Elsie Blundell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you for giving evidence today. It is important that we do not forget the plight of men and boys who are affected by violent or sexual crime. We need to make sure there are clear pathways for those men to secure justice and support. You have made it clear that you welcome the helpline. How do you think we can make sure that the helpline and the victim contact scheme reach all eligible victims, including men from marginalised, disadvantaged and working-class backgrounds? How do you think we could do that? Mark Brooks: I work in wider policy around men’s health and I have been helping the Government on the men’s health strategy call for evidence, which is out now. In terms of language, I often see literature in which men are not visually present, so it is important that men in all their shapes, sizes and guises are visible. Also, there needs to be more outreach, often targeting where men go, not where you think they should go. Leaving things in libraries and GP surgeries, for example, will not reach men. We need far better promotion online and through community groups, barbers and sports clubs—Facebook is also really important for men—basically reaching out to where men go. There is a huge growth in community-based support charities for men, which have grown exponentially in the last five years—things like Men’s Sheds, Andy’s Man Club, Talk Club and so forth. Some of them are in the room next door, giving a presentation about the men’s health strategy, so use those. The justice system and the people within it can be smarter in reaching out to non-statutory organisations.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Good morning, both; thank you for appearing this morning. There are lots of cases in my constituency, and I am sure in those of other Members as well, where housing associations are not taking strong enough action against tenants who are perpetrators of antisocial behaviour. We have heard from you and from the previous panel; there are lots of different agencies involved. How do you see the role of the police working alongside the Victims’ Commissioner, housing providers and other agencies to combat antisocial behaviour? How do you think the Bill could help make that relationship and partnership working more fruitful? Genna Telfer: We obviously have really close working relationships with our partners. There should always be a number of people around the table trying to work out the best option to deal with these cases—from a problem-solving point of view, not just in the short term. Rather than just solving the immediate problem by, for example, moving people from one address to another, they might ask, “How do we manage this for the future?” In my experience, I do not think there is an unwillingness from housing associations and local authorities to get involved. I think sometimes there are just challenges with being able to resolve some of the issues. The new power for the Victims’ Commissioner on the requirement to give a reasonable response as to why something has or has not been done will be really helpful, because it will provide more transparency and scrutiny of the problems we are trying to resolve. I do not think there is an unwillingness; I just think there are some challenges in the system that make it difficult.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Sometimes in my experience there is an unwillingness, but I appreciate what you say. Clare, have you got any comments on that? Clare Moody: Not specifically on the legislation piece. I think it is about the agencies working together. We have an example in Avon and Somerset where there are police officers who co-locate with the housing association —they have a desk space in the housing association—and that close working has resulted in closer co-operation on how to manage difficult situations with tenants. There are practical ways you can do things that do not necessarily require the legislation to change, because they are already in place.

• 16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s announcement that there will be a national inquiry. Every penny spent on stamping out the evil of child abusers is money well spent. Although welcome, notice of this inquiry will undoubtedly cause a great deal of trauma and distress for both historic and present-day victims, as violations committed against them are revisited. As the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) referenced, what steps can the Government take to ensure that victims and witnesses have access to robust mental health support? How can we ensure that our courts—as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams)—especially in places like Greater Manchester that face extensive court backlogs, are sufficiently resourced to ensure that at the end of the process justice is finally delivered?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s announcement of an additional £2.5 billion in Greater Manchester. This will have a real benefit for my constituency and the town of Heywood, which will get the tram for the first time. What can the Government do, together with the Greater Manchester combined authority, to make sure that we get shovels in the ground as quickly as possible?

