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Tag: Nadia Whittome

  • Nadia Whittome – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Voter ID and Turnout Levels

    Nadia Whittome – 2022 Parliamentary Question on Voter ID and Turnout Levels

    The parliamentary question asked by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 1 December 2022.

    Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)

    Whether the Committee has held discussions with the commission on the potential impact of the introduction of voter identification on young people’s ability to vote.

    Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood)

    The Electoral Commission has not identified young people as a group that is more likely to need additional support to navigate the ID requirements. Its research found that 2% of 18 to 24-year-olds said that they do not have an acceptable photo ID, which is in line with the average for all age groups. In January, the commission will begin public awareness work to ensure that all voters are aware of the ID requirement, and that those without ID know how to apply for the free voter authority certificate.

    Nadia Whittome

    The regulations listing documents that will be accepted as voter ID were not in the Elections Bill, but, instead, were in secondary legislation. If MPs had had the opportunity to scrutinise that, many of us would have opposed the clear discrimination that sees a far more limited range of acceptable ID for younger voters compared with older voters. Has the Electoral Commission a view on whether such a limited range is appropriate and were its views sought in the process of compiling a final list?

    Cat Smith

    The list of acceptable ID was included in the Elections Bill. There is of course secondary legislation before the House on 12 December and I encourage my hon. Friend to take part in the debate on the Floor of the House. The commission did provide feedback on the Bill’s content, including on the list of accepted ID, but it is for the Government to decide which forms of ID are on that list.

    Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)

    Obviously voter ID is an important topic, but can the commission ensure that nobody loses out and that this will not take a single penny out of the pockets of people who cannot afford to buy ID?

    Cat Smith

    The commission has consistently made the case before the roll-out of voter ID requirements that, should they be rolled out, there should be a free voter authority certificate available via local authorities. The legislation to make provision for that was laid before the House recently and will be debated on the Floor of the House on 12 December.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2022 Comments on the Resignation of Liz Truss

    Nadia Whittome – 2022 Comments on the Resignation of Liz Truss

    The comments made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, on Twitter on 20 October 2022.

    Liz Truss is gone. Good riddance.

    Since 2019, the Tories have given us:

    – A PM who partied while people died, breaking his own laws, and lied about it

    – A PM who crashed the economy within weeks by cutting taxes for the rich

    Enough is enough. #GeneralElectionNow

  • Nadia Whittome – 2022 Speech on the Energy Prices Bill

    Nadia Whittome – 2022 Speech on the Energy Prices Bill

    The speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 17 October 2022.

    This Government gambled with the markets and lost, and for what? To give their super-rich friends and donors massive tax cuts, and now working people are having to pay the price.

    Just five days ago, the Prime Minister argued that pensioners would suffer if her plans for a two-year energy price guarantee did not go ahead. This morning, the Chancellor cancelled that guarantee, saying that it would be

    “irresponsible to continue exposing public finances”

    and that he would take

    “whatever tough decisions are necessary”.

    Why is it that those “tough decisions” are always paid for by working-class people and not by the wealthiest?

    The United Kingdom is already one of the most unequal countries in the global north, second only to the United States in the G7, 3.9 million children live in poverty and many more are on the brink. Making the situation worse, not just in recent weeks but over the last 12 years—now that is irresponsible! The response to this crisis should be to tax the rich. If the Chancellor wants to balance the books, why does he not impose a windfall tax on the energy giants which are set to make up to £170 billion in excess profits over the next two years? Would it by any chance have something to do with the fact that the Conservative party has taken £1.3 million from fossil fuel interests since the last election? This is a Government who serve the energy corporations that are raking in massive profits and trashing our planet, and not the millions of people who cannot afford to pay their bills and rent or to buy food. We are in a rudderless boat that is sinking, the Prime Minister has no authority or credibility and, after yet another U-turn, only one thing is certain, and that is that this Government are finished.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    Nadia Whittome – 2022 Speech in the No Confidence in the Government Motion

    The speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.

