James Frith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. News of the impact of last week’s Budget on schools was greeted with relief in Bury North. The Derby high school is a top-performing school, but its main building dates back to 1959 and faces critical issues. It was due for renewal under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme but was ignored during the 14 years of the Tories. Will the Minister meet me and the school’s leadership team to discuss the urgent need for refurbishment funds?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Taxes on Working People · Hansard source

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  16. What steps she is taking to minimise taxes on working people.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Taxes on Working People · Hansard source

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  In Bury North, child poverty rates are at 43%, densely populated in three of our nine wards: Bury East, Redvales and Moorside. Does the Minister agree with me that minimising tax rises for working people is just the starting point, and that tackling the crippling level of impoverishment for those in work requires a laser focus and intervention from this mission-driven Government?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Israel: UNRWA Ban · Hansard source

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  I join the Government in condemning the decision by the Israeli Parliament. Does the Minister agree that cutting ties and undermining UNRWA leaves us aghast at a time when we need institutions to work effectively, independently and without prejudice to build any prospect of peace and a future after a ceasefire and the return of the hostages? Worst of all, the ban further compounds the misery for the Palestinians and for those of us who still hope for a two-state solution.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements · Hansard source

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  In Bury North, rents and mortgages are still sky high as a direct consequence of the economic legacy of the last Conservative Government. Does the Minister agree that it is no surprise that the Conservatives want to talk about anything other than their economic record?

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I will start by offering some home truths to Opposition Members: someone can be both a member of a union and an employer. I am a proud member of GMB, which donated to my campaign, but I am also proud to have started my own business. I have been an employer, taken risk, and understand the balance of risk and reward. Throughout the debate, Conservative Members, who claim to represent the party of business, have made false representations that are out of date and out of kilter with the debate that we are leading, having been elected with the majority that we have. They are keen to talk among themselves, with their plans to end maternity rights and all the progress the Labour party has made sacrosanct in British law and the experience of work in our economy, but I urge them to look at the result of the election and understand the direction of travel: the Labour party is once again making progress in this country. Today’s leap forward for workers’ rights sits alongside the Government’s No. 1 mission of economic growth—that is, done with the workers not to them. We will be more productive, protective and prosperous, pro-business and pro-worker. The Bill rejects the idea that justice and fairness in the workplace need to come with an arbitrary waiting period. Day one rights will capture headlines, but will not cause alarm for most employers. The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) asked which chief executives support this provision. I met chief executives on Friday who told me that as leaders in their field, they already do much of what we are advocating—so I say to those on the Opposition Benches: get with the programme. Labour has a proud record to recall again today, as we advance these new rights. We have a record of raising the floor and the horizon for workers’ rights, whether through securing maternity, paternity or foster care leave, introducing the minimum wage or ensuring bank holidays. Through a principled link with our trade unions, the Labour party has fought for and delivered rights that once seemed radical but are now woven into our national life and experiences of work. These very advances, initially opposed by the Tories, have now come to be seen as the very standard of how working life in this country should be, and I am all for it, Madam Deputy Speaker—with time to spare.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Healthcare · Hansard source

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  Some of us newly elected or returning MPs have only just got our accommodation and offices sorted out, so I commend the Government on the speed with which they have got surgeons back to work, resolved the doctors’ strike, reviewed and assessed the crisis and made announcements for a decade of national renewal. They have also affirmed the view that our NHS should be treated not as a shrine or beyond question, but as something that must be returned to deep service to our country and play its part as a health and economic public service. Lord Darzi’s review for the Government highlights the critical issues in the NHS and the state we are in, and particularly the underfunding of primary care. It has been neglected in favour of a creeping trend towards hospital services, under the failed principle of leaving it late—the crisis mode setting that applied across our public services under the last Government. By design, people ended up in A&E because of a failure to plan for GP and primary care, with 16% fewer GPs than other high-income countries. The review also points out significant health inequalities, with deprived areas historically receiving insufficient resources. In Bury North, child poverty is up to 43%, densely concentrated in just three of our nine wards. Life expectancy for those living in Bury North ranges enormously: the difference in life expectancy between North Manor and East Ward is five years for women and nearly seven years for men.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Healthcare · Hansard source

