Tag: Jeremy Corbyn

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 11 March 2020.

The coronavirus outbreak is an emergency, so I want to make it clear that we will have to work together, all of us, to meet this head-on and to overcome it. However, we will only overcome this virus because of the dedication of our NHS staff, carers and public servants. The steps the Government have announced today to head off the economic impact of the coronavirus are obviously welcome, but I have some points I wish to raise. We have to be straight with people that it is going to be much tougher because of the last 10 years of deeply damaging and counterproductive cuts to all of our essential public services. We are going into this crisis with our public services on their knees, and as today’s figures confirm, with a fundamentally weak economy. It is now flatlining, with zero growth even before the impact of coronavirus.

Today’s Budget was billed as a turning point, a chance to deliver in particular on the promises made to working-class communities during the general election, but it does not come close. The Government’s boast of the biggest investment since the 1950s is, frankly, a sleight of hand. In fact, it is only the biggest since they began their slash-and-burn assault on our services, economic infrastructure and living standards in 2010. Having ruthlessly forced down the living standards and life chances of millions of our people for a decade, the talk of levelling up is a cruel joke. The reality is that this Budget is an admission of failure: an admission that austerity has been a failed experiment. It did not solve our economic problems, but made them worse. It held back our own recovery, and failed even in its own terms. Today’s measures go nowhere near reversing the damage that has been done to our country.

I am sure the whole House will wish the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) well. Many people are understandably very worried about the impact of coronavirus on their own lives. The Government need to be very clear what they are announcing, and there are still questions to be answered about the Government’s response. What coverage is there for people on zero-hours contracts or those without a contract of employment beyond the reforms to benefits? Will statutory sick pay adjustments announced today be available to all workers from day one? What support will be made available for low-paid workers who do not meet the lower earnings limit for statutory sick pay? Are there any plans to increase the level of statutory sick pay, which itself is actually scandalously low? Will people who are doing the right thing by self-isolating continue to be punished with a five-week wait for universal credit payments? The benefits system cannot be the only support for the millions of workers not entitled to statutory sick pay.

The crisis is exposing the vulnerabilities in our economy and our public services. When 17,000 national health service beds have been cut, leaving 94% of the remaining ​beds full, and when 100,000 people were forced to wait more than four hours on trolleys in A&E departments in January, it is little wonder that people worry that the extra money for the health service is too little, too late. We have only a quarter of the intensive care beds per person that Germany has. We do not have enough ventilators to deal with a mass outbreak, or the people trained with the necessary skills to operate those ventilators. Across the national health service there are, at this moment, 100,000 staff vacancies.

Moreover, public health budgets have been slashed by £1 billion in recent years. What an irony! Public health is based on the principle that prevention is better than cure, but this Government are providing money only after a serious outbreak is under way. We know that the people most vulnerable to coronavirus are older people, and this is when we need a strong social care system, but social care is in crisis. There is an £8 billion funding gap since 2010. Instead of the Government presenting a social care plan, which the part-time Prime Minister told us was ready long ago, they are asking the rest of us to come up with ideas. Underpaid careworkers, a quarter of them on zero-hours contracts, travel from house to house to provide care to elderly and sick people. It is a model that could scarcely be better designed to encourage the spread of a virus, so it is vital that the Government do not wait a few months, but come up now with answers to ensure that careworkers do not lose out for staying away from work if they experience the symptoms.

The Chancellor shows not some but a lot of brass neck when he boasts that measures to deal with coronavirus are possible only because of his party’s management of the economy. Look outside: in the real world, we are still living through the slowest economic recovery in a century. Our economy is fundamentally weak. ONS figures out today show the economy is not growing: growth was 0.0% in the three months to January—0.0% in the three months to the end of January. [Laughter.] The Prime Minister might find this funny; those struggling do not.

Future growth has been downgraded yet again from 1.4% to 1.1% this year, and that is before coronavirus is taken into account. We have stalling productivity and flatlining business investment, and wages have only just scraped past pre-crisis levels. None of this can be blamed on coronavirus, and it is not all because of Brexit either. It is because the Government have failed on the economy. That failure has left us the most regionally unequal country in Europe. Investment spending per head in London is currently more than double that in the east midlands. Now they talk about levelling up, but who pushed huge swathes of our country so low in the first place? It is Conservative Governments who have starved the country of investment over the last 10 years, resulting in a £192 billion hole in infrastructure spending.

What has that meant for people? It has meant that bus services have been cut, there is patchy access to broadband, and homes and businesses have been ruined because of inadequate flood defences. The Chancellor expects plaudits for half-filling the investment hole his party created in the first place. Amid a blizzard of hype, he is claiming that today marks the biggest capital injection since the 1950s, but this is actually all smoke ​and mirrors. As a percentage of GDP, it only returns us to the levels we had before the Conservatives slashed investment so drastically in 2010. Given the challenge of the coronavirus crisis, we need far-reaching action to strengthen and stabilise our economy, and ensure we are in the strongest position possible to navigate the transition to new relationships with the EU and the post-Brexit economy, with the trade deals that will enable that to happen.

If the Government truly wanted to level up after Brexit, there is one thing they should be doing above all else: a green industrial revolution. They would have a plan to kick-start new green industries and create skilled jobs all across our country. The climate emergency threatens our very existence. It demands that we mobilise our resources on a massive scale. The environmental measures announced by the Chancellor today get nowhere near that. The Government have maintained the freeze on fuel duty without lowering bus and rail fares, showing complacency about the climate emergency. Young people especially will be dismayed by the lack of urgency to reduce our emissions, which they will rightly see as the Conservatives, once again, putting the profits of big polluters and oil companies above people’s safety and wellbeing. When the Chancellor announced, with such aplomb, a huge investment in road building across the country, where was the environmental impact assessment for that policy, or for the pollution that will come from that increased use of cars and traffic across the country?

Today’s Budget confirms that austerity has not worked, even under its own terms. We have had a decade of decline, and according to the New Economics Foundation, austerity has cost the UK economy almost £100 billion. The true cost, however, is incalculable, and I want to give the House an example to bring that home.

Errol Graham was an amateur footballer when he was young. By his mid-50s, and suffering from mental health issues, he had become reclusive, unable to leave his flat in Nottingham, and terrified of the world outside. He could not attend his fitness-for-work assessment, and because of the Government’s harsh and very uncaring attitude, his benefits were cut off. With no income for food, he obviously began to go hungry. He wrote a desperate letter to his Department for Work and Pensions assessor:

“Judge me fairly…It’s not nice living this way.”

Errol weighed four and a half stone when the bailiffs found his body inside his flat. He had starved to death in this, the fifth richest country in the world. When the Chancellor talks about the “difficult decisions” that the Government took in imposing austerity, is he thinking of the decision to deprive Errol, and people like him who are going through such trauma in their lives, of their income?

The worst thing is that austerity, and all that suffering, has been a political choice, not an economic necessity. The Conservative party continues to make the absurd claim that austerity was needed because spending on schools, hospitals and public services by Labour was somehow the cause of the worldwide financial crash in 2008. A US Senate report into the root causes of the crash singled out two investment banks for blame: Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister turfed out one Chancellor who had previously worked at Deutsche Bank, and replaced him with another one who worked at Goldman Sachs. Truly a Government of the people!​

The Government want us to believe that austerity is over, but that is not true. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, it would take at least £54 billion of current spending this year, excluding health and social care, to get us back to 2010 levels. We have heard nothing even approaching that scale from the Chancellor today, but without it, the IFS says that austerity is “baked in” to our economy. Try telling local councils, which face a further £8 billion black hole over this Parliament, that austerity is over.

To end austerity truly and fund urgent action on the climate emergency and our public services, we need a fair taxation system, and that means making the richest pay their share. The Government’s changes to the national insurance threshold will mostly benefit higher earners, while those on lower incomes would be far better supported by boosting wages and real social security. The incomes of the poorest fifth of families have fallen by 7% in just two years. As the Resolution Foundation said,

“this has been driven by policy choices.”

