go hand in hand. I hope that we can get this major scheme—which is important to the region, but also to the wider country—over the line, working together: my hon. Friend and me, Mayor Street, the councillors of Dudley and Sandwell, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South and other Members across the region.

  • Shaun Bailey – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    Shaun Bailey – 2023 Speech on the Midlands Metro Extension

    The speech made by Shaun Bailey, the Conservative MP for West Bromwich West, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    It is a pleasure to bring this matter to the Floor of the House. I will start in perhaps a different way by paying tribute to the Minister on the Treasury Bench. He and I have known each other for some three years, since we were elected together. People often say in this place that it is not a meritocracy and that it is who you know that gets you where you are, but my hon. Friend is certainly one of those who works incredibly hard. I would say that he is probably one of the hardest working Ministers we have, so I just want to pay tribute to him in my opening remarks.

    Now I have buttered up the Minister, I will proceed to talk about what is a really important and vital infrastructure development for my communities in Tipton and Wednesbury and within the wider Black Country. The case for the metro is known, but I want to reiterate it. When we look at the return on spend, according to the 2017 review, for every £1 invested in the metro, we receive from £1.37 to £2.48 back into the local economy.

    The metro forms an important part of the broader development strategy for the Black Country, and the Black Country core strategy has identified allocated sites, such as the DY5 enterprise zone, and the possibility of developing high-quality housing as well as commercial floorspace over a 25-year period. It has also identified, as part of the Black Country garden city project and innovation zones, an opportunity for some 45,000 new houses over a 10-year period, with continued investment as a result of the metro. We need high-quality homes and housing, and the metro extension between Wednesbury and Brierley Hill—the part of the extension on which my comments will focus—has the potential to unlock and leverage some £6 billion of investment, particularly in high-quality homes and housing.

    The scheme is intrinsically linked to the Merry Hill masterplan to ensure that the Merry Hill site and the broader Brierley Hill area continue to be developed with some 3,000 homes and 300,000 square metres of commercial opportunities. That is all part of what was originally announced in the 2017 plan. We know that for the communities in Tipton and Wednesbury, and of course in Brierley Hill, which is represented in so sterling a way by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), there is the potential, if we get this right, to unlock proper investment. My hon. Friend is a real champion for Brierley Hill—if anyone needs any information about it, they should speak to him, because he is the master of everything to do with Brierley Hill.

    There is also an infrastructure case, and I will talk about the comparisons with bus journey times from areas in my constituency to Bull Street, which is one of the main termini in Birmingham city centre for the metro. I will give the Minister some examples on the basis of the proposed tram stops. Currently, a bus from the proposed Great Bridge tram stop takes 66 minutes, but with the new metro extension it would take 29 minutes to make the equivalent journey. Equally, from Horseley Road, also in Tipton, and Dudley Port, 71 and 72 minutes have been cut to 31 and 33 minutes respectively.

    For public transport users, this is a vital project that will unlock our tourist attractions in the Black Country. Everyone knows about the fantastic Dudley zoo. Everyone from the west midlands has been to Dudley zoo, or the Black Country Living Museum, which has the best chips going. Its fish and chip shop is absolutely incredible, with chips fried in proper beef dripping. I honestly suggest that Members go along for our fantastic Black Country battered chips.

    Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)

    What about the fish?

    Shaun Bailey

    And fish as well, as my right hon. Friend points out.

    If we get this right, it will unlock a real opportunity to see the best of the Black Country and galvanise our communities. Whether people love it or loathe it, HS2 is a key part of the broader infrastructure journey for the west midlands. The metro extension from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill—should it be completed—will allow communities in the Black Country to access that infrastructure, with routes through to Curzon Street and on to the HS2 line. That means that my constituents in the Black Country and Sandwell, as well as those in Dudley, will have access to what is being billed as one of the key parts of our infrastructure journey—an infrastructure revolution, particularly for communities in the west midlands.

    We must also look at the jobs case, with a predicted 393 temporary construction jobs on site each year across the proposed construction period, an estimated total of between 2,000 and 5,000 new jobs, and an increase in gross value added of between £0.7 billion and £1.5 billion. Clearly that case has been made. It has been made powerfully and endorsed by the West Midlands Combined Authority, which is completely behind the project and understands its importance to the region.

    We must ensure that delivery happens, and I must highlight some concerns about that. The current Wednesbury to Brierley Hill track cost £41 million per kilometre to construct. The WMCA reported last year that the cost of the six to eight mile track has gone up from £448 million to £550 million, and we currently have a £290 million shortfall. Infrastructure costs money—we know that. There is a lot I could do with £448 million. I could have 20 lovely levelling-up funds, for example, in my towns. But we must ensure that when money like that is on the table, we see the delivery. There is so much contingent on this line of the metro coming online that we must ensure that it happens.