• 10 Jun 2025 · Nuclear Power: Investment · Hansard source

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  I welcome today’s announcement. I have been speaking to people from across my constituency—cleaners, hospitality workers and others—who desperately need the cost of bills to come down. How will the projects announced today, and the other steps the Government are taking to counter the impact of uncertainty in global energy markets, help to stop people in Heywood and Middleton North being out of pocket?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary and her team for bringing forward this important Bill. Local bus services are fundamental to the lives of so many people, from providing access to work and leisure opportunities and social inclusion to cleaning up our air, reducing congestion and curtailing transport emissions. For many of our constituents, they make the difference between being able to seize opportunities and being denied them. Put simply, buses are too important to get wrong, so I wholly welcome the Bill and this Government’s ambition to finally put things right after decades of fragmentation and under-investment. As the MP for Heywood and Middleton North in Greater Manchester, I have seen the far-reaching benefits of bringing local bus services back under local control. I am incredibly proud that Greater Manchester is the only place outside London to have re-regulated its bus network, as part of creating a fully integrated public transport network—the Bee Network—for the people of our city region. A recent report produced by IPPR North highlights just how much the city region has turned its bus network around. The IPPR says: “Franchising is already delivering better services for people in Greater Manchester, but it was an uphill battle to get there. It’s time for the government to get on board with better buses and support local leaders on this journey.” This Bill demonstrates that the Government have got on board. I welcome the steps that it is taking to finally empower local leaders to make the decisions that they are best qualified to make. When it comes to the Bee Network, the achievements of Greater Manchester are considerable. It makes the world of difference in my constituency and across the city region. Interventions made in partnership with local people meant that there were 17 million more bus journeys across the city region in 2024 than in 2023. The network now carries more than 170 million passengers a year in Greater Manchester. An example from my area illustrates what the Bill can practically offer. At times, Heywood and Middleton North has failed to benefit from Greater Manchester’s rising prosperity. Because local people have a bigger role in devising transport policy under franchising, however, I am now able to make a strong case for an express bus service from Norden and Bamford down to Heywood and Middleton and ultimately into Manchester city centre. That is something my constituents have gone without for far too long. It is time to finally rebalance the scales in their favour. After consulting with local people, who are determined to see the express bus service reinstated, and after producing a report setting out our case, I have been engaging consistently with Transport for Greater Manchester to see what can be done. I put on record my thanks to the mayor and his team for taking seriously the calls from my constituents, including the parents and teachers who understand the value of the route to Edgar Wood school. I look forward to conversations about the service being reinstated. At its core, that is what the Bill is all about. It will put buses back at the heart of communities, identify gaps in provision, set about addressing them, enhance connections and fundamentally shape routes to fit around people’s lives. I would also like to raise the issue of accessibility. Our buses should be for everyone, but we know that many blind and deafblind people, and disabled people more broadly, encounter numerous serious challenges when using public transport. One issue that comes up time and again—it has already come up in this debate—is floating bus stops. I know that some organisations assess the risk of harm around such stops to be very low, based on the total number of incidents, but I would argue that one incident is one too many. We must consider that the figures may be so low because disabled people, as a result of the expansion of floating bus stops, are sometimes being deterred from travelling altogether, and many collisions undoubtedly go unreported. The issue has been raised in the other place, as the Secretary of State says, but I ask her what engagement, to learn from the lived experiences of blind and partially sighted people and the organisations that represent them, has been carried out by the Department in devising clauses 30 and 31. We must continuously seek to build public transport systems for all, not just when it is convenient to do so. Finally, I wish to raise the issue of safety on public transport. I commend the measures in the Bill to enable workers across the sector to develop their skills, including by supporting them to respond effectively to violence and abuse on the network. What engagement has been carried out with trade union officials regarding those measures? What further steps could be taken to ensure that bus drivers, interchange staff and others are themselves safe from harassment and abuse? I thank the Secretary of State once again for developing this legislation and ensuring that buses are at the heart of our communities and that they serve and reflect the needs of our constituents.

• 22 May 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  As the Leader of the House knows, good internet connectivity is vital for economic growth, productivity and ensuring that everyone has access to the benefits of being online, but in many parts of Middleton in my constituency—less than six miles from Manchester city centre—people and businesses are being held back, with many having no connectivity whatsoever. I have been working locally to address the issue. Covering my campaign, the Manchester Evening News reported: “The entire town has become a signal dead spot, and locals are sick of it”. Will the Leader of the House work with me to secure a debate to provide a forum for Members to relay similar concerns about the lack of mobile signal in urban areas to ensure that the full scale of this national challenge is relayed to Government?

• 20 May 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill · Hansard source

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  This Government have announced specific support for five local inquiries and are getting on with the implementation of the recommendations of the Jay report. Would the hon. Member like to comment on what the previous Government did on this subject?

