Emily Darlington MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  In the interests of time, I will skip through the many amendments I want to support, but there are a few that will really make a difference to people in Milton Keynes Central. First, I reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) said on street racing. Unfortunately, we had a Formula 1 driver who said that his success was based on practising on the grid roads of Milton Keynes, which really encouraged loads of people to decide to race there. In terms of stalking and spiking, the most egregious bit of spiking for me is the premeditation—sourcing the materials, bringing them to the venue then using them on a person. That is not a crime done on the spur of the moment: significant premeditation comes into it. One of the major issues we have had in Milton Keynes is organised begging outside our shopping centre. It is organised by gangs. People often look like they are homeless, or they are assumed to be homeless by caring residents in Milton Keynes, but in reality they are housed by the council, and they are exploited. They have a rota for which corner or which shop they can each sit in front of during which period of time, and the majority of the proceeds that people donate go to an organised crime network. Those individuals are being exploited in other ways as well. New clause 53 is so important in addressing this issue as the real, true crime that it is—not the crime of the people begging but of those organising the begging. I also rise in support of new clause 55, which is on special measures for witnesses, particularly around youth justice. That is very important. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), many people who experience sexual abuse do not come forward for years and years, so new clause 59, which would remove limitations, is really important. Let me address a couple of other things in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) made such an important speech considering domestic abuse, and she explained it very well. New clause 71 is about barred persons not having employment in law enforcement. We must recognise that, following the case of Sarah Everard, confidence in law enforcement is at an all-time low. When people call law enforcement because they have experienced domestic abuse, sexual harassment, rape or stalking, they are at their most vulnerable and they need to know that the people responding to those incidents—no matter which law enforcement service—will treat them according to the law, and not with some of their own natural biases, as we have seen. That brings me to my final point. In terms of confidence in policing, we need to ensure that all law enforcement is done with clarity of law, not because of particular campaigning, as we have seen with the enforcement of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which we will debate later.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for introducing the debate. We will be talking a lot about Milton Keynes, because if you wait for a speech about its hospital, you get two at once. For me, the story about Milton Keynes hospital is really personal, as it involves my family and my in-laws. Unfortunately, I lost both my in-laws in the years leading up to my being elected to this place. What I would like to say about the care my family, my in-laws and my children have had is that the team at Milton Keynes hospital—the staff from the chief executive to the consultants, the doctors, the nurses and the porters—are all so professional. I am sure everyone in this House would want to join me in thanking them for their absolute persistence in the work they have had to do just to keep the NHS going over the last 14 years. I worked closely with the hospital in my constituency for many years as deputy leader of Milton Keynes council, and the council had to step in when the Government did not. It was with funding from the council that we were able to build the new cancer centre and the new radiotherapy unit that will open very soon. It is because of the close working relationship with the council that the hospital has some of the lowest bed blocking waits in the country. With our teams integrated into the hospital, we make sure that the people who are able to go home go home with a care package as soon as possible, because it is our belief in Milton Keynes, and it was my belief as deputy leader, that people want to be in their homes. Despite all that work, Milton Keynes hospital has had some of the longest waiting lists in the country. That is partly due to the 14 years of underfunding of Milton Keynes. When there are over 30,000 people waiting for non-urgent elective operations, with 1,762 of them having been waiting for more than a year, these do not feel like non-urgent cases, because those people are not allowed to live a proper life, to play with their grandchildren or to go back to work as fast as they should. There is both a social cost and an economic cost. I am pleased to say that, with the investment by this Government to reduce waiting times, we have seen waiting times go down, but they are still too long. Unlike a lot of other hospitals we will talk about today, much of the issue for Milton Keynes is that it serves the fastest growing area in our region. In fact, it is growing at double the rate of anywhere else in the greater south-east. That means that our population is set to double to 410,000 people by 2050. On average, 11 people move to Milton Keynes every single day. That is not new in Milton Keynes, because we have been developing communities, homes and businesses for quite some time under the leadership of the Labour council. What has failed time and again in Milton Keynes is the investment that we need in our local hospitals, but this Government and these Milton Keynes MPs will actually deliver what was promised over and over again but never delivered by the Conservative party.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Political Donations · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Mrs Harris. In the interests of transparency, I would like to declare that I have received no donations from business, but I have received donations from UK citizens, including via the trade union GMB, of which I am a member, and through fundraising dinners and quizzes in my constituency, which anyone is welcome to attend. I would like to thank Mr Stone for starting this petition and having such great success in raising the issue with the public right across the country. We cannot be complacent in protecting our democratic rights, and we must take heed of what has happened elsewhere. When the US relaxed funding laws, it changed the course of election costs. In 1990, the average cost of a successful campaign to the House of Representatives was $981,000, while a successful Senate race cost an average of $9.3 million. In 2022, after the relaxation of the political donations legislation, the average cost of a successful campaign for the House of Representatives was $3 million, while the average cost of a successful Senate campaign was $28.5 million. We cannot afford to let that happen within the UK. Standing for Parliament is an honour and a privilege, but not only for those who can afford it or have rich friends; it is for those who come from all walks of life. One of the big loopholes that I perceive within our campaign finance rules—I hope that the Minister will consider it in fulfilling the campaign pledge in our manifesto to clean up political donations—is the rules for political party spending and the long and the short campaign. Although we have rules for the short campaign that are adhered to in the final few weeks, we do not have a consistent set of rules for the 55 months when political parties of any sort are campaigning. The rise of online spend is much more difficult to track and understand. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) mentioned, there are ways of supporting political parties that are not always about straight donations, but that can be done through algorithms and other online activity. I will not mention any particular Member, but I will mention the behaviour of two parties when it comes to donations received. We have people with backgrounds very much linked to tax havens, such as the billionaire property developer Nick Candy, who is one of the main fundraisers for the Reform party. He is also a link between the Reform party and Trump and Elon Musk. He was very clear when he told The New York Times , “We are going to have fund-raisers all over the world, in every part of the world where there are British nationals”— not necessarily British taxpayers. He went on: “We will have fund-raisers in the US, in Monaco, and we will have huge fund-raisers in the UAE, where we have an expat community there who are unhappy with the amount of regulation and tax in the UK.” To be clear, he is the UK treasurer for the Reform party. We need to close the loophole, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours) said earlier. If someone is not a UK taxpayer, they should not be funding a political party in order to create outcomes around regulation and tax. There are other examples I could point to, and I am sure many will.

