Josh Fenton-Glynn MP: speeches

Speeches

• 6 May 2025 · Middle East Update · Hansard source

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  Gaza has had aid blocked for two months. Netanyahu said that the population may be moved for their own safety—safety from whom? Can the Minister explain what further diplomatic consequences Israel will face if it continues down this road?

• 5 Mar 2025 · Department of Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to be called to speak in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. When we talk about the NHS, we can argue either about specific investments or about general principles, and like many colleagues, I have received a great amount of correspondence highlighting no end of specific areas where investment is needed. I could also speak about the need to invest in urgent treatment centres in Todmorden, or to celebrate the work of Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS foundation trust—two things that I continue to raise with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. However, as I have the privilege, along with others, of sitting on the Health and Social Care Committee, I want to talk in more broad terms about some of the problems facing our health and social care system, and about how the proposed shifts in the NHS need a reprioritisation of resources. I will focus on what I argue is the most important of those shifts—the so-called left shift of care from hospitals to the community. The hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) outlined the need for that well—even if to hear him speak one might think that it had come from on high, and not as the result of 15 years of the previous Government. One in 10 people are stuck on waiting lists in a healthcare system that is becoming increasingly hospital-centric, and those lists will only grow if we continue on the same course. There is no solution to our crisis in emergency medicine without the left shift of solving problems earlier and closer to home. Of course we need hospitals and to invest in them, but they should be where people go with acute and complex cases, not where they go for want of working services elsewhere. Despite the need to shift to community care being obvious to just about everyone, one of the most glaring revelations of the Darzi report was how poorly successive Governments have gone about achieving that. Meanwhile, we are not training or retaining enough GPs—that is where the renegotiation of the contracts is important. In Calder Valley, the retention crisis has meant that Bankfield and Church Lane surgeries, Northolme practice, and Rastrick health centre all have a ratio of patients to fully qualified GPs that is far higher than the local, regional and national averages—averages that simply do not meet what is needed from our health service. More than a decade after the Dilnot report, social care remains the forgotten service—the Cinderella service, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) artfully called it. With 1.4 million social care staff, our care system is the same size as the NHS workforce, but it receives nothing like the support or understanding of other areas of our health system. The consequence is that our Committee, week after week, hears about delayed discharge, with 20% of beds in my local hospital taken up by people who should be treated at home or closer to home. Meanwhile, carers are missing their appointments because they are delivering care to loved ones, and they end up with worse illnesses, adding to the strain on the NHS. In less than a year, this Government have ended the industrial action in our NHS and delivered 2 million additional appointments, and they are now setting up a new deal with GPs. However, that cannot be the extent of our actions. The 10-year plan cannot continue down the same road that the last Government took us on, of trying to fix a crisis in the NHS by putting more money into hospitals and nothing else, because that tackles the symptoms but not the causes of the problem. Therefore, when setting out the estimates, I urge the Minister to be mindful of the shifts we need to ensure that funding not only increases, but increases with a focus on community and social care. That is what we need for a sustainable system that will protect the rest of our health service in future, because a sustainable system is the only way to deliver better healthcare and better social care for people across the country.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters · Hansard source

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  Stories of children arriving for lessons hungry are far too common in my constituency and across the country, and the issue was exacerbated by the massive rise in child poverty under the last Government. Because of the actions of this Labour Government, however, my constituency will see pilots in Cornholme junior, infant and nursery school, Scout Road academy, Elland Church of England junior, infant and nursery school, and Luddenden Church of England school. Will the Minister confirm that the child poverty strategy, when it is delivered, will build on that and make the scandal of children missing meals a thing of the past?

• 13 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Calder Valley line was listed as a top priority for improvements by Transport for the North’s electrification taskforce 10 years ago, back in 2015, yet my constituents are still waiting for those improvements. Will the Minister commit this Government to delivering the infrastructure for my constituents that the last Government could not?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Budget: Family Farms · Hansard source

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  Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. Our hard-working farmers across Calder Valley want to earn a living from farming, not use their land to avoid tax. After 14 years of neglect by the last Government, which undercut farmers in trade deals, the sector is, however, becoming increasingly unprofitable. I welcome the Labour Government’s new deal for farmers and the 25-year road map to making farming profitable again. Can the Secretary of State assure me that Calder Valley farmers will get their fair share in this new deal and in the new improved countryside stewardship higher-tier scheme next year?