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  My colleague makes a valid point; I defer to her knowledge of the public health system. The distance of a mile or so has a huge impact for the men and women living in east Bury. I urge those carrying out the Government review to see how, in constituencies like mine, specific interventions could address those deep health inequalities and identify the work we need to do to resolve that impoverishment in densely populated areas and that ingrained health inequality. I urge the Government also to adopt multidisciplinary care models and shift care closer to home to address these issues—a sentiment that I know Ministers share. Taking a wider view, the funding formulas are outdated and an update is long overdue. That update should take into account the weight of funding pressures for areas such as mine, with a mix of economic and demographic inequality, including the fact that so much of the revenue that our local authority raises is immediately swallowed up by adult care and the disastrous special educational needs system—a symptom of the crisis mode mentality under the previous Government. The Government have wasted no time, investing £82 million to recruit a thousand newly qualified GPs and addressing the dental care crisis with 700,000 urgent dental appointments. The Government also aim to expand the role of pharmacies—a measure I hugely welcome—to reduce the burden on our GP and hospital care, and crucially also for those living with chronic illness or conditions. A boost to the engagement patients can have with health decision makers via the NHS app and an improved trusted status for healthcare professionals will boost this too and reduce the bureaucracy in our caring system. There is a well known saying in good hospitals, “The best hospitals keep people out of them and get people out of them.” This principle strikes at the heart of what has gone wrong in recent years. The problems in A&E, emergency services and waiting times stem from a failure over the past 14 years to design by this doctrine. The key to resolving those issues lies in primary care—preventing people from needing hospital services in the first place and enabling faster discharges when they do. That is where the focus must be.

• 16 Oct 2024 · City and Town Centres: Regeneration · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) on securing such an important debate for those of us who are a bit geeky on towns. It is always nice to stand up in the presence of my good friend the Minister. This is the first time that I am in a position to address him as the Minister in a formal capacity, so let me congratulate him in the hope that it bumps me up the line for community ownership funding as we await the difficult decisions that the Labour Government have to take. First and foremost, I ask that bids that are already in do not fall victim to the general election, that there is no fancy footwork and that we can be assured that the funding bids that made the cut under a previous Administration will now receive funding and authority. I am delighted to be back as the Member of Parliament for Bury North. My constituency has three key towns: Tottington, Ramsbottom and Bury itself. This debate is also about cities, but I want to remark specifically on the role of towns, which are often in the shadow of our greatest English cities, of which Manchester is the nearest to Bury. The plight of our football club shows that community assets are often diminished by policy or decisions taken about us without us. Towns feel ignored when decisions on cultural assets, social capital and economic capital that affect us are taken elsewhere. People in Bury want a degree of self-determination. We have an innovative council that has been trying for well over 10 years to do as much as possible with a diminishing amount of money. Austerity continues, whether that is in the special educational needs crisis, in investment in our road networks or in whether we can afford to cut the weeds and make places look nice enough to visit. It is about the simple things, alongside bigger fixed items such as funding, having a plan and bringing the buses back into public ownership, as our friend Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor, has done so effectively. It is also about taking the last Conservative Government’s levelling-up analysis, which was accurate, and saying, “They were right with the analysis, but they forgot to do the impact assessment. They forgot to do the impact, full stop.” It is not enough to point at projects that may or may not be funded and pit one local authority area or town against another in the “Hunger Games” style of funding that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has described. I ask the Minister for an assurance that the three-year pact with local authorities and the funding that we are due to get for our towns will both be clear as soon as possible after the Budget. I also ask that while waiting for the three-year pact, we do not drop the ball on what is required right now. Despite the financial inheritance of a £22 billion black hole, this Labour Government are saying, “We will not let the mess we have inherited determine every single decision we make about towns and cities and their redevelopment.” Self-determination is hugely important. My final comment is about the assets that we enjoy in Bury, from Broad Street Social—I think I am allowed to mention my favourite bar and my good friend Jen Smith, who helped me to prepare my remarks—to Wax and Beans, which is a great independent record shop, Bloom, which is a terrific eatery and coffee shop, and a wine shop called Kwoff; the House is getting a bit of a sense of where I spend my time. Crucially, people need that time off work, whether it is through flexible working or through a rebalancing of expectations post-covid with their employer, to get out and spend their hard-earned money in the towns that we all want to see thriving. I welcome this debate, in which there is still plenty more to say, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North once again.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Business Confidence · Hansard source

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  I am amazed to hear the hon. Gentleman’s tone the day after the business investment summit. Anyone would think that this debate is happening in a different world or galaxy. What about the billions of pounds that were pledged yesterday? That is action and commitment from businesses that have confidence in this Labour Government, with their mandate and their deep commitment to a new partnership with business. Did he not read the newspaper this morning? Those record-breaking figures spell the truth about Labour’s record-breaking commitment to business investment.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Business Confidence · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making a powerful and clear argument for this Government’s commitment to a new partnership with business. Does he agree that although the sum of investment yesterday is important, grabs the headlines and gets people confident about the future, part of the brief he is responsible for is small businesses, and seeing that they get part of the large investment that was committed to? Will he explore in his final remarks how important that is to small business?