    The leadership of this self-obsessed and profoundly damaging Prime Minister is finally coming to its end, but this charade went on for far too long. He should have gone over his mishandling over the pandemic. He should have gone over the lobbying scandal that he created. And he should have gone because he partied when people died and then, as we put it in this place, “misled” this House. Now he is going, but only because he has been forced out by his Ministers, because they have finally concluded that he will cost them more votes than he wins. So they do not deserve any credit. They knew who he was when they voted for him, they propped him up through every scandal and, together, they have stripped away our rights and made the people of this country poorer.

    While the news focuses on the Tory party implosion, supermarkets are adding security tags to cheese, butter and baby formula; we have the highest inflation for 40 years; electricity is fast becoming a luxury good; and millions are no longer paid enough to put food on the table. This hunger, poverty and inequality is all a political choice, and without action people will die. People, particularly disabled people, have already died because of this Government and 12 years of brutal cuts. We need a Government who will tackle the cost of living crisis, but instead we have one who are barely functioning, while the squatter in No. 10 is throwing parties in Chequers.

    If anyone had any hope that the next Tory leader would prioritise the cost of living crisis, the contest so far has completely dispelled that. Instead of setting out the bold measures they would take to help working-class people, the candidates to become Prime Minister are obsessed with attacking trans people and cutting corporation tax. So no, I do not have confidence in this Government to tackle the worst drop in living standards since 1956. I do not have confidence in this Government to prevent millions from being forced to choose between heating and eating this winter. And I do not have confidence in this Government, full stop. So on behalf of my constituents who lost loved ones to the pandemic due to this Government’s actions, on behalf of the families I meet who are left with no choice but to turn to food banks, and on behalf of every person in this country who deserves better than a low-pay, no-safety-net safety created by 12 years of Conservative rule, I will be voting no confidence in this Government.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2022 Comments on Prime Minister’s Interview with Mumsnet

    Nadia Whittome – 2022 Comments on Prime Minister’s Interview with Mumsnet

    The comments made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, on Twitter on 1 June 2022.

    Johnson defends the Downing St parties to Mumsnet, as they had to “keep morale high, when the whole place was under a huge amount of pressure.”

    Hospitals? Care homes? Supermarkets?

    Plenty of workplaces were under pressure. They weren’t getting smashed in the staff room.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    Nadia Whittome – 2022 Speech on Achieving Economic Growth

    The speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2022.

    This is a Queen’s Speech that provides mediocre answers to the wrong questions. The Government acknowledge that there is a cost of living crisis, but they do not want to do anything about it. They acknowledge that there is a housing crisis, but they are not willing to control rent so that people can afford to live in their homes. They acknowledge that energy is expensive. But do they want to talk about meaningful price caps? Do they want to talk about retrofitting or insulation? Did they vote in favour of a windfall tax to lower bills when they had the opportunity yesterday? No, no and no.

    This is a Government who tell us they want action on the climate crisis, and then, when a protest movement comes along to demand just that, introduce legislation to have them sent to jail. They want to invest, they tell us, in the future. But the Conservatives have been in power for 12 years and they have cut the public sector to shreds. Wages will be lower in 2025 than they were in 2008, when I was 12 years old. Since they came to power, the number of people on zero-hours contracts has risen more than fivefold. All of this happened on their watch—and are they going to reverse it? No.

    In 2010, the Trussell Trust handed out 48,000 food parcels. Last year, it handed out 2.1 million. Meanwhile, Britain gained a record number of billionaires, between them owning £597 billion—about triple the annual operating budget of the NHS. That is the dynamism of the market for you—the kind of dynamism that makes an elderly lady sit on the bus all day to keep warm because she cannot afford to heat her home. We need a publicly owned energy system that delivers cheap, green energy; an above-inflation rise in the minimum wage; at least the restoration of the £20 universal credit, but really a reversal of all the benefit cuts since 2010; and rent controls.