    There is frustration within my communities about the delays and the uncertainty around the extension. My community knows that this project is vital to unlock the untapped potential of the Black Country. I am a loyal member of my party, of course, but my loyalties are not to the combined authority, a Mayor, or anyone in particular; they are to the communities of the Black Country, and to Tipton and Wednesbury in particular. Those communities want this project to be done, but a critical analysis of where we are with it is really important. My constituents are paying for the delays to it through increased congestion on their roads and increased difficulty getting around—I will highlight that point in a bit more detail in a moment.

    I support the broader vision of this project, and when the Mayor of the West Midlands calls for investment zones on the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill line, I support that call 100%. He is absolutely right. The Mayor understands that although the metro extension is one part of that, there has to be secondary investment as well. There has to be an offering for people to use the line from Wednesbury to Brierley Hill, and to want to get on it, and that means vibrant local economies in areas along the line in Wednesbury, Tipton, Brierley Hill and Dudley.

    I pay tribute to the Conservative administration in Dudley, who have done a fantastic job over the years in banging the drum for that borough and securing investment into their towns. If we could replicate that in Sandwell, gosh only knows what we could do, but we have a bit of catching up to do. We finally have councillors on Sandwell Council, which is positive after years of not having any. The truth is that the potential of the extension is there to be unlocked, but delivery needs to happen.

    Turning to the broader need for investment in our infrastructure, the point I want to make to my hon. Friend the Minister is that while the metro is obviously a key part of our infrastructure journey in the Black Country—pardon the pun—I do not want him to forget the other key components. Some 70.4% of my constituents drive. I have been making quite a lot of noise—as he knows, because I keep collaring him about it—about an area in my constituency called Great Bridge and a roundabout we call Great Bridge island. There are some lovely lions on the island. It is congested to the point where, frankly, someone is going to get killed. It comes off the A41 expressway from West Bromwich from a dual carriageway to a single-track road, and then extends up to Horseley Heath and Burnt Tree. The carnage on that road at peak times is ridiculous. My office is based in Great Bridge and I live about a mile directly up the road. At peak time, that journey can take me 40 minutes because of the congestion on the roundabout.

    These may sound like parochial issues, but they are the issues that my community in Tipton care about. They cannot pick their kids up on time. They cannot get to work easily. We have many fantastic manufacturing exporting businesses, but this is starting to impact on how they get their goods out. It may sound like a parochial, get-a-petition-up local issue, but the broader economic impacts are there to be seen.

    I need to make this point, too: the metro extension will not eradicate congestion on the roads. Anyone who suggests that is not being up front. It will not do that and nor should it be sold like that, because that is not the point of the metro extension. It will not do that when there is such a large number of people in my constituency who use their cars. We need to ensure that alongside the metro, there is a real plan for our roads in the Black Country. The number of A roads in my constituency is significant and they are in areas one would not expect them to be in—for example, off residential areas and near schools. We therefore need to ensure that alongside the metro—running in tandem with it, or parallel to it—is an effective roads strategy and investment in the Black Country. My hon. Friend the Minister was in Wednesbury today. Unfortunately, I was unable to join him, but I know he will visit Great Bridge and the island at some point. He might even stand on the island, Mr Deputy Speaker—you never know what delights we may have for my hon. Friend. When he does come to Tipton, he will see for himself the impact.

    Alongside the metro extension, there are what I would call secondary investment needs—for example, the investment zone promised in the autumn, although I know we have not heard much about that. Whatever form that takes, it is really important that we have some sort of contingent secondary investment alongside the metro extension to Brierley Hill. I can think of some examples from the autumn: for example, the redevelopment of Wednesbury centre and the fight that continues to redevelop Tipton shopping centre. Many people in Tipton remember what Owen Street was like back in the day, when you could literally get anything you wanted. It is getting back to where it needs to be, but it needs a push, and hopefully the metro extension can do that. Great Bridge is a fantastic town and there is a fantastic high street in Tipton, but investment is needed to lift up the façade. Again, the metro will hopefully do that. Dudley Port and the Rattlechain and Coneygre road sites provide employment and jobs, leveraging our fantastic industrial infrastructure in the Black Country.

    We need to ensure that there is a long-term operational model for the metro. I will be honest that I have been disappointed in the metro over the past 12 months. We have had cracks on the fleet, proposed strikes and other issues. Of course—we have to be up front with ourselves—the metro is quite heavily subsidised by the Government. It is absolutely vital that Midland Metro Ltd, which runs the metro, ensures there is operational delivery that works. I have been comforted somewhat, particularly with the issues with cracks on the fleet, that it acts quickly, but that should not be happening multiple times.

    I also have to say that their engagement with me was somewhat lacking, until I had to have a bit of a moment, and then I finally got someone to talk to me. That is not good enough, and it trickles down from the combined authority too. It is vital that in our communities we are all joined up, and I find that sometimes with the project that is just not happening. We need to ensure that we have an operational model for the metro that works and focuses on offering a great service.

    I have polled my constituents about their thoughts on the metro, and there is real affection for it. They value the fantastic customer service they receive from operatives on the metro, such as the conductors and drivers. I met some fantastic individuals when I visited the midlands metro depot in Wednesbury in my constituency who are really passionate about serving the community.