• 20 Jan 2025 · UK-Ukraine 100-year Partnership · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement on this 100-year partnership with such an important European ally. We absolutely understand how our futures are linked. I want to recognise the Ukrainian community in Milton Keynes, which has established the Sunflower school and held the first Holodomor memorial event. These communities are very worried. They are coming to the renewal of their visas because they never thought that they would be here this long. They have built new businesses, family connections, and friends and community connections. Can we reassure Ukrainians in the UK that they will continue to have our support for the duration of the war, and potentially support afterwards for some of them to continue their lives here?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  Before I begin, I want to remind everyone that every woman—and some men—has a story. Some are awful; many are devastating, including those of women in this House, like myself. If anyone is feeling affected by this debate and the issues raised, either in the House or watching online, please reach out to the many amazing organisations; for people in Milton Keynes, MK-ACT is one partner. It is for women like me and the women of Milton Keynes that I extend my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), because it is women like them who are making our lives safer. Previous Governments have treated violence against women and girls as inevitable, or, more recently, a political opportunity, instead of the national emergency that it is. I feel sorry for the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), who I know feels strongly on this, but who is not in the Chamber today? There is not a single Reform MP, which shows how much they care. There is no show from the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who said that he really cared about the issue, and no show from the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who also said that he cared about the issue. I guess they care about it only when they can put out Facebook ads afterwards. We are sick and tired of seeing women and girls facing the same threats of violence and abuse generation after generation. After Sarah Everard was killed, women across the country demanded action, but too little changed. After Raneem Oudeh was killed, we expected major overhauls of policing and the criminal justice system, but barely anything was done. After the reports and the reviews, not a single recommendation was enacted. The passive response from previous Governments to those devastating crimes was hopeless. For those of us who care, the constant frustration, the mourning, the tragedy and the inevitability of male violence against women and girls in this country is exhausting, but we will never stop fighting. Every new case that makes the news of a woman killed by a husband, killed by a boyfriend, killed by a stranger or killed by an ex is a gut-wrenching reminder that you are never safe. Your daughter, your mother, your friend and your sister may never be safe, either. It has to stop. It happens everywhere, in every corner of the country and in every community. Unfortunately, it happened on Christmas day in Milton Keynes when two women, Joanne Pearson, 38, and Teohna Grant, 24, were killed. While the previous Government did not do enough, they did not create the crisis alone. How do we sort it? By understanding it. That starts with the House becoming the first white ribbon Parliament in the world. I am grateful to the Leader of the House, the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers for their support in that. We have to understand online radicalisation. A generation of young men are being raised in radical anti-women spaces online. Those used to be niche places that would have to be searched for on some kind of Telegram or 8chan channel, but they have been mainstreamed. Growing up, our children heard those jokes only from the drunk uncle in the corner who everyone ignored; now, they are there every day and have become popular with young and older men with aspirational lifestyles. I have spoken before in the House about Andrew Tate, but he is just one of an endless supply of misogynists repacking hate for women as standing up for men. The tactics and content used by these men to radicalise men in this country are the same psychological process used to radicalise Islamic extremists, yet the law, the press and the public do not treat it the same. The harm is extreme, with one woman killed every week in the UK, and the average age for rape is now 14 years old. That has been compounded by violent pornography. One young man reported on by Laura Bates —for those who want to read more, she is fantastic on this issue—was asked: “Why didn’t you stop when she was crying?” He looked back, bewildered, and said: “it’s normal for girls to cry during sex”. That is what our young people—and older people—are facing. We have to strengthen the Online Safety Act 2023 and ensure that the criminal law is robust and can keep pace with emerging technology issues, especially when we have social media tsars pushing their radical free-speech agendas that make our children less safe. We have to step up to prevent online radicalisation of our young men and boys and keep our women and girls safe online and offline. I believe in the Government’s mission to halve VAWG, I am proud of the work done so far, and I am proud of the women leading the effort to build a world where women can exist in online spaces without being exposed to sexist put downs and where we do not have to say, “This happened to me.”