How can it be right that 12 years after the bankers crashed the economy, the poorest 20% of the population are still being made to pay for it, while those at the top are rewarded yet again? Today we learn that the Government will not even scrap entrepreneurs’ relief—a huge subsidy that mainly benefits 5,000 people who make an average of £350,000 per year. I can assume only that those who fund the Conservative party have had a quiet word with the Chancellor, and told him to back off.

Creating a fair taxation system also means tackling tax avoidance and evasion. How can we have confidence that this Chancellor will clamp down on tax dodgers, when previously he worked for hedge funds that used the Cayman Islands, and he had a close business associate who engaged in a multi-million pound tax avoidance scheme? How can we have confidence when the Government’s big idea is apparently free ports—tax-free zones that allow the super-rich to dodge taxes and take away workers’ protections?

The last Chancellor resigned, saying that no self-respecting Minister could accept being controlled by advisers in No.10. The new Chancellor accepted that control, and has now presented a Budget just 27 days after taking the job. Through him, and the chuntering Prime Minister, may I pass on our congratulations to Dominic Cummings on writing a Budget so quickly?

But what a let-down it has been. When I first responded to a Budget, austerity was very much in vogue, and our demands for investment and spending were dismissed. The terrain of public debate has shifted dramatically in just a few years, but there is a gaping chasm between the rhetoric that the Conservative party has adopted, and the reality of what it delivers. Whatever it says, the Conservative party will never stand up for working class communities, and it will always, always, put the interests of its wealthy friends first.

The reality of today’s announcements will become clear. The hard sell and spin will fade away, and this Budget will be seen as a lost opportunity, a failure of ambition, and a bitter disappointment for all those people who have been promised so much but, from what we have heard today, will see very little.

Several hon. Members rose—

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 7 January 2020.

I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement. Could he tell us where the Prime Minister is, and what he is doing that is so much more important than addressing Parliament on the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, an extremely dangerous and aggressive act that risks starting yet another deadly war in the middle east?​

On Friday, I sent the Prime Minister a letter posing a series of questions. He has not answered any of them. Instead, today he is hiding behind his Defence Secretary. Is it not the truth that he is scared to stand up to President Trump because he has hitched his wagon to the prospect of a toxic Trump trade deal? At this highly dangerous moment, we find the Government giving cover and even expressing sympathy for what is widely regarded as an illegal act, because they are so determined to keep in with President Trump. This assassination puts British troops and civilians, as well as the people of the region, in danger.

As the Secretary of State will confirm, I have long spoken out against the Iranian Government’s human rights record, including when he and I visited Iran together in 2014. This is not a question of Soleimani’s actions or record in the region. Whatever the record of any state official, the principle and the law is that we do not go around assassinating foreign leaders. Without the clear demonstration of an immediate threat, it is illegal. So do the Government regard the assassination as legal under international law? If so, how? Do the lawyers in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence regard it as legal?

If the Secretary of State really believes that this was an act of self-defence, what evidence has he or the Prime Minister seen of an imminent attack on the US? The Secretary of State says that the United States is confident that attacks were imminent, but US officials have been quoted in the press as saying that the evidence was “razor thin”. How would the Secretary of State describe it?

In the past few days, the US President has threatened to target Iranian cultural sites, and to attack Iran in a manner that is—I quote him directly—“disproportionate”. Both actions would be war crimes, yet the Government still seem unable to condemn such threats. On Sunday, the Foreign Secretary said that the onus was entirely on Iran to de-escalate. I wonder whether, if Iran had assassinated an American general, the British Government would be telling Washington that the onus was entirely on the US to de-escalate.

We talk about this as a conflict between the US and Iran, but the worst consequences are likely to be felt by Iraq, a country on the brink of further terrible violence and instability. President Trump has threatened Iraq with

“sanctions like they’ve never seen before”

after its elected—yes, elected—Parliament voted to ask US and other foreign forces to leave their country. He has said he will not withdraw entirely unless the US is compensated for the “extraordinarily expensive air base” that was actually built by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. The Prime Minister—when he finally resurfaced from his trip—said that he was committed to the sovereignty of Iraq, so will the Secretary of State confirm that this Government will respect Iraqi sovereignty if the Iraqi Government ask all foreign forces, including British forces, to leave?

We know that the British Government were not consulted by the Trump Administration in advance, despite there being obvious British interests at stake. Let me also ask what the Government are doing to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other dual nationals ​who are currently in detention in Iran. This must be an utterly terrifying time both for them individually and for their families.

It is not in anyone’s interests for this to escalate to an all-out war. All sides should exercise maximum restraint and allow for meaningful dialogue, led by the UN Secretary-General’s office. To prevent war, we need a strong plan for diplomacy, so are the Government in contact with the UN Secretary-General? And let us not forget that there was a diplomatic plan: the Iran nuclear deal. It was working, until President Trump came along and tried to rip it up.

Time and time again over the last two decades, the political and military establishments have made the wrong call on military interventions in the middle east. Many of us opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the failed invasion of Afghanistan, and I opposed the bombing of Libya in 2011. Have we learnt nothing from those events? This House must rule out plunging our country into yet another devastating war at the behest of another state.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, on 31 December 2019.

2019 has been quite the year for our country and for our Labour movement. And now we are not just entering a new year, but a new decade. And the period ahead could not be more important. It will be crucial if we are to stop irreversible damage being caused by the climate crisis and the particular effects it has on people in the global south. If we are to stop the pain plaguing our country, food banks, poverty and people struggling to get by. If we are to protect our precious NHS.

It won’t be easy. But we have built a movement. We are the resistance to Boris Johnson. We will be campaigning every day. We will be on the frontline, both in Parliament and on the streets. Protecting our public services. Protecting healthcare free at the point of use. Protecting our communities, in all their brilliant diversity. And standing up for internationalism, global solidarity and co-operation, and working with movements and parties seeking social justice and change all over the world.

And make no mistake, our movement is very strong. We are half a million people and growing, we are in every region and nation of our country. We’re not backed by the press barons, by the billionaires or by the millionaires who work for the billionaires. We are backed by you. We are by the many, for the many. 2020 and the years ahead will be tough and no-one is saying otherwise. But, we’re up for the fight, to protect what we hold dear and to build to win and to transform. The fight continues. There is no other choice. So if you’re with us already, I can’t wait to meet the challenges ahead together, but if you’re not, join us, join Labour today.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 19 December 2019.

It is the tradition at the beginning of each Session of Parliament to commemorate former Members of the House who have died. It has only been two months since the last state opening, but in that time we have sadly lost our great friend Frank Dobson, the former MP for Holborn and St Pancras. Frank was a very, very committed Health Secretary from ’97 to ’99, who began the rebuilding of our national health service after it had been so disgracefully run down by the Conservative Government at that time. He was always an incredibly friendly face, and always full of anecdotes and jokes that I cannot repeat here. He will be greatly missed by all of us on these Benches and, I suspect, by many others who knew him as a thoroughly decent Member of Parliament who was very committed to his constituents and to the cause of good housing across the country. We have also lost David Lambie at the magnificent age of 94. David was a Labour MP from 1970 to 1992, and I knew him very well as a committed peace campaigner.

On Tuesday, the Prime Minister and I remembered Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt, the wonderful young friends who died in the appalling terror attack at Fishmongers’ Hall. It is right that we pay tribute to them again today for the way in which they lost their lives and the message they left behind.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all new Members, on both sides of the House. Being a Member of Parliament is a massive achievement and a massive honour. I would imagine that, in witnessing our opening proceedings today, many must be thinking, “What on earth have I taken on? The pantomime season has come very early this year.” [Interruption.] Yeah, look behind you. [Interruption.] If I may continue, I would also like to pay tribute to the former Members who lost their seats in the general election. To serve in Parliament and then fight the election and not be returned is an amazingly traumatic experience, when they have put such a huge amount of work into their campaign as well as into the work they have done here. We should all think for a moment about the human side of what it is like to go through that experience, and the trauma they must all feel. I pay tribute to them and thank them all. I will not mention all the names, but I would just like to commemorate and thank Dennis Skinner for his amazing work and the presence he has been in this Parliament throughout all the years that he was an MP.