    It is fantastic that Midland Metro employs roughly 80% of its staff from the Black Country, but if there is to be long-term sustainability moving forward, we must ensure that Midland Metro’s operational model works and is commercially viable. That is the only way. It requires all stakeholders to be brought in and to communicate with one another. As I say, it is vital that the combined authority and Transport for West Midlands understand that too, so that we can move away from a model that sees quite heavy subsidies to the metro.

    The broader point about transport infrastructure feeds quite well into the current dialogue around devolution. This is obviously a matter devolved to the West Midlands Combined Authority, and we have seen the advent of trailblazer devolution deals. Our Mayor has said much about the need for fiscal freedoms for combined authorities and the end of what he has termed the “begging bowl culture”. I actually agree with the Mayor on that. I think it is a sensible approach, but that perhaps there is a middle ground.

    There will always be projects, particularly infrastructure projects such as the metro extension, where a degree of bidding and Government support is still needed, because those are massive projects. The freedom to be a bit more agile is very important, particularly when it comes something like the metro extension. However, with fiscal freedom comes fiscal accountability. On the delivery of such projects, if fiscal freedom is going to come, the combined authority needs to accept that it is accountable when the delivery does not match.

    The truth is that the metro still offers a great opportunity, more so because the project itself is ingrained now into the regeneration story of the Black Country. It cannot stand alone though; we need to ensure that other investments are covered. I have harassed my hon. Friend the Minister about needing a roads plan for the Black Country. I fully appreciate that that is a devolved matter, but I also know that the Minister is doing fantastic work on our roads. He is the leading light in his Department on these issues. I can see him furiously agreeing with me.

    There needs to be a roads strategy for the people who use our roads and want to collect their kids from school or go to work and not spend 40 minutes trying to travel a mile. There needs to be an understanding as to how we can truly leverage this to maximise secondary investment. That means investment in our town centres. I appreciate that that is not in the Minister’s portfolio, but I think it is none the less pertinent to the debate.

    We absolutely need investment in areas such as Tipton and Wednesbury. That will ensure that once again there is a Black Country-wide strategy on this line and that we maximise the opportunities there. We also need an operational model that sees actual profits from the metro itself for long-term sustainability. That requires all stakeholders to come together. It requires the top of the chain to engage more effectively with stakeholders on this and to understand that we all have a role to play. We also have to scale our ambition and realise that the metro extension is by no means a panacea for the infrastructure challenges that we have in the Black Country today. We all know that.

    I appreciate that many of these matters are devolved and that my hon. Friend the Minister really just oversees delivery, but I want to make sure of a number of things. First, will he guarantee that he will come and see the real capital of the Black Country, namely Tipton, to ensure that he understands the need to press on devolved administrations the importance of having real sub-regional strategies? We build these combined authorities, which is great, but there are sub-regions within them that have their own acute needs. Will he ensure that, as we continue to devolve further power and give further funding and resource to this project, it is scrutinised effectively? And will he instil with his colleagues, particularly in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the need, where there are large infrastructure projects, to ensure that secondary investment runs parallel to them?

    As I said in my maiden speech what seems like a long time ago—I think it was actually this month three years ago—my communities in Tipton and Wednesbury spent 50 years being forgotten. I made them a promise that I would ensure that their voice was always heard in this place and that they were never forgotten again. The delivery of this project sends a message to those communities that they have not been forgotten, that they are a priority and that we realise, in this place and in the combined authority, that there is opportunity in the Black Country that can be unleashed. Delivery so far has been wanting. We have a chance, as does the combined authority, to ensure that we get through and deliver the project and that we unlock the potential of the beating heart of this country, the Black Country—as far as I am concerned, Mr Deputy Speaker, the best part of the United Kingdom.

  • Robin Walker – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    Robin Walker – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    The speech made by Robin Walker, the Conservative MP for Worcester, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a great honour to speak in this debate, and I apologise to those Members whose speeches I may have missed, including the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), who made his maiden speech. I congratulate him on that and look forward to reading it in Hansard. I was meeting a group of young people who have autism, and as we debate this issue of the holocaust it is striking to think that people we would now describe as neurodiverse were also victims of the holocaust.

    As Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, I wanted to join so many Members who have spoken today, from so many parts of the House, in paying tribute to the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust, as they make a profound difference in our schools. The work they do in bringing the testimony of survivors directly to children in schools is vital in informing our understanding of one of the most terrible examples of human behaviour in history, but it is so much more than that; it inspires an understanding not just of history—my subject at school and university—but of poetry, literature, music and so much more that children can benefit from. The work they have done to make sure that the voices of that generation of survivors that we are sadly now losing are perpetuated and protected for the future is essential, as we all recognise the importance of educating about the holocaust and dealing with the difficult issues it raises for the students of today.