• 18 Dec 2024 · Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement · Hansard source

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  May I, too, welcome the multi-year certainty given by the statement today? As a former deputy leader of Milton Keynes council, I can say that it is the kind of certainty we ask for, rather than getting a letter—on Christmas Eve, usually—setting out what the funding might be, already halfway through our budget-setting process. I also welcome the fact that Milton Keynes is getting more than £7 million to prevent homelessness. I welcome the fact that there will be transparency, but can the Minister give reassurances to Milton Keynes that with the loss of the new homes bonus, additional funding will be given to Milton Keynes to make up for that difference?

• 11 Dec 2024 · Puberty-suppressing Hormones · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his recognition of how difficult it will be for many young trans people and their families to hear the news today, and for his comments about the wider environment in which the trans community is threatened every day in the UK. My significant concern about the announcement is that it will lead to more people getting drugs from unknown sources online without prescription, and God knows what is actually in some of those drugs. I also have significant concerns about access for both young and older trans people to the services they need. We know that there is currently a six-year waiting list, and it is estimated that those joining the list today, if things are not improved, will have to wait 15 to 20 years before actually accessing any specialist services or starting any treatments. Can the Secretary of State reassure trans people across this country, both young and older, that we are committed to making sure they get the health services they need as quickly as possible?

