Category: Speeches

Kate Green – 2021 Comments on Government’s Plan for Jobs

The comments made by Kate Green, the Shadow Education Secretary, on 8 February 2021.

The Government is trying to get away with quick fixes, which are selling young people short and failing to create the training and employment opportunities they need.

The Chancellor’s failure to secure our economy means the pandemic is wreaking havoc with the jobs market and now more than ever people need access to training and the chance to learn new skills.

Labour has repeatedly called for a plan to rebuild businesses, investing in local communities to create the jobs people need after this pandemic.

09/02/2021
Lucy Powell – 2021 Comments on End of Financial Support to Business

The comments made by Lucy Powell, the Shadow Business and Consumers Minister, on 9 February 2021.

The Government’s failure to ensure economic support is adequate and goes hand in hand with public health measures has meant we’ve seen the worst recession of any major economy and the worst growth.

The £50 billion business bombshell firms face must be defused before it blows a hole in our economy. We need a smarter furlough scheme, and better support for businesses, to secure jobs and get Britain on the road to recovery.

09/02/2021
Gillian Keegan – 2021 Comments on National Apprenticeship Week

The comments made by Gillian Keegan, the Apprenticeship and Skills Minister, on 8 February 2021.

Coronavirus has had a huge impact on lives and livelihoods. As we build back better from the pandemic, we need to make sure people are able to take advantage of the opportunities apprenticeships provide.

Whether it’s the benefits to the individual – the chance to earn while you learn, opening up new career paths that can transform lives. Or the benefits to business giving access new talent from all backgrounds.

This National Apprenticeship Week we should celebrate the apprentices up and down the country who have been stepping up throughout the pandemic to support the national effort. I am calling on everyone to get involved in to raise awareness of all the fantastic opportunities that are out there and share their inspiring stories.

08/02/2021
Nadhim Zahawi – 2021 Statement on the Vaccine Rollout

The statement made by Nadhim Zahawi, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on 8 February 2021.

Earlier this week, we saw one of the greatest milestones in our fightback against this virus, as the number of people who received their first dose ticked over 10 million, and has now surpassed 12 million.

We’re now vaccinating at an incredible pace, and during one hour on Saturday we delivered nearly 1,000 jabs a minute across the United Kingdom.

The vaccine is our way out of this pandemic, and it is thanks to the hard work of everyone involved that we have vaccinated over 90% of over 75s and visited every eligible care home possible with older residents in England.

From the moment COVID-19 was identified over a year ago, the global community of researchers, scientists and manufacturers have concentrated all their expertise and their efforts into vaccines and treatments so we can beat this virus.

The emergence of other variants is yet another challenge they are rising to meet.

Our world-leading genomics capacity has allowed us to identify these different strains when they have appeared in the UK. Where we have seen evidence of the South African variant or other worrying mutations, we have moved to deploy surge testing to try and stop it spreading any further.

It is a timely reminder that currently, even with the vaccine rollout going well, we all need to live by the national restrictions and act as if we might have the virus to stop us spreading it.

We have also taken stringent measures to stop new variant cases coming into the country, with travel bans for over 30 countries identified as having the highest risk of importing these variants. This is in addition to the negative test you need to arrive in the country, and the 10-day quarantine you must undertake once you are here.

I know the government is working at speed to introduce a further measure of enforced hotel quarantine for arrivals from high-risk countries to introduce yet another barrier against these variants coming into the UK.

Our brilliant scientists and medical advisers are now working on the potential for new versions of existing vaccines to offer further protections against COVID variants. Last week we announced an agreement with the manufacture CureVac to allow new varieties of vaccines based on messenger RNA technology to be developed quickly and to procure 50 million doses of a new version of a vaccine, if it is required.

But we should bear in mind that recent studies show the vaccines being deployed right now across the UK appear to work well against the COVID-19 variants currently dominant in the UK. In terms of other variants, not in the UK, we need to be aware that even where a vaccine has reduced efficacy in preventing infection there may still be good efficacy against severe disease, hospitalisation, and death. This is vitally important for protecting the healthcare system.