• 20 May 2025 · Victims and Courts Bill · Hansard source

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  I begin by thanking my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor for bringing forward this much-needed legislation, which will change our justice system for the better by strengthening support for victims and holding those who violate our laws to account. In my constituency of Heywood and Middleton North, the scars of serious crime and antisocial behaviour and an inundated court system hold back our communities. My constituents and people across the country are looking for answers to those challenges, rather than the posturing that we see all too frequently in some quarters. This Bill goes a long way to providing those answers, and I know that the changes will be truly welcomed in my constituency. Last week, I held a town hall event focused on crime and antisocial behaviour in Spotland, an area that I am proud to represent and to relay concerns from today. I place on record my gratitude to all those who attended, and who gave their stories, as well as those from Rochdale borough council, Greater Manchester police and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, who also attended and were questioned by local residents. We covered a vast array of issues in a constructive and thoughtful manner, and I believe we got to the crux of what keeps people in Spotland and across my constituency awake at night: ultimately, it is the safety and security of their families and loved ones. Across our borough, stalking offences, dangerous driving, off-road bikes and drug crime have been growing in prominence. In Greater Manchester, our court backlogs are some of the largest in the country. Most people I spoke to at the event were weary after years of cuts that reduced the police presence, which is essential, and consistent under-investment in our courts. They have seen a system that was built to protect them pushed to the brink and unable to respond effectively to the changing nature of crime in our communities. Despite the challenging nature of what we discussed, I did not come away disheartened. On the contrary, I came away hopeful and determined to take my constituents’ concerns forward. Communities are rarely unresponsive to challenges, or idle in the face of them. In fact, they want to be part of the solution. People in my constituency want to work alongside authorities and local leaders to make our streets safer and to make sure that victims are supported and perpetrators face the full force of the law. They want common-sense and considered interventions from Government, like the ones before us today. I will touch on one of the Bill’s provisions that will make a real difference to the communities I represent. First, the shadow of on-street grooming still hangs over families and survivors in my constituency. That is alongside wicked present-day crimes perpetrated against children across the country, the cruelty and cowardice of which remain with victims for life. According to the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, 500,000 children will experience some form of child sexual abuse every year in England and Wales. A third of childhood sexual abuse offences are committed in the family environment. We must make sure that children who are exploited or abused no longer remain under the responsibility of a family member capable of committing such vile acts. That is why I commend the provisions in the Bill to restrict parental responsibility for offenders sentenced for abusing young children. Families must feel that they have a place to turn to when this unimaginable violation befalls a loved one, and must feel supported in law. I wholeheartedly support the steps to minimise bureaucracy and limit procedural burdens in a way that mitigates the further distress put on families, so that they can begin to rebuild what the perpetrator has shattered. I also support other measures in the Bill, including the provision that mandates perpetrators to attend their sentencing hearing or face further penalties. As we know, crime does not exist only at a single point in time; its implications live on for victims, sometimes forever. Neither is it faceless. Behind each criminal act is a perpetrator who should face the consequences of their decisions. They should be made to look at the damage they have done to a person’s life, and to hear the verdict on their crimes. The Bill gives victims agency—

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Communities across Heywood and Middleton North, however resilient, still bear the scars of these appalling and cowardly acts. I am grateful to the Minister for her continued engagement and resolve in addressing the cruel legacy of those crimes. What steps are being taken by her Department to learn from the healthcare practitioners, support workers and others who were active at the time of these crimes and initial inquiries to ensure that they can provide their insights and expertise to inform the commendable present-day efforts to secure justice for the women and girls?

• 2 Apr 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q9. My constituents are grafters—they want to work, and they want to see opportunities created and the skills and investment in infrastructure that we need for the future. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to fix the transport system in the north of England, which has been holding us back, and I invite him to the Atom Valley development zone in my constituency to discuss how we can create skilled jobs in north Greater Manchester.

• 29 Jul 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  12. What steps her Department plans to take to tackle violence against women and girls.

• 29 Jul 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  My constituency carries painful scars from a time when vulnerable girls were subjected to abuse and exploitation, but across the country it is not just so-called grooming gangs that present a danger to girls; abuse happens online, in institutions and in the home. What measures will the new Government put in place to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence, to ensure that what happened to vulnerable girls in my constituency can never happen again?