• 19 Dec 2024 · Rural Crime · Hansard source

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  I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. Representing a rural constituency, I am aware of the ongoing problem of agricultural vehicle theft. In Calder Valley, vehicle crime counts for one in every 20 crimes committed. The Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, passed by the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) as a private Member’s Bill, was restricted to the re-sale of specified equipment. However, 18 months since it received Royal Assent, the statutory instrument needed for it to be enacted has yet to be laid. Will my hon. Friend act where the previous Government did not?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I welcome this legislation and this debate. Nothing typifies this Government’s job of cleaning up the mess left after 14 years of the last lot than the need to clean sewage out of our rivers. The need in Yorkshire is greater than in many other places. Yorkshire Water holds one of the worst records for sewage discharges among water companies. Last year, it spilled sewage into rivers across our region 464,056 times. Of those, a staggering 4,125 discharges were into the River Calder, which runs through my Calder Valley constituency, making it one of the most dumped-in rivers in the country. Both numbers had increased since the previous year, yet Nicola Shaw, the chief executive of Yorkshire Water, took home just over £1 million in remuneration, £300,000 of which was a bonus. To put that in context, she earned £2.22 per sewage spill into a Yorkshire river last year. If that is a reward for good performance, one dreads to think what poor performance looks like. In Calder Valley, and across the country, we have had enough, and this Bill rightly reflects that. This Bill gives us an opportunity to hold water bosses and their companies to account, not only through fines and clear regulations but through measures that will allow the criminal prosecution of irresponsible bosses. I welcome this Bill, but I also recognise that it is just a start, an opening step to get our water system back on track. As we continue with our whole-system review, I hope Ministers will also look at the broader impact of water companies, including the cavalier way in which they dig up our roads for weeks on end. Indeed, a road in Hebden Bridge and Todmorden has been dug up to mend a sewer, but businesses are suffering while little work is done over the weekend. More pertinently, in Calder Valley early results from studies by Yorkshire Water into what it can do to alleviate flooding show that in areas like mine, water companies and their assets have a real impact on flooding, so I hope my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will consider looking at the broader role of water companies. In closing, after 14 years of Tory failure polluting rivers across Calder Valley, I am proud to support the Bill and end the sewage scandal. We are serious about our environment, getting our country back on track and cleaning up the mess left by the Opposition.

• 3 Dec 2024 · Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate. While she has personal and constituency experience, this issue is a national crisis for people with SEND. That is due in no small part to the huge rise in the number of people with EHCPs over the last few years. In 2018-19 in Calderdale, where Calder Valley sits, 1,068 children had EHCPs. In the last year, 1,761 children did. That is the start of this problem. We then have the transport plans, which are put together at the last minute. That means that we end up with September stress for SEND parents, who are trying to create a stable school environment for their kids but who find out only at the last minute when they are coming in. On that point, I pay tribute to all SEND parents, who work an extra job in looking after their children, and to some of the charities that do brilliant work in supporting them, including Unique Ways in Calder Valley, which is a fantastic charity. I recently heard a particularly distressing story about SEND provision in Calder Valley. Two children had their epilepsy triggered by stress, and their parents and teachers struggled to provide the support that they needed.

• 28 Nov 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Three women a week commit suicide because of male violence against women, two women a week are killed by their current or former partners, and nearly four in 10 girls attending mixed schools have experienced some form of sexual harassment. In the year to March, there were 11,000 complaints about violence against women and girls on public transport. White Ribbon Day, which we marked earlier in the week, sends the clear message that dealing with this starts with men and the education of men. Given that it is clearly a cross-Government issue, may we have a debate in Government time on cross-Government solutions?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  My constituents in Calder Valley are also sick of the performance of Northern Rail. In July, the Department for Transport issued a breach of notice to Northern Rail, because of its underperformance. Northern Rail’s chief operating officer said that performance was “not good enough”. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that she will prioritise getting Northern Rail back on track?