While it is right and necessary to prepare for the deployment of an updated vaccine, we can take confidence from the current roll out and the protection it will provide all of us against this terrible disease.

We are ready to protect our most vulnerable and stay a step ahead of the virus, whatever it throws at us.

Thanks to the work you’re doing, we’re getting safer every day. But even though this programme is accelerating rapidly, this is still a lethal virus that is capable of causing devastation and disruption.

So while the vaccinators do their work, we must all keep following the steps that we know make a big difference: hands, face, space, and if you have symptoms get a test.

08/02/2021
Kwasi Kwarteng – 2021 Comments on Pay as You Grow Repayments

The comments made by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, on 8 February 2021.

The comprehensive and generous financial support package we have delivered across the UK has protected jobs, saved businesses and kept local economies on the move.

While our vaccine rollout is moving at an incredible pace and the end is in sight, we know times are still tough for many companies and extra support is needed.

These flexible repayment options will give businesses the time they need to recover from the pandemic before paying back loans, giving them the breathing space and confidence to build back better.

08/02/2021
Nick Thomas-Symonds – 2021 Comments on Government’s Quarantine Plans

The comments made by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 7 February 2021.

These revelations expose the fact that – as Labour warned – the UK Government’s quarantine measures will continue to leave us completely exposed to emerging strains of the virus.

Not only are the measures far too slow to begin – 50 days after the South African strain emerged – they are also dangerously inadequate. Tory incompetence is dangerous.

08/02/2021
Rachel Reeves – 2021 Comments on Public Services

The comments made by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on 7 February 2021.

This Government has eroded not only our public services to the brink of collapse, but so much of what it means to be an honourable and transparent government.

While this Tory Government has denied key workers in our public services a pay rise, they paid 900 management consultants at Deloitte £1,000 a day to work on test and trace.

The beating heart of our country is the key workers who have kept us going through this last year. That’s why we applauded them. Children weren’t banging pots and pans for management consultants. They were clapping our key workers.

The public is also paying a high price for this Government’s mismanagement and waste. This current Tory Party is rife with conflicts of interest. It’s all cheques and no balances.

People expect all of us seeking government to spend their money with care and respect – and a Labour government will.

Labour will clean up government contracting by strengthening FOI, introducing a new Independent Anti-Corruption Commissioner, and an Integrity and Ethics Commission to make us a world leader in good governance and transparency.

08/02/2021
John Healey – 2021 Comments on Army Numbers

The comments made by John Healey, the Shadow Defence Secretary, on 7 February 2021.

There is serious concern that Britain’s Armed Forces remain 10,000 below the total strength Ministers have said is needed and we believe there is cross-party support for making sure the MoD keeps our full-time forces up to strength and battle-ready.

The strength of our forces should rightly be set by a full assessment of the security threats we face and this is a central question the new Integrated Review must answer. Our adversaries will exploit continuing holes in our capability. The UK needs a proper defence strategy without further delay.

Labour also wants to ensure the Government’s Armed Forces Bill will deliver step-change improvements in work and living conditions for the forces, veterans and their families.

08/02/2021
Matt Western – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

The speech made by Matt Western, the Labour MP for Warwick and Leamington, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

I welcome the Government’s interest and their recognition of the importance of Royal Leamington Spa to be a recipient of potentially £10 million. As an important sub-regional shopping centre, it is a vital part of the region’s economy and quality of life, so let me praise the council officers at Warwick District Council for the quality of their original submission and the work they have done since in refining the proposals against a reduced contribution proposed by the Government. That said, £10 million is a sound amount for them to work with, and I hope it can do much to address the air quality in the town, highlighted by the World Health Organisation as an issue, while revitalising the commercial centre more widely.