I would like to congratulate the proposer of the Loyal Address, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who showed passion and integrity. That is what she became known for since her very principled resignation from the Government over their failure to restrict fixed odds betting terminals, and I thank her for that. But I am afraid that that is where we part ways, for if there is anything that can drive a wedge between two people even more than a Brexit vote in this place, it is the north London rivalry between Spurs and Arsenal. These things may seem trivial, but, as the great Bill Shankly once said:

“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. It is…much more important than that.”

To put it another way, to help the hon. Member, Arsenal won 13 league titles and Tottenham two—but we take our victories where we can find them. I compliment the hon. Member particularly on the last part of her speech dealing with the natural world and the environment: it was incredibly important and very well put.

I also congratulate today’s seconder of the Loyal Address, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), on his speech and the spirit with which he gave it. I got a sense of the spirit of Walsall when I was in Walsall College recently—a wonderful place with wonderful students. Conservative Members are renowned for their membership of various clubs: the Bullingdon club, the Reform club and so on. There are many of those clubs. But I was absolutely overjoyed when researching the hon. Member to find that he is a member of one of the greatest and most prestigious clubs of them all—he is a trustee of the Walsall Wood allotment charity, which is a fantastic honour, I am sure everyone will agree. He will understand more than most the ecstatic pleasure that we allotment holders, including him, get from our allotments and the produce we get from them. I hope this will provide an opportunity for a genuine, bipartisan working relationship over the onions and the carrots.

It was just two months ago that the Prime Minister made the Queen come here in the rain as part of a pre-election stunt. Since then, he has made many promises to many different parts of the country. He has promised to address problems that are the result of his own party’s actions in government and its political choice to impose austerity cuts on this country. There can no longer be any doubt that austerity has caused unnecessary suffering to millions of people all across this country. The communities to whom the Prime Minister made his promise will now judge him on whether he keeps them.

In this Queen’s Speech, the Government have tried to mimic some of the priorities and, interestingly, much of the language of Labour policies, but without the substance. On austerity, on investment, on regional inequality, on the national health service, we can see how we forced the terrain to shift. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery—even if it is a very pale imitation. But I fear that those who were swayed by the Prime Minister’s promises will be sorely disappointed, as this Queen’s Speech shows that what the Government are actually proposing is woefully inadequate for the scale of the problems that this country faces.

Our NHS, the country’s most precious institution, is on its knees due to this Tory Government. The Government now talk about enshrining the funding settlement in law. Enough of the gimmicks—just fund it properly. I do not remember the last Labour Government having to pass a law to force themselves to invest in the NHS, yet they increased NHS funding by a rate of 6% per year. This Government are proposing little more than half that—less, in fact, than the historical average.

The gap between the Government’s rhetoric on the NHS and the reality is enormous. Last week, for the first time ever, every single major accident and emergency unit in England failed to hit its four-hour waiting time target. Every major unit failed to meet the target—every single one—under this Government. The number of people in England waiting for operations is the highest since records began—4.4 million—and the number of unfilled staff vacancies has ballooned. The Prime Minister’s promise of 50,000 extra nurses was quickly revealed as a sham—19,000 of them already work for the NHS—and his promise of 40 new hospitals turned out to be a reconfiguration of just six. The public will remember this. They will not look kindly on promises that are not kept.

This Government say that they will take action on hospital car parking fees, following our lead, but whereas we propose to abolish those fees, apparently only some people will be entitled to free parking under their plans. It was the disastrous Health and Social Care Act 2012, brought in by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats when they were in coalition, that flung open the door to privatisation, which is the cause of so many problems in our NHS, yet the Queen’s Speech says nothing whatsoever about the Health and Social Care Act and the privatisation that it has brought.

Not so long ago, the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and announced that he had a plan to solve the social care crisis, so where is it? It was not in his party’s manifesto, and all we have today are empty words about bringing forward proposals. Perhaps we should not be surprised—all we had in the last Queen’s Speech were empty words about bringing forward proposals. And in the Queen’s Speech before that, what did we get from the Conservatives? Empty words about bringing forward proposals. At least they have continuity on this. Cuts to adult social care are expected to reach almost £8 billion by the end of 2019-20, but the Government are only putting £1 billion back in. It is like taking £8 from someone and expecting them to be grateful when you give them back £1.

When it comes to young people, the Government seem to have given up altogether. This is yet another Queen’s Speech that is miserably weak on education, with nothing for early years, nothing for colleges and nothing for universities. The Government clearly have not heard the anxious cry of parents and teachers about school funding, overcrowding and unqualified teachers. The funding promised for schools will still leave them hundreds of millions of pounds worse off in real terms than they were in 2010.

When it comes to Brexit, the election result demonstrated a strong determination from many people across our country to end the mess and paralysis of the last three years. We understand that people are desperate to move on. That does not mean that we will just accept the Prime Minister’s reckless approach to how it is done. He has now deliberately resurrected the threat of no deal at the end of next year, which would decimate industry and destroy people’s jobs. That threat is now written into the withdrawal agreement Bill.

The Prime Minister has shown time and again that his priority is a toxic deal with Donald Trump that will sell out our NHS and risk the safety of our food, our environmental protections and workplace rights. We do not want our NHS given over to US corporations, and we do not want expensive medicines with extended patents. We do not want food like chlorinated chicken on our dinner tables either. We know that the Prime Minister’s deal will not put Brexit to bed. It will just be the beginning of years of more drawn-out negotiations.

It has been reported that the Government want to scrap the Department for International Development—a proud achievement of Labour in government. Will the Prime Minister confirm that this Government will not close DFID, and will he ensure that 0.7% of the UK’s spending continues to be used to help end global poverty and destitution? I note the commitment to develop a sanctions regime to directly address human rights abuses. That sounds like good news for Saudi Arabia. Should the Saudi regime be worried, or will the Government continue to ignore its human rights abuses and war crimes in Yemen, which have resulted in famine and humanitarian disaster? According to the UNHCR, the refugee commission, there are almost 71 million forcibly displaced people around the world. Where is the Government’s commitment to do anything for those desperate people fleeing war, violence and famine?

Around the world, Britain should stand up for human rights and democratic rights, including the right of workers facing exploitation and abuse, so it is very worrying that here at home the Conservative Government are planning an assault on workers’ rights to withdraw their labour, beginning with the transport workers. No worker goes on strike lightly, but we will oppose any attempt to curtail that right. We have already seen some of the most draconian anti-worker laws, and now the Government seek to take us even further back in time—again, in breach of the conventions of the International Labour Organisation. In a country where pay is too law, work too insecure and bad employers too common, attacking the rights of the working people to stand up for themselves is a completely wrong-headed approach.

On the subject of transport, with planned transport investment in the north less than half that in London, what assurances can the Prime Minister give that the commitments on investment in the Queen’s Speech are not just another failed gimmick, as the northern powerhouse was? We should take it as a form of flattery that, on investment, the words of the Queen’s Speech echo what Labour has long argued—that investment is desperately needed in every part of our country. However, the scale of investment planned by the Government falls woefully short of what is required.

Speaking of falling woefully short, this Queen’s Speech contains nothing of substance to deal with the colossal challenge of climate and environmental emergency. Net zero carbon emissions by 2050, which is the Government’s target, is too late and, in any case, at the current rate of progress we will not reach net zero until 2099. Any target date will be fanciful if action does not start now. What are the Prime Minister’s plans on climate for this year and for each year after that? It is clear that COP 25 this year was a failure. Next year, Britain has the honour of hosting COP 26 and, frankly, I think it will be embarrassing for all of us to host such a vital conference if we are not doing enough to reduce our own carbon emissions and show we have made some real progress towards bringing forward the target date. The Government need to get serious and put young people’s futures before those of the big polluters, many of whom fund the Conservative party.