    The trips that those bodies have organised to take students directly to Auschwitz, to see for themselves the reality of the horror undertaken there, are also an important part of their work. In all our constituencies, up and down the country, events are taking place tomorrow that will bring together the pupils of today and the testimony of holocaust survivors, and civic and religious institutions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) said in his excellent opening speech, this is something that should matter to people of every religion and every community. It was fantastic to hear him speaking out in that way.

    I wish to touch on a recent event we had in Worcester, which was a reminder that although the holocaust was a peak of the terrible antisemitism and mistreatment of Jewish people, it was not isolated in history as an incident of antisemitism, bias and appalling behaviour against them. We recently held an event to commemorate the expulsion of the Jews from Worcester in 13th-century England. We brought representatives of Jewish communities from across the midlands together in Worcester, at the site of the former Jewish ghetto, to unveil a plaque, and to hear a profound speech and an apology from the Bishop of Worcester for the role that the Church played in that incident. It is important to remember that context and the long history of antisemitism that built up to the terrible events of the holocaust.

    Today there is a very small Jewish population in Worcester, but the lessons of the holocaust are relevant to everyone in my constituency. I am very proud that schools such as the King’s School Worcester, RGS Worcester, Christopher Whitehead Language College and Sixth Form, and Nunnery Wood High School, will be holding holocaust memorial events and engaging in that event with our university, with civic dignitaries at the Guildhall in Worcester, just a few hundred yards from where that Jewish ghetto stood.

    I very much look forward to hearing from Mindu Hornick tomorrow. She is a holocaust survivor who will be addressing that group. In paying tribute to the many profound speeches that we have heard from all parts of the House, I think it is very welcome that the Government have made the commitment about the holocaust education centre sitting at the heart of our democracy. That will benefit generations of schoolchildren in the years to come.

  • Nicola Richards – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    Nicola Richards – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    The speech made by Nicola Richards, the Conservative MP for West Bromwich East, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) for securing this debate.

    Nobel laureate and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel famously said

    “whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness”.

    Seventy-eight years on from the liberation of the former Nazi extermination and concentrations camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, as we gather here today to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, those words could not be more important.

    As a society, we have taken the incredible work of organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust for granted. The trust and its incredible staff have worked day in and day out for the past 30 years to ensure that as many people as possible have the honour of being able to sit in awe and listen to a holocaust survivor tell their testimony. Today, through the Holocaust Educational Trust’s annual webcast, tens of thousands of schoolchildren from across the country logged on to hear the testimony of holocaust survivor Ruth Posner BEM.

    It is sad but true that we are the last generations who will know the holocaust not as a historical period but as something that happened to someone we met or knew. With holocaust survivors now in their 80s and 90s, we, the people who have heard their testimony, have become their witness. We must now carry the mantle of continuing their legacy.

    If holocaust denial and distortion can thrive when there are survivors as proof, what will happen when there are none? If antisemitism and hatred can thrive even while survivors warn where it can lead, what will happen when there are none? And when individuals say that Jewish people should not have their own homeland, when survivors are still retelling how no other country would accept them, what will happen when there are none?

    In the past month, we have seen the release of two shocking reports. First, two weeks ago, the Tuck report on antisemitism in the National Union of Students found that it was a hostile environment for Jewish students. I have heard stories from my Jewish staffer of what he and his friends experienced at NUS conferences, and it is truly shocking. Secondly, just last week, we received the campus antisemitism report from the Community Security Trust, which found that antisemitism at UK universities has risen by 22% to its highest recorded total. Put simply, Jewish students on UK campuses are receiving death threats and abuse while the National Union of Students, their supposed representative, invites an accused antisemitic rapper to its conferences. How can the Jewish community hope for a better future when this is what its children are having to put up with?

    I pause to recognise the amazing work of the Community Security Trust and the Union of Jewish Students, which are on the ground at universities to protect and represent Jewish students. I also thank the Antisemitism Policy Trust and declare an interest as the co-chair of the APPG against antisemitism. Sadly, the work they do only becomes more important as time goes on.

    I was recently at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and saw a Nazi-era antisemitic book that is currently on sale online. Just last year, we were reminded again that antisemitism is alive and kicking thanks to Kanye West, the now disgraced rapper turned Hitler fan. There is nothing cool, and certainly nothing acceptable, about that. I live in hope that, one day, he might realise that. He has more followers on social media than there are Jews in the world, which puts this debate starkly into context.

    The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is ordinary people. It is strange to use the word “ordinary” in the same sentence as the word “holocaust.” There is nothing ordinary about the unprecedented attempt to murder all European Jews and to extinguish their culture, history and traditions. This cannot be ordinary, yet the holocaust was only possible because ordinary people did not speak up when hatred was taking over.

    It was ordinary people who met at the Wannsee conference to discuss the need for the final solution, which is the term given to the extermination of the Jewish population. It was ordinary people who rounded up the Jews of Europe and forced them into ghettos. It was ordinary people who drove the trains on their journey to the camps. It was ordinary people who thought of their work at death camps as just that—nothing more than work. They would finish their shift and go home to their families and children, who often lived just a few hundred metres away from the camp perimeter. Most importantly, it was ordinary Jewish people who had their humanity stripped away for the crime of being Jewish.