• 2 Dec 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Member’s Financial Interests. First of all, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), plus all the London MPs who have brought home what Grenfell meant in their constituencies. However, the consequences of Grenfell are felt right across the country, and they have gone on for far too long for the residents of my constituency. Had the previous Government proceeded at pace with the confidence to take on developers with legal obligations and severe penalties, my residents would not still be stuck in buildings that have not had the remediation required. Each year since Grenfell, thousands of people in Milton Keynes have been left worse off, impacting their financial and mental health. A woman in my constituency—we will call her Angie—bought her flat with her husband in order to downsize, and be mortgage free and financially secure in their retirement. Unfortunately, she lost her husband, and with her single pension she cannot afford the 600% increase in insurance costs that she has seen in the past seven years. She is accumulating debt that she will never be able to pay, and she cannot sell her flat to prevent further debt. Her plan for a secure retirement has turned into a nightmare that she cannot get out of. That is why I welcome the Government’s announcement today to challenge that practice by the insurance industry, and to promise to act if the insurance industry does not. Has the Deputy Prime Minister had discussions with the industry about any retrospective reductions for those who have been affected by those huge insurance hikes? The Grenfell report rightly identifies the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for its many failings, but not all local authorities were slow to respond, such as my own in Milton Keynes Central where two council housing tower blocks were dealt with within a year of the tragedy—well within the guidelines that the Government recommended, and with no financial support from the Government. I would welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s views on whether the councils that took action, at huge cost to their housing revenue account, should be rewarded for their proactive attention with help to build more council homes. I welcome the Government’s commitment to putting local authorities at the heart of the solution, but developments are still being put forward that might not meet building control requirements, especially the permitted development of office conversions to flats. That is not currently a material consideration, so local planning committees have no choice but to pass it. Will the Secretary of State review the planning rules so that no building, new or converted, is unsafe for its residents? Will she also consider whether building control should be fully in the hands of local authorities, so that developers can no longer use their favourite private building control to sign off developments? The privatised BRE and its role in ensuring new materials has been brought up by many. Will the Minister consider renationalising the BRE, so that there can be no question of any company influence over the safety of new building products? Finally, it is not just tall buildings that have been affected. For far too long, those in buildings like Backus Lodge in my constituency, which has been rated B2 under the EWS1 framework since March 2022—

• 29 Nov 2024 · Men’s Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I know that Wolverhampton has many community campaigns to change the tide of violence against women and girls. I know that that has been happening in cities and towns across our country, but we need to be there to support those campaigns for them to have a true impact. I take this opportunity to thank an organisation in my own constituency, MK ACT, which has done enormous work, including running a refuge and perpetrator programmes to support not only those who have been victims of domestic abuse, but those who perpetrate it. Work such as that has been trying to stem the tide of abuse in our communities.

• 29 Nov 2024 · Men’s Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am just about to come on to that point. The result of this survey showed that young men between 18 and 24 have a significantly poorer understanding of rape and consent than those over the age of 65. How has this happened? Young men are being radicalised in the same way as recognised terrorist groups radicalise people. There is this sense of entitlement, righteousness and belonging to community, but a community whose role models include Andrew Tate, who says that, “if you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility”, and: “Losers love to talk about feelings.” Talking about women, he says “grip her by the neck” in a video viewed over 1.6 million times. Eight out of 10 boys between 16 and 17 know about, watch, read or listen to these videos, and almost half of them have a positive view of him.

• 14 Nov 2024 · Council Tax · Hansard source

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  I am a former local government leader. Does the Minister agree that we should thank local authority leaders, especially Labour leaders such as Pete Marland at Milton Keynes city council, for keeping services during 14 years of austerity? Milton Keynes city council has kept weekly bin collections, kept children’s centres open and reduced rough sleeping, while keeping council tax lower than in its neighbouring Tory authorities. Does the Minister agree that instead of using local authority leaders to make cheap political points, the Conservative party should thank them and apologise for 14 years of austerity?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Remembrance and Veterans · Hansard source