This Christmas, thousands of people will be sleeping rough on the streets, thanks to this Government and their housing policy. Rough sleeping has doubled on the watch of the Conservative party in government. Everyone who sees people huddled in doorways in the cold—in the fifth richest country on earth—knows it is morally wrong. Shelter says that 280,000 people will be homeless on Christmas day in England alone, either rough sleeping or living in temporary housing or hostels, so can the Prime Minister explain why there is no mention of homelessness in the Queen’s Speech and why there is so little to address the housing crisis? Could it be that he does not want to upset the billionaire landlords who back his party? The Prime Minister has used Labour’s idea of offering discounted homes to first-time buyers. It is okay—it is more flattery—but let us see the substance of it. What reassurance can he provide that this will not go the same way as the failed starter homes programme? Remember when we were promised 200,000 starter homes in 2015? But, as yet, we have seen absolutely zero.

The fire at Grenfell Tower exposed a housing system that is fundamentally broken. Yet two years later—two years later—319 of the 446 buildings covered in aluminium composite cladding have not had it removed. Imagine living in one of those buildings and feeling at risk. That is probably not something many Members of this House go through, but it is an experience that thousands of people go through every day, living with the fear of a burning inferno that is their home. Will the Prime Minister now set a hard deadline for all landlords to replace dangerous cladding? Will he fund the installation of sprinklers in high-rise social housing blocks, and reverse budget cuts to the fire service? We will look at the findings of the Government’s royal commission on the criminal justice process, but any changes to sentencing must be done in consultation with anti-terror experts, and not as a knee-jerk reaction to make political capital.

This Queen’s Speech is notable for what is not in it. It does nothing for students who are being lumbered with huge debts, it does nothing for older people unable to pay their heating bills this winter, and it does nothing to address their levels of poverty in our country. This year, the United Nations—yes, the United Nations itself—had to take our Government to task over the shocking fact that 14 million people are living in poverty in this, the fifth richest country in the world. Should that not be a source of shame for this Government? Should not their Queen’s Speech contain something to address that? Why is there not even a mention of universal credit, the cruel policy that has ruined so many lives?

Why is there no commitment to immediately raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour so that people no longer have to work their fingers to the bone yet still remain in poverty? These things are not in this Queen’s Speech because this Government, and that Conservative party, do not stand for the people on the receiving end of their policies. Despite all their promises, that is exactly what this Queen’s Speech shows.

The central aim of my party, the Labour Party, is to stand up for working people and for every part of this country—for the many, not the few—and to deliver social justice, prosperity and a society that works for all. As this Government plough ahead with their programme of gimmicks and false promises, we will be holding them to account every step of the way. We will be campaigning inside and outside Parliament, and across the country, for the real change that sadly this Government will not deliver, but that our country so desperately needs.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 17 December 2019.

May I join the Prime Minister in remembering the horror of what happened at London Bridge just three weeks ago? It is the third time in the last two general election campaigns that we have witnessed appalling and depraved terrorist attacks on our communities. Our hearts must go out to the families of Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt. When the Prime Minister and I attended a memorial event at the Guildhall, I had the honour of meeting many of the students who had been at college with Jack, and they were just devastated. In his memory, they wanted his work and his message to carry on. We should also remember the very good words of his father David about how proud he was of his son on that day. That attack was an attempt to damage our democracy, to halt the process. It did not succeed and it never should succeed, because we have to make sure that our democracy is fully intact.

I would like to offer my congratulations to the Prime Minister on winning the election and being returned to office, and I want to pay tribute to those Members, from my party particularly, who sadly lost their seats in the election and therefore will not be here. In particular, although many will be remembered, obviously Dennis Skinner is somebody who comes very much to mind on this occasion.

In the campaign, the Prime Minister made many promises and therefore has tremendous responsibilities to live up to. He will be judged on whether he keeps those promises by the communities that he has made them to. Our job in the Labour party will be to hold the Government to account and stand up for the communities ​we represent and for the more than 10 million people who voted for our party in the general election. Because that is what parliamentary democracy is about—holding the Government to account and representing the people who sent us here on their behalf.

I also offer my congratulations to the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) on taking up his position as Father of the House. I first encountered him at the Woolwich West by-election in 1975. I was a trade union organiser at the time, and I made a very strong recommendation to all the members of my union that they should vote for the Labour candidate, not him. I do not want to embarrass the hon. Gentleman, but some of them went to see him and said, “He seems such a very nice man. We might well vote for him.” I do not want to tarnish his reputation further, but whenever I was trying in the past to get an all-party consensus together on an early-day motion—sometimes a difficult task—he would often give it a Conservative character by supporting such moves. I thank him for that and wish him well as Father of the House.

May I take this opportunity to welcome all newly elected Members to the House? It is a very daunting day for them—their first day here after being elected to this place on behalf of their constituents, with all the responsibility that goes with that. There is no greater honour than to be elected to this House to represent our constituents, and one of the greatest strengths of our political system is that every one of us represents a community and every one of us has a constituency. We are here to represent the homeless and the desperate as well as those who are better off and lead more comfortable existences. We are here to represent all of them, and that surely ought to be the watchword of our House and our democracy.

This is the first time that a majority of Labour MPs are women, and I congratulate them all on being elected. Twenty of the 26 newly elected Labour MPs are women, which compares rather favourably to the Conservative party’s performance in that regard. This is also the most diverse Parliament in history, and I am proud that 41 of the 65 black and minority ethnic MPs are on the Labour Benches. I know they will do a fantastic job representing their constituencies and wider community interests.

Finally, Mr Speaker-Elect, I offer my warmest congratulations to you as you resume your place in the Speaker’s Chair. It is great to see you back. Your role goes beyond the pomp and ceremony, as you well understand. I am keen to work with you, as many others are, on all the issues facing this House. This House cannot function without Members’ staff and House staff—vsecurity, administration, caterers, cleaners and officials—who do so much good work here; they all make a contribution to ensure that our democracy functions properly. But there is also enormous pressure on MPs, staff and many others, and I know that you take very seriously the mental health and wellbeing of us all. I hope that we in this House ensure that that is taken seriously.

Mr Speaker-Elect, there are portraits of all your predecessors in Speaker’s House. One of the most famous, of course, is Speaker Lenthall, who resisted the autocracy of Charles I in support of the freedoms of Parliament. Our democracy needs you as a Speaker who will stand firm against abuses of power by the Executive or anybody else. In doing so, you are defending the rights not just of this House, but of millions of people who put their faith ​in a democratic system to elect a Parliament, and therefore a Government, who are answerable to them. Our rights and freedoms are always precious, but also often precarious. Democracy is not a given. It is something that we have to extend and defend. I am sure that you, in your role as Speaker-Elect—and hopefully Speaker very soon—will do exactly that. I congratulate you on your election and look forward to working with you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, on 15 November 2019.

Thank you for that welcome.

At the start of this election I promised to put forward the most radical and exciting plan for real change the British public has ever seen.

We haven’t even launched our manifesto yet, but our campaign is already electric. On the ground it’s bigger and more exciting than 2017.

And I’ll let you into a little secret – when our manifesto arrives next week, it’s going to knock your socks off.

I don’t want anyone to be able to say, a few years into a Labour government, that nothing ever changes or that politicians are all the same.

I want everyone to feel the positive difference to their own life when you have the government and the people working together, collectively, to take on the system and make life better for the many, not the few.

And do you know what? We’re so confident that’s what our manifesto will do that today we want to give you a sneak peek.

A taster of the kind of fresh, transformational policies that will change your life.

So here it is: a Labour government will make broadband free for everybody.

And not just any broadband, but the very fastest. Full-fibre broadband to every home, in every part of our country, for free – as a universal public service.

And once it’s up and running, instead of you forking out for your monthly bill, we’ll tax the giant corporations fairly – the Facebooks and the Googles – to cover the running costs.

That is a policy for the many.

Making broadband free and available to all will open up opportunities for everybody.

It will put us at the cutting edge of social and economic change.

Because what we’re about is building a country that’s fit for the future.

The internet has become such a central part of our lives. It opens up opportunities for work, creativity, entertainment and friendship.

What was once a luxury is now an essential utility.

That’s why full-fibre broadband must be a public service, bringing communities together with equal access in an inclusive and connected society.