• 19 Jul 2024 · Planning, the Green Belt and Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech during this debate. I am so proud to represent Heywood and Middleton North. It is a new constituency, comprising part of Rochdale and most of the former Heywood and Middleton seat, both in Greater Manchester. People from my constituency have long shaped our parliamentary democracy. Heywood is the birthplace of Peter Heywood, famous for apprehending Guy Fawkes in the cellar beneath Parliament in 1605. Middleton, too, has a famous son in Sam Bamford, the radical social reformer who led a contingent of weavers from Middleton into Manchester in 1819. Their peaceful protest for political representation ended in massacre at St Peter’s Field. Spotland, in the Rochdale part of my constituency, is home to a stone road widely known as Cotton Famine Road. It is a monument to the cotton workers who lived there in the 1860s, and who bravely sided with the Union cause during the American civil war. It was a selfless act, especially as the Union side at that time was preventing goods from leaving Confederate ports. This resulted in a shortage of cotton supplies—a cotton famine—and caused unemployment, poverty and hardship across Lancashire, but support for President Lincoln and his pledge to end the slave trade held firm. The workers’ campaign was supported by Rochdale statesman and radical John Bright, of whom a sculpture can be found in the Lower Waiting Hall of Westminster Palace. Bright was a lifelong campaigner against slavery and is especially well known for his role in abolishing the corn laws, alongside another great parliamentarian, Richard Cobden, who—with apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh)—I will claim as a predecessor, as large parts of what was his constituency now fall under Heywood and Middleton North boundaries. The history of the area I represent, then, is strongly linked to many political and social reforms in this country and around the world, and to ideals and values that we hold close to this day: that there is no place for violence in our politics; that the circumstances a person is born into must not prevent them from participating in our democracy; and that—as those cotton workers knew in the 1860s—we should be compassionate to all people regardless of race, class or any other distinction. Alongside Heywood, Middleton and Spotland, I have the privilege of representing the former mill town of Castleton, with its proud history of manufacturing and engineering, and the fantastic villages of Bamford and Norden. My constituency was also home to renowned architect Edgar Wood, who is widely recognised as the most advanced English architect of his time. More recently, Heywood was the birthplace of Ian Simpson—one half of SimpsonHaugh & Partners—whose buildings, such as Beetham Tower and One Blackfriars, compel people to look up to the skylines in both Manchester and London. To this day, it is the people of Heywood and Middleton North who continue to make the place great, and I would like to use this speech to pay tribute to some of them. They include retail workers such as Robert and Brenda Bell from Heywood, who are also proud trade unionists, for whom the employment rights Bill, set out in the King’s Speech, will create extra rights to work flexibly and make parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal day-one rights. This Government will also ban zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire. Then there are the many volunteers, including the Pullen family, who run the 1st Heywood Scouts Group; Howard Bowden and Simon Bennett, who do excellent work through the Friends of Jubilee Park group and St Edmund’s church; and Pete Knowles and his group of volunteers at Stoney Hill community wildlife area, who protect and promote our beautiful meadows and woodlands and make sure that children in a relatively urban area can access nature too. People like these make my constituency great, and I will do everything that I can to support them. I would like to pay tribute to my predecessors. Chris Clarkson has represented the people of Heywood and Middleton for the past four and a half years. I know that many Members of this House valued his good humour and enjoyed working alongside him, including on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. Liz McInnes was the MP for Heywood and Middleton between 2014 and 2019, and served in two shadow ministerial roles. Liz worked incredibly hard in both of those positions and was a fierce advocate for her constituents on many issues, including the NHS, in which she had previously worked. For the past seven years, I have enjoyed a career in transport planning. I am incredibly pleased by the measures set out in the King’s Speech to accelerate infrastructure delivery and to improve our transport network. Unfortunately, many people in my constituency do not have access to the opportunities and jobs they need, as Heywood and Middleton—despite their location in the great, modern city region of Greater Manchester—are two of the largest towns in the north-west of England not to be served by a rail station or Metrolink tram stop. As one former shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, argued in a recent paper, there has been too little transport investment in low-productivity areas such as mine. We need to improve transport connectivity throughout city regions like Greater Manchester because good transport infrastructure allows for more frequent interaction between people and creates larger pools of workers for businesses. Earlier this month, we received promising news from the Greater Manchester combined authority of a re-commitment to the linking of Middleton into Greater Manchester’s Metrolink network and of progress on plans for Heywood’s tram-train connection. In future, that will form part of the city region’s integrated transport network, which Greater Manchester must carry on delivering at pace, to boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards in Heywood and Middleton North. Finally, when it comes to devolution for our city region the job is well under way, but we must be mindful of the fact that it is not yet finished. I look forward to supporting our new Government, because I know that, through the English devolution Bill and other measures, they will put power back into the hands of working people and money back into their pockets. They will strive to ensure that powerful forces are not able to disenfranchise those people again. Throughout history, my constituents have had too much experience of that. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their attention, and I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my first contribution.