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  Our message from across the House today is thank you: thank you to those who served, to those who died in combat and to the families who supported our armed forces. In Milton Keynes, the city council is proud of its armed forces covenant. As city council cabinet member for housing, I ensured we fulfilled that covenant by giving the highest level of housing to our armed forces, and I am proud that that is now Government policy. I want to give a shout-out to the Milton Keynes armed forces and veterans breakfast club, which provides a lifeline to those currently serving, as well as to veterans. I will focus my comments on the 7,500 women—six out of 10 of whom were in uniform—who served at Bletchley Park. They are often forgotten. They were in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the Wrens; the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, the WAAF; and the Auxiliary Territorial Service. They worked around the clock for the war effort to keep the Colossus and Bombe machines running, so that we could break the Nazi code. Their efforts shortened the war by nearly two years, saving countless lives. Their recruitment was a challenge to MI6, as it had never recruited women before. It started recruiting linguists, mathematicians and engineers, and even used a 12-minute cryptic crossword competition to identify talent. However, the women did not have it easy. When Winston Churchill visited, he said: “I know I told you to leave no stone unturned to get staff, but I didn’t expect you to take me literally.” Many famous women worked tirelessly during those years, but it was not until the 1970s that anybody, including some of their own, had an idea of the impact they had had on our war effort. The women were not allowed to be classified as code-breakers, and were not allowed the title or the pay, but today, in this House, we can call them veterans and give them the respect they deserve. One of them wrote this poem: “In the years yet to come, when grandchildren are many, I want you to know what I did before you were a granny, You’ll say to the children, as proud as can be, ‘In the last war, my darling, a WAAF at BP.’”

• 11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point about the impact on the HRA. We had two such buildings where the council had to deal with compartmentation with no support from the Government, and had to rehouse 300 families in just under a year, per best practice. Does my hon. Friend agree that the pressure on councils has been much greater than it has been on private developers to move quickly on remediation and removal?

• 2 Sept 2024 · Technology in Public Services · Hansard source

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  I congratulate those on the Front Bench on their speeches tonight. Does the Minister agree that councils are very important in this area? When I was the cabinet member for health, my council signed an agreement with the Open University to become the first dementia-friendly city, which involves not only medical technology, AI and the first robot that can identify when somebody with dementia has not drunk enough and bring them a bottle of water, but social innovation around using colours in wayfinding—whether it is in our shopping centres or play parks. Does the Minister agree that the partnership needs to expand to include business, start-ups, councils and the Government, as well as our other public sector partners, in order to create the behaviour changes, innovation and advancements that we are all looking for?

• 30 Jul 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  As the new MP and a former cabinet member for housing for what is arguably Britain’s most successful new town—Milton Keynes—I welcome today’s statement, which is exactly what we have needed to hear. The struggles and conflicts that we have had in trying to deliver the housing that people in Milton Keynes need have been enormous and a real waste of resource, to be quite frank. We need to build not only new houses, but new communities. Will the Secretary of State meet me and Milton Keynes city council to discuss how we can help to deliver this essential mission so that everyone has a place to call home?