Fast and free broadband for all will fire up our economy, deliver a massive boost to productivity and bring half a million people back into the workforce.

It will help our environment and tackle the climate emergency by reducing the need to commute.

And it will make our country fairer, more equal and more democratic.

The full-fibre broadband Labour will deliver is the gold standard. It is the fastest, most secure and most reliable form of broadband, using fibre optic cables to take data directly into people’s homes and businesses.

And it will help to boost 5G to people’s phones too.

Full-fibre will deliver lightning-fast download times.

It will put an end to patchy and slow coverage once and for all.

And it will save the average household £30 a month on bills.

Britain’s broadband network is lagging well behind other countries.

Just 8 to 10 per cent of the UK has access to full-fibre broadband, compared to 98 per cent in South Korea.

Something clearly isn’t working.

This is core infrastructure for the 21st Century. I think it’s too important to be left to the corporations.

The most efficient and rapid way to deliver a broadband network fit for our times, and make it a genuine public service for all, is for the public to take control.

So under our plans, we will create a new public enterprise – and we’ll call it British Broadband.

British Broadband will oversee a publicly-owned full-fibre network and deliver free broadband to every home, with a phased roll-out over ten years.

To do that we will bring the relevant parts of BT, including Openreach, into public ownership.

By creating British Broadband as a public service, we will lead the world in using public investment to transform our country, reduce people’s monthly bills, boost our economy and improve people’s quality of life.

And it will have national security benefits too.

To me, that’s common sense. The corporations have been unable or unwilling to roll out full-fibre fast enough, and they have little incentive to invest in rural and remote parts of Britain.

But under our plan, the priority will be those with least connectivity, mainly in rural and remote areas but also in some inner-city areas, unlocking new opportunities across huge swathes of our country.

And we will then move on to towns, giving a boost to local economies and making it easier for people to run successful businesses outside the big cities.

And finally, we will complete the roll-out in the well-connected urban centres.

Ask people about their experience with private broadband companies and many will tell you about internet dropouts and hours spent on hold listening to Vivaldi, waiting to speak to an overworked and underpaid customer service worker who probably can’t fix the problem anyway.

Full-fibre will provide the most reliable service, and British Broadband will be properly staffed, with guaranteed jobs for everyone currently working in broadband.

Under public ownership, key universal services can be run for the British people instead of for profit.

In July, when he was running for Conservative leader, Boris Johnson also promised to make full-fibre broadband available across the country – except he expected you to pay for it.

But it will surprise nobody that this was just another case of Johnson’s signature move: the broken promise.

So what is he now offering instead? A low-budget option using old copper cables that are already out of date.

Johnson’s plans are yet another billionaire wealth grab, bunging public money to big corporations including Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin instead of putting the technology in the hands of the British people.

We need real change.

But I know the question that will be on everyone’s lips: ‘how are you going to pay for it?’

Well let me tell you.

The initial upgrade to our infrastructure will be funded through our Green Transformation Fund.

And when it comes to the running costs, we’re not going to put that onto the British public, who have already forked out far too much for rip-off broadband.

Instead, a Labour government will close down tax tricks used by giants like Google and Facebook, who make millions in Britain while paying next to nothing to the public purse.

I pay my tax.

Everybody in this room pays their tax.

Small businesses pay their tax.

So why can’t the giant multinationals?

They think they can get away with not paying their share. Well I’ve got news for them: not anymore.

Labour believes that the British people deserve the very best.

As a country we should be proud of our history of building treasured public institutions and services.

In the 19th Century it was the public waterworks.

In the 20th Century it was our fantastic National Health Service, freeing people from the fear of illness.

British Broadband will be our treasured public institution for the 21st century, delivering fast and free broadband to every home.

Only the government has the planning ability, economies of scale and ambition to take this on.

This is a mission for everyone to get behind.

Together we will build a new, universal public service delivering the fastest broadband free to everyone.

This will be at the heart of Labour’s plans to transform the future of our economy and society.

Labour will put wealth and power in the hands of the many, while Boris Johnson’s Conservatives will only look after the privileged few.

It’s time to make the very fastest full-fibre broadband free to all, in every home, in every corner of our country.

It’s time for real change.

Thank you.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, on 31 October 2019.

Thank you for that welcome.

Today we are launching the most ambitious and radical campaign our country has ever seen to bring real change to our country.

If you want to live in a society that works for everybody and not just the billionaires, if you want to save our hospitals, schools and public services from Tory cuts and privatisation, if you want to stop the big polluters destroying our environment then this election is your chance to vote for it.

The choice could not be clearer.

We put our faith in the British people’s spirit and commitment to community. It’s your country. That’s why we stand with you.

Labour will put wealth and power in the hands of the many Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, who think they’re born to rule, will only look after the privileged few.

They’ve slashed taxes for the richest and slashed vital services and support for everyone else. But real change is coming.

This election is a once in a generation chance to transform our country take on the vested interests holding people back and ensure that no community is left behind.

Some people believe that real change isn’t possible. They say that we’re asking too much. Really?

A health service people can be proud of, where tens of thousands of cancer patients aren’t waiting months for treatment and prescriptions are free. Is that asking too much?

A social care system that doesn’t leave our older people isolated and afraid, but gives them dignity with free personal care. Is that asking too much?

How about a decent pay rise? A real living wage of at least £10 an hour, right away including for young workers from the age of 16.Asking too much?

Secure homes that families can afford rents that don’t break the bank and an end to rough sleeping. Is that too much to ask?

Thirty hours’ free childcare for all two to four year olds. A good education, from cradle to grave, as a right not a privilege and no tuition fees. Is that too much?

Ending the Conservatives’ great rip-off by putting rail, mail and water into public ownership so they work for everyone, not just Tory donors and shareholders in tax havens. Is that asking too much?

What about real action on the climate crisis by creating hundreds of thousands of new, green energy jobs in communities where they’re most desperately needed?

No, that’s not asking too much. Because we have to radically change course now to avoid living on a hostile and dying planet.

This election is our last chance to tackle the climate emergency with a Green Industrial Revolution at the heart of Labour’s plan to transform Britain.

Friends, today is the 31st of October, the day Boris Johnson promised we would leave the EU. He said he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than delay beyond today. But he has failed. And that failure is his alone.

You can’t trust Boris Johnson.

After three long years of Brexit division and failure from the Tories, we have to get this issue sorted.

We need to take it out of the hands of the politicians and trust the people to have the final say.

Labour will get Brexit sorted within six months. We’ll let the people decide whether to leave with a sensible deal or remain. That really isn’t complicated.

We will carry out whatever the people decide so that we can get on with delivering the real change Britain needs after years of Conservative cuts to vital services and tax handouts to the richest.

Labour is determined to bring a divided country together, while the Tories and the Lib Dems only seek to divide us further.

The Lib Dems want to cancel a democratic vote with a parliamentary stitch-up and Boris Johnson’s planned trade deal with Trump will mean yet more NHS money taken away from patients and handed to shareholders.

Despite his denials, the NHS is up for grabs by US corporations in a one-sided Trump trade sell-out.

Channel 4 Dispatches revealed this week that the cost of drugs and medicines has repeatedly been discussed between US and UK trade officials. Remember Johnson’s famous promise of £350 million a week for the NHS? Well his toxic Brexit trade deal with Trump could hand over £500 million a week of NHS money to big drugs corporations.

We will stop them. Labour won’t let Donald Trump get his hands on our National Health Service. It’s not for sale, to him or anyone.

Johnson’s sell-out deal would lead to years of continuing negotiations and uncertainty. Labour will get Brexit sorted by giving the people the final say in six months.

Britain needs to get beyond Brexit and deal with the damage done to our communities by a decade of Tory cuts and economic failure.

I travel all around our country and listen to people. This is what I learn from them: they don’t see politics like the media and political class do.

After a decade when real wages have fallen, for too many people, what they see is the community they love being run down through years of deliberate neglect. The evidence of a decade of economic vandalism is all around them.