However, let me cut to the chase. Over the past decade the Government have cut £15 billion from local authorities across the UK, yet handed back just £3.6 billion to some towns which they invited to bid for moneys. Members will know that back in October I questioned the Prime Minister—did I have the guts, he asked me—about how it could be that the Secretary of State could approve tens of millions of pounds for his Minister and his constituency town of Darwen, while that Minister could return the favour and approve tens of millions of pounds for the Secretary of State’s constituency town of Newark—beyond belief. But how were the 101 towns selected in the first instance? Surely, if the Government were honest in their claim to level up, they would have allocated the moneys to the most deprived communities across England, but they have not. In the past year, we have heard many cases of the Government using algorithms, or more often malgorithms, but this is back-of-a-fag-packetithm. While Housing, Communities and Local Government officials may have recommended that the Government did one thing—namely, allocate funds to the most deserving communities—instead the Secretary of State and Ministers allocated moneys to towns in the lowest priority category.

It is also worth noting that the Government chose to allocate by region, not need, so the north and the midlands were disadvantaged by their political ploys. How else could Bournemouth benefit but, shockingly, South Shields be left off? Both are seaside towns, but I think I know which is in greater need of the funding. It is something Harry Redknapp would have appreciated more than most. I will not even go into Cheadle. While Big Ben no longer bongs, this Government bung, and they are doing it on an industrial scale. A simple analysis of the towns that have received moneys underlines the political tactics laid bare. Certainly the timing of the announcement, in the last few weeks before the last general election, might give us a clue. It was carefully targeted at marginal seats. Interestingly, the impartial cross-party Public Accounts Committee concluded in its investigation that the selection process was not impartial. It took evidence from Christopher Hanretty, a professor of politics at Royal Holloway, who said that

“the process by which towns were invited to bid for money from the Towns Fund was driven by party-political electoral advantage”,

riding roughshod over any pretence to be levelling up this country. Any section 151 officer in a council would be sacked if they acted like this.

Any impartial observer will see this for what it is, and certainly the public do. It is grubby government of the worst order.

07/02/2021
Sarah Olney – 2021 Speech on the Towns Fund

The speech made by Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, in the House of Commons on 4 February 2021.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to speak in this debate. It has been fantastic to hear the stories of how the towns fund has helped individual town centres, and I am pleased for those communities that have seen a boost from the fund. Members will know that the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, have expressed doubts about the transparency of the decision making relating to the fund’s distribution. I do not want to reiterate these concerns, as they have been expanded on by various Members in this debate, but I note that the approach of selecting certain town centres for funding while excluding others is bound to lead to inequalities. Town centres that could have benefited from funding will miss out. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) made an excellent point about London suburbs, and obviously I, too represent one. There are lots of opportunities in London’s suburbs for levelling up, not least now that we are seeing less commuting, and lots of town centres will be looking for funds to revive, to help those who are working from home more often.

In the interim, our town centres have had to weather the unprecedented economic blow of the pandemic lockdown and a further decimation of the retail industry. Once the restrictions are lifted, there will be an urgent need to make a substantial economic offer to town centre businesses, not just to help revive them, but to provide jobs, and to deliver local goods and services, and, most importantly, public spaces, where local people can come together and meet each other. It is those informal meetings that we are all missing out on during lockdown. All our town centres will need assistance to bounce back from this crisis, so I call on the Government to take measures that will support all our communities, and abandon this winners and losers approach that we have seen with the allocation of funds from this towns fund.

The need to review our approach to business rates has been aired many times in this Chamber, and I hope we will hear more on it in due course, in order to level the playing field between physical and digital businesses. Similarly, I would like to see a change in the way in which commercial leases are granted and an abolition of upward-only rent reviews. I have heard that ask from many, many businesses in the past year. We should also reform local authority funding to give all councils more money to spend on investing in their own town centres. There are great opportunities for our retail and hospitality sectors, and our cultural organisations, once the lockdown restrictions are lifted, and they will bring new employment to every part of the UK. I urge the Government to put the investment necessary into those sectors to help them all recover from the current downturn.

07/02/2021