    As the late Rabbi Lord Sacks said:

    “Jews were hated in Germany because they were rich and because they were poor, because they were capitalists and because they were communists, because they kept to themselves and because they infiltrated everywhere, because they believed in a primitive faith and because they were rootless cosmopolitans who believed nothing. Hitler believed that Jews were controlling both the United States and the Soviet Union. How could they be doing both? Because they were Jews.”

    I end this speech by paying tribute to Zigi Shipper BEM, who sadly passed away last week. I am proud to be, as Elie Wiesel put it, his “witness.” I had the pleasure of meeting Zigi many times and I will never forget his charisma, strength and big smile, which he always had on display. I witnessed the eruption of applause when he finished delivering his testimony, having transported students in a school in London through time, painting a picture of the fragile child who was lucky to survive this all, not least the death march where he developed typhus. When he finished speaking, he was a legend, a mensch. He was one of the many capable of condensing the pain of those involved into a service to better the world. At the end, he was treated like a celebrity and he loved it. He high-fived all the students down the aisle of the hall on his way out, and those students will never forget it. I echo the words of his grandson, Darren Richman, who wrote:

    “Shaping minds—in a very real sense—changing the world, and I have no doubt the world was a better place for having had Zigi in it.”

    May his memory be a blessing.

  • Jim Shannon – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    Jim Shannon – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    The speech made by Jim Shannon, the DUP MP for Strangford, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate on Holocaust Memorial Day. Let me start by commending the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) for introducing it—he set the scene very well and succinctly, with a focus on the issues—and all the right hon. and hon. Members who have made contributions straight from the heart. I have been moved by many of them.

    I commend the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) for his maiden speech. His words were well chosen, and they were the words of someone who will make good contributions in this House. I look forward to his speeches on housing or whatever it may be; I am quite sure that he will add much to our debates. I wish him well and we are very pleased that he is here.

    I have always been a supporter and a friend of Israel —that is no secret. I was before I came here, when I was in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and now that I am here I am a supporter of the Friends of Israel. I unashamedly put that on the record.

    I also commend the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). His words, as always in this type of debate, were very pertinent. I understand why his soldiers followed him and why he could lead as he did. If I had been one of his soldiers, I would have followed him as well—I suspect we all would. I commend him for all that he does and for the service that he gave us in Northern Ireland. We recognise that he and others, gallant Members that they are, contributed much to the peace that we have in Northern Ireland. I thank him for that on the record.

    The right hon. Member for Bromsgrove referred to how we are made in God’s image. I believe that with all my heart. Whenever I speak as chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, I speak equally for those with Christian faith, those with other faiths and those with no faith. That is what it is about, and that is what the right hon. Gentleman and others—including the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham—referred to. It is really important that we recognise where we are.

    I want to speak about ordinary people, which is the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day. I think that is touching and very fitting. I want to illustrate it with a story from the youngest member of my staff, who just last weekend came to London with her boyfriend for a birthday present. They did a tour of Westminster through the tours office here and then they spent some four hours in the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. The Imperial War Museum is not often mentioned, but it should be, and I want to try to illustrate that today.

    The weekend with her boyfriend was, of course, always going to be something special for my young member of staff. I would not have been particularly aware of the Imperial War Museum—perhaps because, as I have said, it is not highlighted as often as it should be—but when she regaled us with what she did during that weekend away, she became fixated on the museum. She told us that while her boyfriend had been enamoured of the guns and tanks, as boys are, almost three hours of her time was spent in the section that commemorated the holocaust. Describing it to us in the office, which she did very eloquently and in great detail, she said that she had gone in expecting to see a focus on Anne Frank, but instead was struck by the mountains of, in her words, “ordinary people”. She took the time to read every single post, and to look up on her phone the accounts for which she wanted more background. She studied history at school, but she said that looking at these “ordinary people’s stories” had a greater impact on her than her history GCSE course.

    What is most notable is the fact that visits to the Imperial War Museum are free, and so is the information that is so vital to our young people, in giving them a sense of the despicable nature of what history books cannot tell us in words alone. They are able to take in so many displays, each one telling vital individual stories that drive home, or give a glimpse of, the horror that was suffered by so many. For me, that has reinforced the importance of taking children to museums and showing them displays of this kind, to allow them to feel the repulsion and the revulsion and to understand exactly what the figure of 6 million—the 6 million who were murdered—means in an individual setting.

    Earlier, I said to the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) that to get an idea of what that figure means, she could imagine walking from Stranraer to Orkney without meeting anyone. The population of Scotland is 5.6 million. It is like walking across Northern Ireland three times and a bit without seeing a single person. That encapsulates what it means to have 6 million people no longer here. It really hits home.

    We must also underline the importance of those who said nothing and understand the role that compliance plays. Our young people need to understand that no man is an island, and that we all bear a responsibility to stand up for what is right against what is morally wrong.