It’s there in the boarded up shops. In the closed library and swimming pool. In youth centres that have closed their doors. The high street like a ghost town. The elderly couple who are scared to walk down their road because violent crime has doubled. The army veteran sleeping under blankets in a doorway. People struggling to make ends meet. The mother and her children eating from a food bank because they’ve been forced onto Universal Credit.

That’s the evidence of Conservative cuts. Well I say, no more.

Labour will end damaging Tory austerity and scrap Universal Credit. We’ll tear down the barriers to success that the Conservatives have put in people’s way.

We will invest in every nation and region, rebuild our public services and give our NHS, schools and police the money they need by taxing those at the top to properly fund services for everyone.

We will give people back their pride in their communities and give everybody the quality of life they deserve.

And by everybody we mean everybody.

The Prime Minister wants you to believe that we’re having this election because Brexit is being blocked by an establishment elite.

People aren’t fooled so easily. They know the Conservatives are the establishment elite.

And you know what really scares the elite? All of us, the British people.

What the elite are actually afraid of is paying their taxes.

So in this election, they’ll fight harder and dirtier than ever before. They’ll throw everything at us because they know we’re not afraid to take them on.

So we’re going after the tax dodgers. We’re going after the dodgy landlords. We’re going after the bad bosses. We’re going after the big polluters. Because we know whose side we’re on.

And the big question of this election is: whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the tax dodgers, who are taking us all for a ride? People who think it’s OK to rip people off and hide their money in tax havens so they can have a new super yacht.

Or are you on the side of the children with special educational needs who aren’t getting the support they deserve because of Tory and Lib Dem government cuts?

Whose side are you on? The dodgy landlords like the Duke of Westminster, Britain’s youngest billionaire, who tried to evict whole blocks of families to make way for luxury apartments? Or the millions of tenants in Britain who struggle to pay their rent each month?

Whose side are you on? The bad bosses like Mike Ashley, the billionaire who won’t pay his staff properly and is running Newcastle United into the ground? Or his exploited workforce like the woman who was reportedly forced to give birth in a warehouse toilet because she was terrified of missing her shift?

Whose side are you on? The big polluters like Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man, who makes his money by polluting the environment? Or the children growing up in our cities with reduced lung capacity because of choking pollution?

Whose side are you on? The greedy bankers like Crispin Odey, who makes millions betting against our country and has donated huge sums to Johnson and the Conservative Party? Or are you on the side of working people who create the wealth that’s then squirreled away in tax havens?

And whose side are you on? The billionaire media barons like Rupert Murdoch, whose empire pumps out propaganda to support a rigged system. Or the overwhelming majority who want to live in a decent, fair, diverse and prosperous society?

You know whose side Labour’s on – a Labour government will be on your side.

Together, we can pull down a corrupt system and build a fairer country that cares for all.

And we have something that the Rupert Murdochs, the Mike Ashleys, and the Boris Johnsons don’t have.

We have people. Hundreds of thousands of people in every part of our country who will make this the biggest people-powered campaign in history.

We’re young, we’re old, we’re black, we’re white, we’re straight, we’re gay, we’re women, we’re men, we’re people of all faiths and none, from the North and from the South.

And when Labour wins, the nurse wins, the pensioner wins, the student wins, the office worker wins, the engineer wins. We all win.

Boris Johnson thought he was being smart holding this election in a dark and cold December. He thinks you won’t go out to vote. He thinks you won’t go out to campaign.

Well I say this: Labour will be out there in every city, town and village with the biggest and most confident campaign that our country has ever seen, bringing a message of hope and change to every community.

Even if the rivers freeze over, we’re going out to bring about real change for the many, not the few.

All we need to keep us warm is the thought of removing Boris Johnson’s Conservatives from government – and the chance to rebuild and transform our country.

This is the most radical and exciting plan for real change ever put before the British electorate.

Friends, the future is ours to make, together.

It’s time for real change.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in Telford on 6 November 2019.

It’s a real pleasure to be here in Telford in my home county of Shropshire where I first started campaigning for a better society and I’ve never stopped!

And what’s inspiring is that I see that same passion in young people today who are campaigning in this General Election.

Since we began our campaign last week thousands of people have come to events like this, have gone out door knocking, and have been spreading Labour’s message of hope on social media.

The atmosphere is electric.

Because we all know this election is a once-in-a-generation chance to transform our country and tear down the barriers that are holding people back.

A chance to rebuild our NHS, schools and police by taxing those at the top to properly fund services for everyone.

And a chance to tackle the climate emergency, with a Green Industrial Revolution at the very heart of our transformation of Britain.

In this election, Labour is putting forward the most radical and far-reaching plan for real change in our lifetimes.

But I know we have to work to win people’s trust.

Because for all the excitement here, many people in our country have grown weary of politics.

They’ve lost faith that politics can change anything that actually affects their lives. I understand that.

Let’s be honest, Westminster hasn’t covered itself in glory recently.

The childish insults, the rowdy MPs, the weird rules – it’s all a long way from the reality of people’s daily lives.

If you’re working long hours for wages that barely cover your bills, food and rent and nothing ever changes, you’re right to feel frustrated with the political system.

It isn’t working for you.

Politics should be about your life, your community, your job – the issues you face every day of the week.

For me, real politics isn’t about shouting matches in parliament.

I’m not interested. I don’t do personal attacks.

For me, real politics – the politics I stand for – is about sharing power and wealth with people who don’t have a lot of money and don’t have friends in high places – so they can take control of their own lives.

My job as leader, and my party’s task, is to champion those people, and bring about real change.

Like here in Telford where a fantastic local community campaign, the local Labour Party and Katrina are fighting the closure of your women and children’s centre and the downgrading of the A&E department.

To me, that’s real politics – bringing people together to stand up for their community.

That’s why I became an MP.

I’ve never thought MPs are special individuals with unique wisdom. It’s not supposed to be a glamorous job.

It’s a platform for your community, not for yourself. That’s how I see it.

When I was elected Leader of the Labour Party, I was proud to have the chance to extend that principle into everything we do.

To put Labour at the heart of communities standing alongside the people we seek to represent.

And I was proud to see our party grow into not just the biggest in Britain, but the biggest in Western Europe, with half a million members determined to put wealth and power in the hands of the many and build a fairer country that cares for all.

You know, my view of leadership is different from the one people are used to.

Yes I believe leaders should have clear principles that people can trust, and the strength and commitment not to be driven off course.

You have to stand for something.

But leaders must also trust others to play their part.

Think of it like this: a good leader doesn’t just barge through a door and let it swing back in the faces of those following behind.

A good leader holds open the door for others to walk through.

Because everyone has a contribution to make.

So when I talk about real change, that isn’t something that will be done to you.

It’s something that can only be done with you.

So if you, the British people, elect a Labour government on 12 December, I will be proud to be your prime minister.

Because I will be a very different kind of prime minister.

Not the kind of prime minister who believes he was born to rule.

Not the kind who thinks politics is a game.

But the kind of prime minister who only seeks power in order to share power.

Because it isn’t about me, it’s about all of us.

And together, we can go beyond defending the gains made by previous generations.

It’s time we started building a country fit for the next generation.

Where young people don’t fear the future, but look forward with confidence and hope.

That’s within our grasp in this election. That’s what we are absolutely determined to achieve.

Because look at what’s happened to our country in the last few years: more children and pensioners in poverty, more people sleeping on the streets, British citizens who have lived here for decades deported from their own country.

And more and more people being forced into dependence on foodbanks, by the cruel policy of Universal Credit – as a damning report from the Trussell Trust yesterday exposed.

And it’s not just people on the sharpest end of austerity who are feeling its impact.

It’s all those struggling to make ends meet, those who can’t afford to buy their first home, those who never quite have enough left over to save for a holiday, those who have to fork out ever more on rail fares as the service gets worse.

Just imagine how Britain could be if we had a Labour government, committed to building a fairer and more prosperous country that works for the many, not the few.

That future is ours to make.

I want a Labour government to be judged by whether it changes people’s lives for the better after five years.

Judge us on the real change we deliver the concrete improvements to the lives of millions of people.