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

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) on a valiant attempt to pretend his is the best constituency in the country. I say to him: come back when you have two Nobel prize winners and a poet laureate. I rise to give my maiden speech about the constituency of Calder Valley, where I was born and brought up, and where I now raise my family. I have had some time to consider this speech, having been elected at the fourth time of asking. I have stood that many times because I believe that the voiceless in our society need a voice; we have particularly heard that in today’s debate. As is customary, I would like to start with a few thank-yous. I thank my local Labour officials, who for a decade have stood by me and, frankly, put up with me. I also give thanks to the campaigners who gave up so much time to something bigger than themselves; to my agent Marie Wright, who I trusted with my campaign; and to my agent at the three previous elections, Steve Sweeney, a fine councillor and a better human being, who, sadly, is no longer with us to hear this speech. No series of thank-yous would be complete without those to my family, from Calder Valley’s two smallest leaflet deliverers and door-knockers to my amazing wife and all the other family members who have given me emotional and practical support over many years. I owe so much to all of them, and I only hope that I can live up to their expectations of me. Calder Valley, as I know to my cost, is a bellwether constituency, having gone the same way as the Government in every election since 1983. It consists of a string of towns that are all unique, but have a common heritage in the wool trade, and there is a commonality in the way they have faced the world since that trade has died away. To win in Calder Valley and represent it, a candidate has to be able to speak to different people in different communities, and successful Governments should always do so. Donald Thompson, the first MP for Calder Valley, in his maiden speech for the predecessor seat of Sowerby in 1979 referred to the shift in the use of our mills, saying: “Not all the mills now spin and weave…Dozens of them house new industries”. —[ Official Report , 19 June 1979; Vol. 968, c. 1156.] Perhaps the story of the modern Calder Valley is how we have adapted to that change. The towns of Calder Valley run along the River Calder. That river has brought beauty, and supported the textile trade that once made our community world-famous, but it also brought the floods that hit our community particularly hard in 2012, 2015 and 2020—a visible sign of the impact of climate change, which will define many of our coming years. However, the towns have been able to rebuild, relying on an incredible community spirit and a way of being with the world that Chris McCafferty, Calder Valley’s MP from 1997 to 2010, described in her maiden speech as “bloody-minded, proud, pernickety and independent”. —[ Official Report , 21 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 573.] I would demur from saying that myself, but I certainly recognise it in many of the people I represent. When I was 15, Chris was good enough to accept me on work experience in her office. Each town has its own history and traditions, guarded proudly. The town of Todmorden is the traditional county boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire, with Yorkshire governance, an Oldham postcode and an accent somewhere in between. It was home to the famous Radical parliamentarian John Fielden, who changed the law to reduce the number of hours that children could work to 10 hours a day. Over the years, the town has boasted an astonishing two Nobel prize winners and is the birthplace of Incredible Edible, which pioneered growing vegetables in community spaces. Moving down the river, the town of Hebden Bridge was once famous for fustian trousers and the first worker-owned co-operative mill. That mill is now home to Calrec, which makes state-of-the-art mixing desks. Other mills house a thriving creative community. From Hebden Bridge, a short hop down the Rochdale canal takes us to Mytholmroyd, the birthplace of poet laureate, and scourge of GCSE English students everywhere, Ted Hughes. The mid-valley includes Elland, a market town once of such importance that the ground of Yorkshire’s largest football club is named for the road that leads there. Elland is now home to great businesses and even better people. I am proud to be a member of Elland round table, and our annual bonfire raises thousands of pounds for local good causes. Round tables across the country offer a lot of charity work, but they also give men an opportunity to do things alongside each other, creating an intentional community of friends that has been vital to men’s mental health over the years. I pay tribute to them. Elland will soon be improved by a new train station, on which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will hear quite a lot from me in due course. Our rural communities include Ryburn and Greetland— I will pass both spellings to Hansard later—where farmers continue to reinvent themselves. From BSE and foot and mouth to political shocks such as Brexit, the life of a small farmer is never straightforward. However, they should not be underestimated as custodians of our landscape, nature and biodiversity. By supporting small farms, we can answer many of the problems we face in other places. The biggest population centre in the constituency is Brighouse and Rastrick, famous for its brass band that has the dubious honour of the longest-running No. 2 in British chart history. Over the years, Brighouse has produced everything from biscuits to valves, and it perhaps typifies the story of our changing industry as much as anywhere. The mills do not spin and weave, but they are now home to new industries. On to me, I was born and raised in Calder Valley and am keen to continue the campaigning tradition of past MPs from John Fielden to Chris McCafferty, who was a tireless campaigner for women’s rights. Despite my severe dyslexia, I got a good education at Calder high school, thanks to great teachers like my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner). It was the first purpose-built comprehensive school in the north of England. Although no one in my family has chosen politics as their path, it would be untrue to say that they are not political. Indeed, going back to my great-great-grandfather, my family have been Labour supporters. Said ancestor, John Hughes, was agent to Joshua Ritson, the first Labour MP for City of Durham—one of 142 Labour MPs elected in the 1922 cohort, but the only Josh. The 2024 intake saw a 2.9-fold increase in the number of Labour MPs and a sevenfold increase in the number of Joshes. I hope that both numbers continue to hold strong.