    In her succinct and powerful speech, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) referred to the war in Ukraine. When I heard the girls in the office discussing it, some of them were a bit gung ho about us sending troops, while others said that we were doing what was right. One of them, however, said that she could not really take in the idea of her 17-year-old nephew having a gun in his hands. However, that is the reality of war. Good people must stand up and do the right thing, and for us ordinary people to do nothing can never be an option.

    Many of my constituents, like those of other Members, have visited Auschwitz and come back incredibly moved and perhaps even a bit traumatised by what they have seen, but they have received the message of Auschwitz, which is, “It can never happen again.” One of my sons went there with his friends, and that was the visit that made the difference for them, as it did for my constituents who took the time to do the same.

    When we think of films like “Schindler’s List” and other blockbusters, the human impact is clear to us, but some young people do not watch war films. We need to ensure that every child is educated, not just in the facts and figures, but in the individual stories that touch people’s hearts and change their outlook. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: we must continue to fund educational visits to Auschwitz, and also arrange visits to the Imperial War Museum here in London. It holds some treasures, but it also has a focus on history and on what we must make sure never happens again. There, people can see and touch the atrocity, and build the determination that it will never be repeated.

    I have that determination, as, I think, has every other Member who has spoken today, but do our children have it? Do our grandchildren? If they do not, are we prepared as a Parliament to put our money where our mouth is and fund educational awareness for this world, and, in particular, this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

  • Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    Theresa Villiers – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    The speech made by Theresa Villiers, the Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    I feel immensely privileged to be called to take part in what has been an outstanding debate this afternoon that has shown this House at its best. I particularly commend the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart).

    Before turning to the appalling events of the holocaust, I want to speak about another European genocide that took place in Europe in the 20th century: the holodomor. Ninety years ago, during the winter of 1932-33, the confiscation of crops led to the death of millions in the Soviet Union, mainly Ukrainian peasant farmers. It is hard to say how many Ukrainians died, but it was probably at least 7 million. The almost universal view of historians is that the famine was man-made, inflicted as a deliberate policy by Stalin to force Ukrainian farmers into collectivism. His regime wanted to break the resistance of Ukrainian identity and culture, which it viewed as a threat to Russian Soviet rule.

    Entirely unrealistic quotas for agricultural production were set. When not achieved, all produce was confiscated, and mass starvation followed. At the height of the crisis, around 25,000 were dying every day. Bodies piled up at the roadside and at railway stations as people tried desperately to flee but never made it. With the return of Russian aggression towards Ukraine, surely now is the time for us to formally recognise the holodomor for what it was: an attempt at genocide directed against the Ukrainian people.

    Turning to the holocaust, I want to talk about my constituent, Mala Tribich. She was born in 1930 in Poland. In 1939, her family were forced into a ghetto, but she and her cousin Idzia were taken in by a Christian family in another town. They lived in dangerous and vulnerable circumstances, constantly at risk of discovery. Idzia was moved to live with another family and was never seen again. Her death remains a mystery to this day. Back in the ghetto, Mala’s family were living in increasingly appalling conditions, crammed in the corner of a room with many other families. Her mother and sister were taken away and imprisoned in a synagogue. They were brutalised, starved, shot at, and then taken away and murdered in nearby woods.

    By this time, Mala was in the ghetto with her father and brother and had become caregiver to her five-year-old cousin, Hania. When the ghetto was liquidated in July 1943, the two children were put in line to board lorries going to concentration camps. Mala bravely asked one of the SS guards if she could return to the ghetto. Incredibly, he said yes, but as she turned to go back she was told that the permission to re-enter applied only to her, not to little Hania. Mala was faced with the agonising choice of either leaving this vulnerable little girl behind to certain death or staying with her, losing her family forever, and potentially losing her own life. In the end the guard relented, and they were both allowed back. The Nazis inflicted these appalling choices on millions of people during the holocaust.

    Mala and Hania were in the ghetto for another year, until November 1944, when they were put into cattle trucks with no food or water and transported first to Ravensbrück concentration camp and then to Bergen-Belsen. They arrived to scenes of unspeakable horror, with bodies strewn around the camp and thousands dying of starvation and disease. Somehow, those two little girls survived and were liberated from Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. Having gone through all that, Mala was still just 14 years old.

    I feel that I just do not have the words to do justice to that story, but I wanted to tell it to the House today because I believe that one of the reasons the personal testimony of survivors such as Mala has so much power is that it reminds us of the individual people behind the horrific statistics—the ordinary people who, before the rise of the Nazis, were living such ordinary lives, just like us, with the same hopes and aspirations, no doubt the same anxieties and irritations, and the same strengths and weaknesses.

    My 92-year-old constituent told her story to a gathering in Woodside Park synagogue at the weekend, as she has in hundreds of other settings over many years. She told it with incredible poise, dignity, courage and resilience. The gathering was hosted by the shul in partnership with the Barnet Multi Faith Forum, and people of all faiths and backgrounds were there to remember the holocaust and its victims, and to pledge to root out anti-Jewish racism wherever it emerges. That is a commitment I repeat to the House today, because we must never, ever let this appalling history repeat itself.