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are not anti. We are for the many and the few. Conservative Members want to remain in their comfort zone following their election defeat. We have all been there, but it is the wrong place to be. It is right that people pay VAT on school fees. I was at a termly governors’ meeting—Opposition Members will like this—when news of the last Government’s bare-minimum teachers’ pay rise came through. There was some welcome surprise that the then Government had done even the bare minimum. That was quickly replaced by the hard-headed financial reality from the business manager. They confirmed to the same meeting that, even with the 3.5% that had been kept in reserve to meet the contribution they were expecting in Bury to make the pay rise, they would face a budget deficit because the teachers would no longer be on strike. That is right—the Tories designed a system where the leaderships of our state schools have to rely on the unfair treatment of our teachers in order to come in under budget. That is the reality that we face, and it is their everyday experience. There have been no maths teachers for year 11s, and the leadership have been weighing up whether to buy in multiple teaching assistants for cover rather than a science teacher for science—if they could find one. There is a huge amount to do, and this measure will only touch on a fraction of the legacy that Labour must clear up from the last Government and their 10 Education Secretaries.

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am pleased to speak in this debate. I am proud to do so for the first time since being put back in my place by the people of Bury North. Returners do not get to be maidens again, so I will just send my best to my predecessor and his family, as is customary. There was not much on which we saw eye to eye, but I respect his work and time in office. I know how losing feels, so I sincerely send him my very best. It will not surprise you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I speak in favour of this Government’s laser focus on tackling inequality in our education system. I support Labour’s plans to end the state subsidy of private schools, and it is right that they pay VAT, as businesses expect to pay. I understand the aspirations of parents who work hard and save to provide for their children. I can introduce any Member to thousands of them in Bury North. Many live in some of the poorest wards in the country. Few could ever afford to pay for private education for their children, so I do not expect them to pay for the private education of someone else’s children with a state subsidy and their own hard-earned money. Forty-three per cent. of children in Bury North live in poverty, and that is concentrated in just three of our nine wards. That is an abject failure of the Conservative party’s 14 years in government—a spike of 10% in as many years. We cannot ignore growing inequalities. Under this Government’s plans, private schools will become subject to VAT. Although that presents new financial considerations for those schools, I would gently push back on the notion that the costs will automatically mean the same in terms of fee rises. Private schools have a range of financial capabilities to absorb some of these costs: reclaiming VAT on supplies and services; drawing on interest from trust funds or assets; considering how the fees for the use of school assets by the wider community can contribute to the overall budget; introducing fee structures or fees for additional specialist support; and joining with schools in neighbouring areas or nationwide to pay for centralised services. They will remain free to determine what to do, but that is necessary in considering business costs. None of this is new to schools. I have met some of the brilliant leaders in our private school sector. They are not exclusively innovative, but on a personal and character level, I have loved meeting them and those they teach. Bury Grammar in Bury North is one example. However, as someone who served as a state school governor until recently, I have seen at first hand the budgetary pressures enforced on the schools that teach 93% of our children. Let us take a moment to consider the Conservative party’s time in office and what has brought us to this point. Under its leadership, we saw an atomisation of our school system, zero accountability for multi-academy trusts, the narrowing of the school system, the off-rolling of children with different abilities, and many young people left without the support they need. It presided over a catastrophic financial crisis for local schools and authorities trying to support children with special educational needs, while SEN families have faced immense frustration, misery and often obnoxious bureaucratic barriers. These parents are forced to navigate labyrinthine systems in pursuit of services that they are legally entitled to access but that remain hidden from view under lock and key.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Hamas Attacks: First Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate on the anniversary of the attacks, and for delivering such an eloquent speech. As we mark a year since the appalling attacks, I proudly add my voice to the Bury Faith Forum and the Bury Council of Mosques in emphasising our shared bonds of faith and humanity, and in calling for a sincere, lasting resolution for Israel and Palestine that begins with the safe return of hostages and an immediate ceasefire. Does my hon. Friend agree that even in these darkest of times, the smallest shard of light shines brightest, and that that light is the release of the hostages; a ceasefire; a sustainable, peaceful, secure Israel; and a sustainable, peaceful Palestinian state?