    Finally, I would like to address the disgrace of explicitly excluding trans people from the so-called ban on conversion therapy. Once again, the Government acknowledge that there is a problem, but will they extend the protection of the law to those who need it most—young trans people, half of whom have attempted suicide by the time they reach the age of 26? No. So transphobic parents will still be able to hire someone to psychologically abuse their child in an attempt to stop them being trans, and this practice will still be perfectly legal. What kind of message does that send to young trans people fighting to survive? We need a Government who are on the right side of history, but instead we have a Government of pound-shop authoritarians made on the playing fields of Eton and in the Daily Mail’s wildest dreams. They know there is a problem, but what they cannot do is recognise the truth—that the problem is them.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2021 Speech on Climate Education

    Nadia Whittome – 2021 Speech on Climate Education

    The speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 23 November 2021.

    I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require matters relating to climate change and sustainability to be integrated throughout the curriculum in primary and secondary schools and included in vocational training courses; and for connected purposes.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, 2050 is the year that the world needs to reach net zero. This will require fundamental changes to every sector of our economy unprecedented in their overall scale. For some, 2050 might feel like it is a long way away. In the next 30 years, Governments will come and go and many Members of this House will retire, but for my generation and for those who are still in school—young people who have their whole future ahead of them—2050 will be the middle of their working lives. A child who started primary school this September will not even be 35. The world and the economy that they inherit will feel very different from those of today.

    If our education system is not preparing young people to mitigate and deal with the impacts of climate change, it is failing them. If it is not teaching them the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a net zero society, it is failing them. If young people are not being taught to understand the impact of human interaction with the natural world and the need to maintain biodiversity and cut our carbon emissions, it is failing them and our planet. This Bill aims to put that right and to prepare young people for the future, and this Bill is what young people are demanding. In 2018, one survey found that 42% of pupils felt that they had learned a little, hardly anything or nothing about the environment at school, and 68% said that they would like to know more.

    This Bill exists only because of the hard work of young people. School students from Teach the Future, who have joined us today in the Public Gallery, have spent the past two years campaigning relentlessly to be taught the truth about the climate crisis and to be equipped with the skills to tackle it. Their campaign has put this issue on the agenda; it now falls to us to put it into law.

    The Bill comes in the same month that the UK hosted the COP26. If we want to know whether something was a success, we need to start by asking the people who have the most to lose—people such as 15-year-old Safia Hasan, a climate activist from Chad, who said:

    “I’m hugely disappointed and hugely let down by COP. Coming from Chad, millions of my people are suffering but nobody is listening to our cries, our tears. It’s our planet, and it’s time to stop messing about with our future.”

    Notwithstanding the disappointing outcomes on climate finance, decarbonising of the energy sector and just transition initiatives, however, I welcome the Government announcement at COP26 that they will take action to promote greater teaching of climate change in the curriculum. That is a key first step and a vital recognition of the importance of climate education, but a voluntary scheme such as the one announced can achieve only so much, and unfortunately the fine print of the announcement was such that it amounts to little more than teachers being sent PowerPoint presentations.

    While teaching about the climate remains voluntary, many young people will continue to miss out. Teachers must also be supported to deliver climate education, given that 70% of teachers feel that they have not received adequate training to educate young people about climate change. This Climate Education Bill would make climate education mandatory, embedding it across the national curriculum and ensuring that all teachers receive training. It would be intertwined with every subject, a golden thread that runs through a young person’s schooling, just as the climate crisis and our actions to tackle it run through every aspect of our lives.

    Whether those young people grow up to be a builder or a banker, a carer or a caterer, the climate crisis will affect everyone. We need to train the next generation of plumbers to install low-carbon heat pumps, and teach the next generation of chefs about sustainable diets and sustainable food production. This Bill would ensure that climate change is given the emphasis in our education system that it deserves.

    The climate and ecological crisis impacts everything around us. Pandemics, such as the one that has turned our world upside-down for the past two years, will become more frequent as loss of habitat forces animals to migrate and come into contact with other animals or people. Climate education will help young people to understand the world around them and provide access to nature and opportunities for children to engage with our natural world. Some 57% of child and adolescent psychiatrists in England see patients who are distressed about the climate crisis and the state of the environment. The Bill would provide support for students to deal with eco and climate anxiety, which climate education will also mitigate, as it will empower students to understand what actions they can take to help tackle climate change and the role that they will play in the future.