  • Margaret Ferrier – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    Margaret Ferrier – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    The speech made by Margaret Ferrier, the Independent MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    I thank the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) for securing and opening today’s debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) on his fantastic maiden speech and look forward to hearing more of his contributions in the Chamber.

    It is a great privilege to speak in this debate marking Holocaust Memorial Day 2023. It is an opportunity for all of us to reflect on the part that we play as parliamentarians in upholding democracy. I would like to place on record my thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust for the important work it does in educating the public on the horrors of the holocaust and other genocides, and to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. I have signed the book of commitment again this year on behalf of my constituents, as have many Members. I would also like to pay tribute to holocaust survivor Zigi Shipper, who recently passed away, sadly, on his 93rd birthday. I would like to express my condolences to his family.

    Each year’s theme gives us pause for thought, and perhaps none more so than this year’s theme of ordinary people. It was ordinary people who stood by and allowed the holocaust and other genocides to happen, taken in by propaganda or too frightened to speak up. They share some degree of responsibility. It is ordinary people who grow up to become authoritarian leaders or parts of the machine that perpetrates these massacres. It was ordinary people who fought back at great risk to their own lives, who provided shelter to the persecuted Jews, Roma, disabled and LGBT people, who resisted the regime in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe. It is ordinary people who have overturned corrupt regimes, fought for change for themselves and others. It is ordinary people who are the victims of genocide and who are the survivors. Nothing sets victims apart from survivors other than some chanceful set of unique circumstances that allowed them to survive or unfortunately put them directly in harm’s way.

    Too many stories and names are lost to the passage of time, but all the seemingly small personal stories from those who experienced persecution or tried to resist, make one larger picture when they are pieced together. Those small pieces are meaningful—the stories of lives that were lived or stolen. They are just as important as the whole, and the whole is what we look to when we remind ourselves why we cannot be complacent and cannot allow history to repeat itself.

    It is some of the lesser-known stories of ordinary people that I want to speak to today: two women who ended up in Rutherglen, in my constituency, at some point in their lives. Dorrith Sim, who passed in 2012, was born Dorrith Oppenheim in Kassel, Germany in 1931. Her early childhood was happy, comfortable and carefree. It was Kristallnacht, or night of the broken glass, in Kassel that marked the beginning of a difficult road for the young girl. Dorrith was seven and a half when she boarded the Kindertransport and made her way to a new life in Scotland, having to leave her parents Hans and Trude behind. The only English she knew was “I have a handkerchief in my pocket.”

    Hans and Trude were deported to Auschwitz in October of 1944. They were never reunited with their daughter. She stayed in Edinburgh with her foster parents, until she married Andrew at 21. The couple lived in Rutherglen in their early marriage, as well as Dundee and Prestwick later. Dorrith wrote a book in later life, titled “Handkerchief in my Pocket”. It was very important to her that future generations of children understood what she, and so many children like her, had been through.

    Rita Strassmann, later McNeill, was another Rutherglen resident who arrived in Scotland with the Kindertransport. She was born in 1930 in Hanover and was just nine when she was arrested by Nazis, alongside her mother. She was able to escape, with the help of her aunt, but unfortunately her mother was left behind. It was the last time Rita saw her. Years later she was given a small booklet—she forgets from where—that informed her of her mother’s fate. She was shot as she was marched, with other victims, to Riga from the concentration camp she had been taken to. Rita said she did not do well at school. No doubt the trauma of leaving her mother behind, en route to a concentration camp, deeply affected her. She worked in a bank after school, and later as a receptionist for her husband’s medical practice.

    Rita and Dorrith were friends. As adults, they both would go to meetings to connect with others who had come to Scotland on the Kindertransport. They both described feeling Scottish, but Rita said, “Still German blood in my veins, Jewish German blood in my veins.” It is clear that those early traumatic experiences shaped them and can never be erased. They were two ordinary women who had experienced something so unthinkable and out of the ordinary to us here today.

    I am sure many of us have ordinary men and women in our constituencies with a deeply personal connection to the holocaust or other campaigns of persecution. The men and women who fought for today’s freedoms, while inspirational and brave, were ordinary people. As ordinary people too, we must continue to uphold those values. We cannot allow the seeds of hatred to spread and grow. There will always be those who perpetrate hatred. Each one of us must take seriously our responsibility to call hatred out wherever we see it and show that we will not tolerate it.

  • Bob Blackman – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    Bob Blackman – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

    The speech made by Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP for Harrow East, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

    It is a pleasure to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson). I pass on my congratulations to the new hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) on his maiden speech. He will remember it forever, because we all do. We all do it once, and he will remember it forever. He is clearly going to be an asset to this House as well as to his party, and I look forward to debating housing issues with him over the time he is here. I wish his team every success tomorrow night.