Here’s how you’ll be able to judge the success of the next Labour government:

Judge us on whether in-work poverty still exists in five years’ time.

Judge us on whether people are still sleeping rough after five years of a Labour government.

Judge us on whether proud women and men are still having to depend on food banks in five years’ time.

Judge us on whether 1.4 million older people are still not getting the help they need after five years of Labour.

Judge us on whether tuition fees have been scrapped for all students so that no one is priced out of education.

Judge us on whether we’ve built hundreds of thousands of genuinely affordable homes, so that decent and secure housing is within the reach of everybody.

Judge us on whether patients are still waiting more than four hours in A&E, and tens of thousands are waiting months for cancer treatment.

Judge us on whether we’ve got Brexit sorted within six months so we can get on with delivering the real change that Britain needs.

Judge us on whether primary school children – including more than 2,500 children here in Telford – are still learning in class sizes of larger than 30 after five years of a Labour government.

Judge us on whether we’ve unleashed a Green Industrial Revolution, created hundreds of thousands of green energy jobs in the communities that need them most and significantly reduced our greenhouse emissions

We don’t have time to waste.

It frustrates me every day in parliament … that we’re not taking action NOW … on all these pressing needs and demands of our time.

Because Labour has the policies to deal with all of them.

And isn’t it telling that Conservative candidates in this election have been told by Tory HQ that they’re not allowed to pledge to tackle the climate emergency?

They’re not allowed to pledge not to privatise our NHS.

They’re not allowed to pledge not to sell out our NHS in a trade deal with Donald Trump.

Well let’s make our own pledge, all of us together.

We pledge that we will never let them put a price tag on our NHS.

We’ll never let them send £500 million a week of NHS money to big US drugs corporations.

We’ll never let Donald Trump get his hands on our National Health Service.

Because our NHS is not for sale.

But you know there is something that Conservative candidates are allowed to pledge.

Tory HQ says they can pledge to defend shooting animals for sport.

Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know about the Conservatives?

Actually there is one more thing you need to know. They shamefully seem to think the victims of the Grenfell fire died because they didn’t have the common sense to save themselves.

I’ll tell you what’s common sense:

Don’t put flammable cladding on people’s homes. That’s common sense.

Don’t close fire stations and don’t cut fire fighters. That’s common sense.

And don’t ignore residents when they tell you their home is a death trap.

And what this all comes back to is what I was talking about earlier: leadership.

Do you want leaders who think they’re above us all?

Who think the rules they make for everyone else don’t apply to them?

Or is good leadership really about listening as well as talking?

I’ve spent much of my life travelling around the country and the world listening to people.

That’s how you learn about the world as people actually experience it – their struggles and their hopes, their dreams and their frustrations.

And that’s why I believe that good leadership is about compassion and understanding not ego.

I want to lead a government that’s on your side.

That puts power and wealth into your hands.

I want to lead a government that works for you.

Friends, this election is a once in a generation chance.

Together we will transform our country so that no one is held back and no community is left behind.

It’s time for real change.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in Harlow on 5 November 2019.

It’s great to be here in Harlow in Essex, one of the original New Towns created by the post-war Labour government to deal with the massive housing shortage of the time.

I think of those New Town pioneers who came here and built this town, built this community, had children and grandchildren who made this community even stronger. And one of those grandchildren is now our fantastic Labour candidate for Harlow, Laura McAlpine.

She’s from Harlow. She’s for Harlow. She understands Harlow. She’s got spirit, she’s got energy and she’s going to bring real change to Harlow as your Labour MP.

And can I thank another Laura: Laura Pidcock, Shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights, for being here today and being such a brilliant representative of our party and our movement.

And of course, thank you to Keir, our Shadow Brexit Secretary. What a wonderful job Keir’s done over the last three years, picking apart the Tories’ shambolic handling of Brexit.

In this election, Boris Johnson is trying to hijack Brexit to sell out our NHS and working people. He is trying to cash in the votes of millions who voted to leave the EU, to buy political power for himself and then sell them out. It’s time to call him out.

I travel all around our country all the time. I meet a lot of people. I listen to a lot of people. People who voted to leave in 2016, and people who voted to remain.

They all have their reasons. But I want to tell you something I find striking. Many people who voted to leave tell me they were voting for change.

That’s what they were promised.

Boris Johnson and the leave campaign promised to rebuild our NHS, and they promised that people would be able to take back control of their lives after years of watching their towns being run down: factories gone, jobs gone, their sense of community gone.

Three years on and Johnson is trying to hijack that hope for change and use it for his own very different ends. He stood in front of a bus in 2016 and promised £350 million a week for the NHS. Now we find out that £500 million a week could be taken out of the NHS and handed to big drugs companies under his plans for a sell-out trade deal with Donald Trump.

Just look at how these corporations operate in the US. They are ruthless. They will suck as much money as they can out of our NHS while cancer patients wait longer for treatment.

We now know that US and UK officials have been discussing drug pricing in secret, and the US government is demanding what its officials call “full market access for US products.”

Senior NHS managers have said that would mean “higher prices for medicines” which will “pass on costs to both patients and the NHS.”

So there we have it. Johnson can deny it all he likes, but people won’t believe him. And the Tories know that – which is why, behind the scenes, the Conservatives have tried to suppress the news attacking the BBC for reporting what we and health professionals are saying.

This is what they don’t want you to hear: a vote for Johnson’s Conservatives is a vote to betray our NHS in a sell out to Trump. Johnson’s Trump deal Brexit puts a price tag on our NHS.

So we’ll say it again and again until the message gets through to the White House: our NHS is NOT FOR SALE.

This threat to our NHS isn’t a mistake. It’s not happening by accident.

The threat is there because Boris Johnson’s Conservatives want to hijack Brexit to sell out the NHS and sell out working people by stripping away their rights.

For many in the Tory party this is what Brexit has always been about: reversing the hard-fought gains won by working class people over generations.

Given the chance, they’ll run down our rights at work, our entitlements to holidays, breaks and leave.

Given the chance, they’ll slash food standards to match the US, where what are called “acceptable levels” of rat hairs in paprika, and maggots in orange juice are allowed and they’ll put chlorinated chicken on our supermarket shelves.

And given the chance they’ll water down the rules on air pollution and our environment that keep us safe.

They want a race to the bottom in standards and protections. They want to move us towards a more deregulated American model of how to run the economy.

In the US workers get just 10 days holiday a year, big business gets free rein to call the shots and tens of millions are denied healthcare.

What Boris Johnson’s Conservatives want is to hijack Brexit to unleash Thatcherism on steroids.

The Thatcher government’s attack on the working people of our country left scars that have never healed and communities that have never recovered.

The Conservatives know they can’t win support for what they’re planning to do in the name of Thatcherism, so they’re trying to do it under the banner of Brexit instead.

So I make no apologies. No apologies at all for Labour’s role in stopping the disaster of No Deal and resisting Johnson’s sell-out deal.

Never let them tell you that Labour has turned its back on the people we represent.

The Tories have failed on Brexit for three years. A Labour government will get Brexit sorted within six months by giving you, the British people, the final say. And despite what some commentators want you to believe, Labour’s plan for Brexit is clear and simple.

It’s time to take the decision out of the hands of politicians and trust the people to decide.

It won’t be a rerun of 2016. This time the choice will be between leaving with a sensible deal or remaining in the European Union.

That’s the policy. It really isn’t complicated.

So an incoming Labour government will first secure a sensible deal. That will take no longer than three months because the deal will be based on terms we’ve already discussed with the EU, including a new customs union, a close single market relationship and guarantees of rights and protections.

It’s a deal that will protect British manufacturing and respect the precious peace in Northern Ireland.

And then we’ll put that deal to a public vote.

So if you want to leave the EU without trashing our economy or selling out our NHS, you’ll be able to vote for it. If you want to remain in the EU, you’ll be able to vote for that.

Either way, only a Labour government will put the final decision in your hands.

Because this has involved the whole country from the start, it can’t now be left to politicians. To finally get this sorted and move forward we need the people to sign on the dotted line. And we will immediately carry out your decision, so Britain can get beyond Brexit.