    I hope that the Government will recognise the Bill as a natural continuation of their announcement at COP26. I hope it will encourage them to go further—to legislate to make climate change part of the core content of all subjects, to support teachers to deliver climate education and to decarbonise the education sector much faster. Not only young people but our entire economy stands to benefit. Our green jobs and recovery plans lag far behind those of most G7 countries. The availability of the right skills and a keen interest in sustainability will pave the way to a productive green transformation and decent job creation.

    I am delighted and grateful that the Bill includes among its sponsors the Chairs of the Environmental Audit Committee, the Select Committee on Education, and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. I pay particular thanks to the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) for his continued leadership on skills and training as part of a just transition to a greener economy, as well as for his personal kindness and support for this campaign.

    It is important to be honest about the climate and ecological emergency, but it is also important to remember how much we still have to fight for. Every ray of hope and every inch of progress at COP26 was won through relentless pressure from activists and campaigners, especially those on the frontlines of the crisis. Change has always happened this way, and always will. The next generation are calling on us to take these steps, to secure their future. I want us to listen to them and act for them. Some of us may not be around to see the full results of our actions, but our legacy will live on. We must decide: do we want to be remembered for what we did or for what we failed to do? Young people’s futures depend on us. We must not let them down.

    Question put and agreed to.

    Ordered,

    That Nadia Whittome, Philip Dunne, Robert Halfon, Caroline Lucas, Layla Moran, Mhairi Black, Yvette Cooper, Rebecca Long Bailey, Zarah Sultana, Darren Jones, Clive Lewis and Jeremy Corbyn present the Bill.

    Nadia Whittome accordingly presented the Bill.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Nadia Whittome – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    The idea that children should not go hungry is one that most people would consider an issue of basic morality. I am glad that the Government have now conceded that the free school meals scheme should be extended to cover the summer, but given that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) was still arguing against this only a few hours ago, it is clear that this is not a moral change of heart, but a result of incredible pressure from campaigners such as Marcus Rashford and the Opposition.

    I would like to ask the Minister about one aspect of the policy. There are many children in this country who have committed no crime but the crime of being migrants —an accident of geography—and who therefore have no recourse to public funds. These pupils have been temporarily eligible for free school meals during the pandemic; will the Minister commit to ensuring that that continues, not just this summer, but as a permanent change in policy?

    It is telling that the Education Secretary should imply that children need access to nutritious, healthy meals only when they are at school. If it is wrong for children to go hungry, it is always wrong for children to go hungry, not just during a global pandemic and not only while they are at school.

    Despite the very welcome U-turn, this Government are by no means let off the hook for their shameful and damning record on child poverty and hunger. In the sixth richest country in the world, there is no excuse for letting a single child go to bed hungry. The fact that 1.3 million children are routinely receiving free school meals shows that something is deeply wrong. We are a wealthy country, but that wealth is not fairly distributed; the wealthiest 10% in our country have about 45% of the wealth. That inequality is only increasing; wages for the majority have been stagnant for the past decade, employment is increasingly insecure and precarious, and we have a standard-of-living slide, all while the rich get richer.

    Even though they may be fed this summer, we will still have approximately one third of children living in poverty. The Government typically respond to this by saying that the best route out of poverty is through work, but that is simply a meaningless platitude in light of the fact that most children who live in poverty have at least one parent in work.

    The Conservative party is the party of the food bank and zero-hour contracts. The Living Wage Foundation calculates the real living wage—not the Government’s made up living wage—based on what people need to get by. It is set at £9.30 per hour outside London and that means that anyone paid below that is on a poverty wage.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2020 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 20 January 2020.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your re-election.

    The outgoing Father of the House told me to do my maiden speech quickly to get it out of the way. I wish that I had taken his advice, because I have now heard so many fantastic maiden speeches that the pressure is really on.

