Jo White MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Oct 2024 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  2. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle violence against women and girls.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I very much welcome Lord Darzi’s report, which exposes how our country was let down by the previous Government. In my Bassetlaw constituency, I will be asked when people who need a GP appointment will get one, and when the 2,000-person dental waiting list will come to an end. I am listening to my GPs and my dentists so that I can work with them to tackle this crisis. I will be meeting them shortly. What is the Secretary of State’s message to them all?

• 5 Sept 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Like my right hon. Friend, my constituent spent hours on Saturday queuing to purchase Oasis tickets. He got two at the hyper-inflated price of £800, tickets that were originally on sale for £150 each. Lengthy queuing puts people under significant pressure to purchase tickets and potentially make rash financial decisions that they may later regret. The insurance industry is required to provide a 14-day cool-off period to give people space for reflection. Will the Minister consider widening the forthcoming consumer protection Bill to include such a clause dealing with dynamic pricing ticket sales?

• 2 Sept 2024 · Violent Disorder · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Home Secretary for her statement. I agree with her point that it is perfectly possible to have a debate in our country about immigration and many other issues without resorting to looting shops, attacking minority groups and throwing bricks at police. In my constituency, I regularly have conversations with local people who feel that net migration is too high, and who worry about the cost of asylum hotels and the number of people entering our country illegally. In electing me, they have elected an MP who is prepared to raise those issues in Parliament and work with the Government to address them. Does the Home Secretary agree that that is how a democratic country like ours should operate, rather than a bunch of hooligans using those subjects as an excuse to smash up shops, burn cars and attack the police?

• 30 Jul 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  My local authority agreed its local plan during the general election campaign, and it was the first authority in the country to commit section 106 funds to our local hospital. As its deputy leader, I was very proud to lead on that. I see section 106 funding as the most effective method of mitigating the impacts of development and bringing in much-needed funding for infrastructure. How does the Deputy Prime Minister envision section 106 funding being reformed to make it a far more effective method of bringing in infrastructure spending?

• 25 Jul 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Will the Leader of the House allow time for a debate on the failure of Conservative-controlled Nottinghamshire county council to build the desperately needed expansion of Outwood academy Portland, a secondary school in Worksop, despite the £4.5 million of community infrastructure levy money I received in April last year when I was Bassetlaw district council’s deputy leader?

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  I begin by thanking the people of Bassetlaw for putting me here. My commitment is to serve all residents to the best of my ability. I thank the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) for his contribution, and I look forward to debating with him in this place. Today’s debate has a direct link to the ongoing discussions on poverty. Having seen the last Government shut all three Bassetlaw police stations and both courthouses, I will have much to say on the issue in this Parliament. Crime and poverty have a clear connection. I need no lessons on how a lack of money impacts on children growing up—I lived it—but that experience taught me something far more valuable in understanding the impact of poverty and inequality, because what my family lacked in money, we more than made up for in love and in hopes and dreams. I was brought up to believe in me and what I could achieve. My mother got herself out of poverty because of the Open University, and my father made a choice all too familiar today. He gave up his engineering job to be a Sainsbury’s warehouseman to guarantee cheaper food, and of course he served as a shop steward for USDAW. I remain proud of both my parents for what they did for me. I was a free school meal kid—separate queue, of course—and a free school uniform kid, with clothes from the jumble sale and no new, smart, bright white socks for me, but I had no poverty of aspiration, no holding back, no shutting down of my dreams. That is good parenting, backed by their hard work. I commuted six hours every day to complete my own studies, taking my newborn baby in a carrycot with me. That is what learning to aspire results in. I get the little me’s so common in Bassetlaw and elsewhere: they are my people, my responsibility. Money is often a problem, but poverty of aspiration is much a bigger one to overcome. You are told that you cannot do that, that this door is not for you, that you stink, that you are thick, that your hopes are only ever dreams and can never be realised; well, this kid never stopped dreaming. Today’s little me’s—the ones who do without the flashy trainers, who play outside but never go inside the big sports stadiums or the posh restaurants and the cafés, who do not fly on aeroplanes or get taken to museums or theatres, who have never seen the King or his palace or Big Ben—in my area, in my constituency of Bassetlaw, are too often expected by this place to celebrate a rapidly changing world by getting to the back of the queue and behaving themselves. I am not having that. I drove trucks across the channel—the only woman in the drivers’ section on the ferries. Small boats—new problem? The flight cases I drove were huge, with ventilation and a false bottom. The border sniffer dogs were an infrequent luxury. I regularly ran the gauntlet of organised crime and desperate people. My predecessor had the biggest swing in 2019. I broke the record again but then quickly lost it to even more historic big swings to Labour. I know he likes his beer and I applaud his regular support for our local pubs, where he can drown his sorrows every time his beloved Notts County football club fails to deliver. I do not know whether he is planning on taking up golf, but Bassetlaw is the centre of British golf with seven serious golf courses, Ryder cup hosts and star players, and a magnificent municipal golf course. We regularly provide more of the Ryder cup team than entire golfing countries and Joe Dean of College Pines golf club showed the potential to reach these heights at the Open this weekend. From Danny Willett to Matt Fitzpatrick, we continue to grow international golfers—Lee Westwood, our freedom of the borough champion, continues to inspire our young boys and girls. He learned his trade on the council-run golf course, which is open and affordable to all. Nobody stopped me dreaming big and that is the Bassetlaw I intend to deliver. My style of being an MP will be outcomes-based. If I can do it, then so can you. Look not only at where you are, but at where you are going. This kid made it here and I put you all on warning: I will be knocking on the doors that kids in my area do not go through, and they will be coming with me, and I can assure you that I will channel my inner Michael Caine for those of you who choose to ignore my knock. The biggest single crime would be to get here, where people like me are not supposed to be, and merely sit here and make up the numbers. This kid has only just begun and there is no time to waste.