Boris Johnson staked his reputation on leaving the EU on 31st October “do or die”.

“No ifs, no buts,” he said. So the failure to do so can only be his.

The irony is, for all his boasting, Johnson’s sell-out deal STILL won’t get Brexit done. It will lead to years of continuing negotiations and uncertainty.

Whereas Labour’s plan will sort Brexit quickly, because whatever the final decision, we won’t be ripping up our main trading relationship.

The EU negotiator Michel Barnier has said an EU trade deal on Johnson’s terms would take “three years, maybe more” of further negotiations.

Johnson’s sell-out deal with Trump could take even longer.

A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for yet more drawn-out, bogged down negotiations, more broken promises, and more distraction from the vital issues facing all of us – like making sure people have decent wages, secure homes, and a habitable planet for our children and grandchildren.

A green light for Boris Johnson’s sell-out Trump deal would just be the start of years more Brexit chaos and division.

People sometimes accuse me of trying to talk to both sides at once in the Brexit debate; to people who voted leave and remain.

You know what? They’re right.

Why would I only want to talk to half the country?

I don’t want to live in half a country.

Anybody seeking to become Prime Minister must talk to and listen to the whole country.

Labour stands not just for the 52 per cent or the 48 per cent, but for the 99 per cent.

It’s Labour that’s determined to bring a divided country together.

You can’t do that if your whole political strategy is to turn one side of the Brexit debate against the other.

The Tories are offering an extreme and damaging form of Brexit while the Liberal Democrats want to ignore the result of the 2016 referendum and revoke Article 50.

The Brexit crisis needs to be resolved but it must be done democratically.

Because walk down any street in Britain and you will find people who voted to leave and people who voted to remain.

Whatever our differences may be on this one issue at the end of the day we have so much else in common.

I like to put it like this:

If you’re living in Harlow you may well have voted to leave. You’ve got bills to pay, rising debts, work’s insecure and your wages barely stretch.

You’re up against it.

If you’re living in York it’s more likely you voted remain. You’ve got bills to pay, rising debts, work’s insecure and your wages barely stretch.

You’re up against it.

But you’re not against each other.

Labour’s plan will get Brexit sorted so a Labour government can get on with delivering the real change Britain needs.

So we can get on with rebuilding our NHS and making prescriptions free.

Get on with solving the housing crisis by building a million new homes and controlling rents.

Get on with bringing mail, rail, water and the energy grid into public ownership, and ending the great corporate rip-off of consumers.

Get on with creating hundreds of thousands of good jobs in every community through a Green Industrial Revolution.

Get on with giving Britain a pay rise.

Let’s get Brexit sorted within six months and build a fairer country that truly cares for all.

Where wealth and power are shared, for the many, not the few.

This is a once in a generation chance.

The future is ours to make, together.

It’s time for real change.

Below is the text of the speech made by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of the Opposition, in the House of Commons on 19 October 2019.

I join you, Mr Speaker, in thanking all the staff—cleaning staff, catering staff, security staff, officials and our own staff—who have come into the House this morning. They have given up a weekend to help our deliberations. I also thank the Prime Minister for an advance copy of his statement.

The Prime Minister has renegotiated the withdrawal agreement and made it even worse. He has renegotiated the political declaration and made that even worse. Today, we are having a debate on a text for which there is no economic impact assessment and no accompanying legal advice.

The Government have sought to avoid scrutiny throughout the process. Yesterday evening, they made empty promises on workers’ rights and the environment—the same Government who spent the last few weeks negotiating in secret to remove from the withdrawal agreement legally binding commitments on workers’ rights and the environment.

This Government cannot be trusted, and the Opposition will not be duped; neither will the Government’s own workers. Yesterday, the head of the civil service union Prospect met the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and, at the conclusion of that meeting, said:

“I asked for reassurances that the government would not diverge on workers’ rights after Brexit… He could not give me those assurances.”

As for the much-hyped “world-leading” Environment Bill, its legally binding targets will not be enforceable until 2037. For this Government, the climate emergency can always wait.

This deal risks people’s jobs, rights at work, our environment and our national health service. We must be honest about what it means for our manufacturing industry and people’s jobs: not only does it reduce access to the market of our biggest trading partner, but it leaves us without a customs union, which will damage industries across the country in every one of our constituencies. From Nissan in Sunderland to Heinz in Wigan, Airbus in Broughton and Jaguar Land Rover in Birmingham, thousands of British jobs depend on a strong manufacturing sector, and a strong manufacturing sector needs markets, through fluid supply chains, all across the European Union. A vote for this deal would be a vote to cut manufacturing jobs all across this country.

This deal would absolutely inevitably lead to a Trump trade deal—[Interruption]—forcing the UK to diverge from the highest standards and expose our families once again to chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef. This deal—[Interruption.]

Mr Speaker

Order. I did say that the statement by the Prime Minister must be heard. The response of the Leader of the Opposition, in the best traditions of parliamentary democracy, must also be heard, and it will.

Jeremy Corbyn

This deal fails to enshrine the principle that we keep pace with the European Union on environmental standards and protections, putting at risk our current rules on matters ranging from air pollution standards to chemical safety—we all know the public concern about such issues—at the same time that we are facing a climate emergency.

As for workers’ rights, we simply cannot give the Government a blank cheque. Mr Speaker, you do not have to take my word for that. Listen, for example, to the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, who says—[Interruption.] She represents an organisation with 6 million affiliated members, and she says:

“This deal would be a disaster for working people. It would hammer the economy, cost jobs and sell workers’ rights down the river.”

Listen to Make UK, representing British manufacturers, which says—[Interruption.] Government Members may care to listen to its comments on the deal. Make UK says that

“commitments to the closest possible trading relationship in goods have gone. Differences in regulation between the UK and the EU will add cost and bureaucracy and our companies will face a lack of clarity inhibiting investment and planning.”

Listen also to the Green Alliance, which says that the deal amounted to a

“very sad Brexit read from a climate perspective.”

The message is clear that this deal is not good for jobs and is damaging for our industry and a threat to our environment and our natural world. It is not a good deal for our country, and future generations will feel the impact. It should be voted down by this House today.

I also totally understand the frustration and fatigue across the country and in this House, but we simply cannot vote for a deal that is even worse than the one that the House rejected three times. The Government’s own economic analysis shows that this deal would make the poorest regions even poorer and cost each person in this country over £2,000 a year. If we vote for a deal that makes our constituents poorer, we are not likely to be forgiven. The Government are claiming that if we support their deal, it will get Brexit done, and that backing them today is the only way to stop a no-deal exit. I simply say: nonsense. Supporting the Government this afternoon would merely fire the starting pistol in a race to the bottom in regulations and standards.

If anyone has any doubts about that, we only have to listen to what the Government’s own Members have been saying. Like the one yesterday who rather let the cat out of the bag by saying that Members should back this deal as it means we can leave with no deal by 2020. [Hon. Members: “Ah.”] The cat is truly out of the bag. Will the Prime Minister confirm whether that is the case? If a free trade agreement has not been done, would that mean Britain falling on to World Trade Organisation terms by December next year, with only Northern Ireland having preferential access to the EU market?

No wonder, then, that the Foreign Secretary said that this represents a “cracking deal” for Northern Ireland, which would retain frictionless access to the single market. That does prompt the question: why is it that the rest of the UK cannot get a cracking deal by maintaining access to the single market?

The Taoiseach said that the deal

“allows the all-Ireland economy to continue to develop and… protects the European single market”.

Some Members of this House would welcome an all-Ireland economy, but I did not think that they included the Government and the Conservative and Unionist party. The Prime Minister declared in the summer:

“Under no circumstances… will I allow the EU or anyone else to create any kind of division down the Irish Sea”.

We cannot trust a word he says.

Voting for a deal today will not end Brexit, and it will not deliver certainty. The people should have the final say. Labour is not prepared to sell out the communities that it represents. We are not prepared to sell out their future, and we will not back this sell-out deal. This is about our communities now and about our future generations.