Jeevun Sandher MP: speeches

Speeches

• 28 Oct 2024 · International Engagement · Hansard source

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  The pandemic, rising interest rates, and rising wheat and energy prices after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine have led to a debt crisis in low-income nations. Some 32 African nations spend more on servicing their debt than they do on healthcare. I used to work in one of the world’s poorest nations, Somaliland. I have seen what grinding poverty can do. The horrors of climate change are leading to drought, hunger and death. Will the Minister consider repeating one of the proudest actions of the last Labour Government by acting to end the debt crisis and, by doing so, help to end extreme poverty once and for all?

• 15 Oct 2024 · Scotland’s Economy · Hansard source

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  Can my hon. Friend confirm that his industrial strategy—and indeed GB Energy and our clean energy revolution—are not merely theoretical? They are working practically in the United States, the fastest growing economy in the G7, and are creating jobs in those former industrial areas. Indeed, this Labour Government will help to bring that about in Scotland, creating good jobs in those areas that need it most.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  Whatever has happened in the years and decades gone by, this is the question before us now: a step forward to help reform the House of Lords. We do not claim that we in this House are perfect; we only make steps towards it. The step before us today is a simple one, and one that I think that no Member of this House can disagree with. It is that no son should have a place in the Lords, by right, because their father gives it to them. That is what is before us, and surely the hon. Gentleman can agree with that.

• 7 Oct 2024 · NHS Performance: Darzi Investigation · Hansard source

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  Across my constituency, my constituents are struggling to see the GPs they need; indeed, we see that across the whole nation. On Friday, I visited the Park View surgery, where the GPs do not have the necessary resources and cannot move into the premises that they need to be in to treat their patients. Can the Secretary of State assure me that he will follow Lord Darzi’s recommendations and invest in primary care, so that my constituents get the GPs they need and the Park View surgery can move into the premises that it needs, with the capital expenditure that it requires?

• 4 Sept 2024 · Budget Responsibility Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to give my maiden speech in this House. Like every Member across this House, it is the greatest honour, privilege and responsibility of my life to represent my community of Loughborough, Shepshed and the villages. I rise at the most difficult moment for our communities and our country since the second world war, when many feel despondency, despair and anger. I know that every Member across this House wants our communities to succeed and to contribute to our national success. That is what my community has done before and will do again, with hope and determination. My story does not begin in Loughborough. I was not born there—unlike my neighbours, who are now my friends, and who have made it my home. My story instead begins in rural Punjab, 4,000 miles away, where my father was born almost 70 years ago. His chances of dying before his fifth birthday were one in four. Today, a child born in the same place is around nine times less likely to die. That is what economic growth means. It means less suffering, it means less misery and it means less death. That is why I became an economist: to build prosperity and to lessen misery. I learned my trade in the Treasury and then went to work in Somaliland, one of the poorest nations on Earth, where I helped to write its economic policy, its budgets and its national development plan. That was where I saw the horrors of climate change lead to drought, hunger and death, but it was also where I learned that even in the darkest of hours and the most difficult of moments we can build prosperity. Now I stand here as the elected Member of Parliament for my community. It says something remarkable about our nation that the fact that I, the son of immigrants, am standing in this Chamber is in and of itself unremarkable. It speaks to our common culture—a culture forged of different backgrounds, a culture that not only rejects the violence we saw over the summer, but completely rejects its reasoning too. My election represents an historic first for my community. I am a member of an under-represented minority—I am, of course, the first Member of Parliament elected by the men and women of Loughborough to have a beard. To the organisers of the beard of the year competition I say, “Call me.” Luckily for me, my dad is not eligible for that particular competition. I know that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has won the award several times; I hope he does not mind me winning the prize this time, as long as I let him win the argument. My predecessor in this place, Jane Hunt, was not a contender for that award, but no one can doubt her commitment to team Loughborough, and every single Member across this House and across my community will wish her the very best, especially as she has recovered from cancer. Her predecessor, Baroness Morgan, has talents that are well known both in this and the other place. Before her was my good friend and mentor Andy Reed. Members who know Andy will know that he is still a leading figure in sports policy, and they will also know that Andy is the nicest man in British politics. It is his character that I hope to live up to in this place. However, I rise to speak at the most difficult time for our communities and our nation since 1945. Our communities are in crisis. Wages in my constituency are £10,000 lower than they would be had we grown at new Labour rates. The divides caused by deindustrialisation have widened from cracks into chasms, with young men who used to leave school and get good jobs now 20% less likely to get any job; in our most deprived neighbourhoods, life expectancy falling before the pandemic; more than any fact or figure, the despair, the despondency and the anger; across and beyond our shores, war in Europe once more, with democracy in danger; and, most seriously of all, a planet that is burning. For my community, this was the hottest summer we have ever known, followed by the worst flooding we have ever seen, destroying homes. The Prime Minister and I saw that destruction when we visited the homes of Ian and Alan. No one should wake up in the morning to find their home destroyed by flooding, but that will only become more common in the years ahead. What we do in the next decade will determine the fate of our communities, of democracy and of our planet. Either we will rise to this moment, build prosperity for all, protect democracy and stop emitting carbon, or everything we hold dear will crumble and fall. Previous generations have shown us that we can rise to this moment that threatens us. Our country stood alone against fascism in Europe and won. I think today of my constituent William Williams, 104 years old, who flew Spitfires in the war. As his generation rose to their moment, so can we. My community have shown me that we can. When the waters came and the floods rose, my constituents Caz and Carl did not pause to think if they could help, only how they could help. They organised collections, they provided refuge, and they looked after perfect strangers. It is their spirit that I carry into this place—asking not if, but how. How can we build prosperity and protect our planet from burning? We can do so by investing in a green transition that creates good jobs and gets wages rising for the people and places left behind when the factories closed. That is what we can achieve, and we are seeing it work already in the United States.

• 29 Jul 2024 · Public Spending: Inheritance · Hansard source

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  I used to work in the Treasury; what we have heard today about the Conservative party is shocking and shameful. The Chancellor has set out how far away the last Government were from meeting their own targets on hospital building. Does she agree that our plan, by contrast, represents a deliverable way to ensure we get waiting lists down?