    I want to give my heartfelt thanks to every person in Nottingham East who put me here and invested their trust in me, and to say “I will not let you down.” I am able to stand here today because of the hard work, solidarity, talent and dedication of the activists, friends, and family who gave so much to my campaign. Only one of us is the Member of Parliament, but I am representing a movement that is so much bigger than me.

    Let me also pay tribute to Chris Leslie, who contributed to Gordon Brown’s Treasury team. He too was the so-called “Baby of the House” when he was first elected. Before him there was John Heppell, an excellent constituency MP.

    It is the greatest honour of my life to represent Nottingham East and my home city, but I am also here to represent this burning planet, and the generation that will be left to foot the bill and save it from catastrophic climate change. We are a generation that is brave, collaborative and outward-looking. We are determined to fight for a future in which everyone can breathe clean air and live well. These are not the whims of youth, but a deadly serious response to an existential crisis and the moral bankruptcy of our economic system. It is possible only because of the generations of socialists on whose shoulders I am proud to stand.

    Nottingham is a city of firsts. We were the first city to recognise misogyny as a hate crime, thanks largely to the work of Nottingham Women’s Centre, and under our Labour council we are on track to be the first carbon-neutral city by 2028. We are proud of our publicly owned Nottingham City Transport, which regularly wins the title of UK Bus Operator of the Year—and it is thanks to its wi-fi that I so often, although not always, got my college work in on time. We are home to grassroots ​projects, tackling knife crime by giving young people opportunities in, for instance, the legendary Marcellus Baz and Jawaid Khaliq boxing schools. We have also been put on the map by world-class creatives, from Shane Meadows shooting “This is England” in St Ann’s to Young T and Bugsey, who started out at the Community Recording Studio.

    I come to this House as a workers’ representative, not for the pomp and splendour but for the people who elected me. The people of Nottingham East sent me here, so let me tell you what they are up against: 42% of children live in poverty, firefighters are using food banks and 8,000 families in our city are waiting for a council home. That is why I have pledged to take only a worker’s wage, so that I never forget where I am from or whose interests I represent. Of course MPs do an important job, but careworkers, like I was proud to be before I became an MP, also do an extremely important job. When careworkers, retail workers and NHS staff get their pay rise, I will take mine.

    Historically, so much happens in this building that is designed to exclude and alienate working-class people: the old conventions, the antiquated language. As a working-class woman of colour, I am made to feel like I do not belong here unless I throw my community under a bus, but that is not what I am here to do. When I first saw the results of the exit poll last month, the first people I thought about were my friends who are one delayed universal credit payment away from homelessness, my neighbour who goes without hot meals so her children do not have to, and my friend’s teenage brother who ended up in prison for dealing weed when he had no other job opportunities, while those here on the Front Benches can use their drug experiences at university to build street cred.

    The Queen’s Speech talks about investment, and rightly so, but we have heard enough empty promises that are worth less than the paper they are written on. Jobs without decent incomes, security and a future are creating the new poverty. The new poverty in Britain is people in work. These are the parents of the children going to bed hungry. They are the people who cannot wait five years for the next election to get rid of a Government who do not stand up for them. That is why I support all those fighting for dignity and pay here and now, including the Deliveroo riders in Nottingham, some of whom are going home at the end of the day having earned less than the minimum wage per hour, the Uber drivers who refuse to accept poverty wages, and the Nottingham College teachers organising against unfair contracts. These are the people who refuse to be divided by this Government. They show us how to win by uniting and fighting back together: black and white, British and migrants, the people the Prime Minister calls “bum boys” and “letterboxes”. This is why I will campaign for the rights of working-class people to defend themselves. When the Government threaten to further limit our right to organise and strike, which is already one of the most restrictive in Europe, we will fight back.

    Our burning planet cannot wait another five years for us to urgently address the climate emergency. Any investment plan that does not have climate justice at its very core is a plan for disaster. Meanwhile, as the planet approaches breaking point, so called anti-terrorist programmes are used to criminalise those who defend it. My generation wants a future. We want a planet we ​can live on, and wages we can live on. We want opportunities that make life worth living, and let me tell you something: if you don’t let us dream, we won’t let you sleep.