    I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) for securing this debate, as we remember the 78 years since the end of the holocaust. For me and for most of us, it is incredible to think of 6 million people being murdered because they were people, and it is important to remember that the holocaust was not an isolated event. It was systematic state-sponsored persecution by the Nazi party and its affiliates. It began in 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, and went all the way through to 1945, when the second world war concluded. I hope to take a bit of a different tack during this speech, because if we ask how we can understand how ordinary people could do such atrocities to ordinary people, we need to understand what led to it in the first place.

    Antisemitism is not new, and it was not new in the 1930s. Jewish people have been subjected to antisemitism throughout Europe since the middle ages. The hatred escalated significantly after the great war, when the reparations on Germany and its allies were extreme, and we had the Wall Street crash and the depression, which led to rampant inflation in Germany and the collapse of the Weimar republic. This led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party as he assumed control of Germany.

    It is unclear to me what was behind Hitler’s hatred towards Jews. Why did this man decide that he hated Jews? However, it is quite clear that Hitler held the Jewish community responsible for the defeat of Germany in world war one. Why? It is because someone had to be to blame. That was clearly what we now call fake news —vicious propaganda, enabling the national feeling to be against the Jewish population of Germany and beyond. It was completely wrong, given that Jews were fighting on the side of Germany in defence of their country during world war one, including Otto Frank, who fought at the battle of the Somme.

    After Hitler came to power, he wasted no time in using the Government to target and exclude Jews from German society, claiming they were inferior. Any book that contained ideas threatening to the Nazis was banned, and a concentration camp was immediately created for political prisoners, initially holding 200 communists. By 1935, the anti-Jewish movement had gained momentum. Jewish newspapers could no longer be sold, and Jews were stripped of their citizenship and other basic rights. In September 1935, the Nuremberg laws were passed by the German Parliament, which meant that many of the Nazis’ radical theories were institutionalised, and legal grounds were created to justify the prosecution and persecution of the Jewish community.

    It is unimaginable in this day and age how the vast majority of Germans were coaxed into believing that Nazi ideology, but members of the general public were clearly unaware of the growing indoctrination until it was too late. They had adopted a strong stance against the entire Jewish community, and therefore could justify Hitler’s actions. Despite the shocking morals, Hitler was a calculated and systematic man, carefully thinking through his long-term plan before enacting it. He was able to persuade the German people by providing free radios that played only antisemitic programmes, ensuring that all children’s books depicted the villain as a Jewish character, showing posters blaming the Jews for every evil, and introducing strong censorship on all anti-Nazi media.

    On 9 November, Kristallnacht, or the “night of broken glass”, took place. That was the terrorisation of Jews throughout Germany and Austria, which had recently been annexed by the Nazis. Hundreds of synagogues were destroyed and thousands of Jewish-owned businesses ransacked. The deaths of nearly 100 Jews took place on that dreadful night, which is often seen as the turning point in the persecution of German Jewry. The aftermath of Kristallnacht saw dozens of further discriminative restrictions. Jews now had to carry ID cards at all times and have the segregating “J” stamped on their passports. They could longer head or own businesses, and they could not attend concerts or theatres. They had their driver’s licences removed, and all Jewish children had to be taken out of their schools to attend “Jewish-only” institutions. They had to be in certain places at certain times—all dictated by the Führer. Furthermore, more than 30,000 Jews were arrested on that night.

    The whole House will be aware that in 1939 world war two was declared, as Germany took over Czechoslovakia and began the invasion of Poland. Simultaneously, the Jewish restrictions became even more constraining and discriminatory. By 1940, the Nazis had begun deporting German Jews to Poland, where they were forced into ghettos and concentration camps. They were brutally tortured and their human rights completely violated. Devastatingly, 1940 saw the first of an onslaught of mass murders of Jewish people.

    The situation became graver and graver, and in 1942, the Nazis’ discussions were centred around their “final solution”, a despicable plot to kill every European Jew. At that point, Jews were not allowed to own pets, leave the house without police consent, buy newspapers and eggs or attend school, among all sorts of further restrictions. Once Hitler took control of Hungary, a year before the end of world war two, he began deporting 12,000 Jews to Auschwitz every day to be killed. That continued until 1945, when Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. Sadly, 6 million Jewish people—two thirds of European Jews—had lost their lives. That shattered communities, and provided the few who outlived the war with experiences that scarred their lives for ever.

    But before we get too comfortable, we should remember what was going on in this country. The British Union of Fascists was around before world war two, led by Oswald Mosley, an MP in this House, and he modelled it on Nazi Germany. The BUF was fuelled by antisemitism, inspired by the Nazis, and Mosley held huge rallies in this country, pushing a strong nationalist and fascist agenda. Unemployment was very high, poverty widespread, and homelessness rising. Someone had to be to blame, and Mosley blamed the Jews. It could have happened here. Sensible action took place by the Home Secretary, and once war broke out the BUF was banned and its members became enemies of the state. But we must never be too comfortable that this could not happen again, even in this country. I will end with one line from Zigi Shipper, who made this important point: do not hate.