• 24 Jul 2024 · Education and Opportunity · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome you to your role. Can I also say how fantastic it is to have an all-women Deputy Speaker team? Thank you for calling me to speak in this debate on education and opportunity. In it, I would like to pay tribute to my great-grandmother, Emily Jones, who married Thomas Thomas and made sure that her seven children could read. This started our family’s journey from the mines of the Welsh valleys to her namesake standing here in the Chamber today. Malala Yousafzai told us: “One child…one book and one pen can change the world.” I pay tribute to the other Members who have made their maiden speeches here in the House today. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Baggy Shanker), it is great that you have Great British Railways, but if you come after Network Rail in Milton Keynes, we will have words. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden) that I know what it is like to have those strong Welsh women role models. I give him my condolences, but I am sure his mother would be so proud of him here today. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith), one of five Labour MPs now representing Buckinghamshire, shares with me a passion for international development. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) can count me in on her ambition to get 50% of women into this place and I suggest that we have our first meeting in Usk, where I was married. I am the first MP for the new constituency of Milton Keynes Central. It encompasses half of Milton Keynes North and half of Milton Keynes South, and I am sure that my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) and for Buckingham and Bletchley (Callum Anderson) will pay tribute to their predecessors, but I would like to wish Ben and Iain luck in their future and thank them for the collegiate way we have always interacted over the years. I would also like to pay tribute to the late Brian White and to Phyllis Starkey, fantastic former Labour MPs for Milton Keynes, and to the late Kevin Wilson, the best MP Milton Keynes never had. Another former MP for my seat is Robert Maxwell. I have very little in common with him, except that in his maiden speech in 1964 he pleaded against the closure of the Oxford-Bletchley-Cambridge line, which we now know as East West Rail. He was right. He also argued that science, research and technology would be how the UK would become an economic success and how we would improve our NHS. He recognised the challenge of translating those discoveries into products and services, and that challenge remains today. I wonder what he would think of the new town of Milton Keynes, which embraces innovation. We have robots that deliver our groceries. We are at the forefront of driverless technology. We are at the heart of AI, and of regulation, with the British Standards Institution based in my constituency. We are the home of the Open University, the vision of Harold Wilson and delivered by the fantastic Jennie Lee. It was the first university to do distance learning, with learning and opportunity for all at its heart—a true Labour institution. Milton Keynes college delivers opportunities for young people, but hon. Members might not be aware that it also delivers the biggest education to prisons across our country. It is innovation that has led to our economic success, but we have also been innovative in our approach to building our city. We are all pioneers. We have all chosen to live in Milton Keynes. We have moved from across the UK or from across the world to build a better life for our families and ourselves. As Members may have realised from my mid-Atlantic accent, I too have moved around many times. I was born just across the river at St Thomas’s, then my father and I emigrated to Canada when I was young due to a lack of science funding in the UK. My summers were spent in south Wales, learning about my heritage and learning from the strong women in my family. I moved back 24 years ago to care for my gran, and she would be proud that I am here. I now call Milton Keynes my home with my husband and two children. Perhaps it is the lack of history in Milton Keynes that allows us to embrace change. We are different by design. We are building a new kind of city and, as we deliver our manifesto commitment to build new towns, we from Milton Keynes have this advice: it is not just about homes, roundabouts, hospitals and schools. It is about communities and green spaces. It is about places of spirituality and worship. It is about places to gather to celebrate and commemorate. It is about places to explore and exercise, and places to reflect and heal. From Campbell Park to the Milton Keynes Rose and the country’s first ecumenical church, which hosts the community iftar, Milton Keynes values these spaces. The cohesion of a city is based on its community, its culture and its people, and it is done by design, not by happenstance. In Milton Keynes, we work hard to celebrate our city by celebrating our diversity. In just the past few weeks, I have had the pleasure to attend the African diaspora festival; Nelson Mandela Day; Art in the Park, organised by Islamic Arts and Culture; MK India Day, which 15,000 people attended; the midsummer festival, celebrating our pagan past; and the Tamil sports day. These events are open to all, in that Milton Keynes spirit, bringing together people from all backgrounds to bind us as Milton Keynes citizens, to learn about the plurality of our ancestry and to celebrate the diversity of our patina, but bound by our British values, which encompass the ideals of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and, most of all, tolerance. A society is judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, including our children in care—my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) spoke so passionately about his experience—our children with SEND and the growing issue of mental ill health, our refugees, our rough sleepers, our carers, our elderly, our young people at risk of knife crime and all those who suffer from sexual violence and domestic abuse. The previous Government presented these crises as consequences outside their control, but if that were true, why are we here? I am here because I have worked on all these issues in Milton Keynes with colleagues from the amazing city council, which is the only local authority to reduce rough sleeping in the past few years—no one has to sleep rough in Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes is the first city to state its ambition to become a white ribbon city. There is more youth support to prevent knife crime. Communities, parish councils and groups are delivering food parcels, and we are supporting our children in care with housing and employment. There is new support for unpaid carers, who are our heroes. People have the right to have end-of-life care in their own home, and there is the biggest retrofitting and building of council housing in a generation. But there are limits to what can be done locally, so I have made my way to Parliament to get the change that Milton Keynes both needs and deserves. On my journey here, I have found that the reputation of this place is at an all-time low. Even worse, it is a place that causes fear for some people because of the divisive language used both here and on the campaign trail. When a country is divided, it makes it weaker. When arguments lead to violence, it makes our citizens scared. When the rights of one are played against the rights of others, it weakens all of our rights. When we focus on what divides us rather than what we have in common, we lose good MPs like David Amess and my friend Jo Cox. Let all of us who seek to unite our country focus on the “United” in United Kingdom and the “Great” in Great Britain. I am only the second Emily ever to be elected to this House and, like the first, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), I will speak my mind. I end my speech with another Emily, Emily Davison, who was never elected but did find herself in a closet in this House. We will be judged by the British people for our deeds, not our words.