Katrina Murray MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Nov 2024 · Financial Services: Mansion House Speech · Hansard source

  More

  As a long-term member of the NHS Scotland credit union, I know the importance of having community and workplace-based savings and lending provision, which is much more accessible for people on low incomes than buy now, pay later. However, it has become much more challenging for the sector to operate beyond the common bond. What is the Minister doing to ensure that credit unions are able not only to compete with the wider financial sector, but to thrive in those circumstances?

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

  More

  Lord Darzi’s independent report pronounced that the NHS in England was in a critical condition. By commissioning the report and through the announcements in last week’s Budget, the Government have declared their intention to fix our NHS and set a firm foundation for the future. I particularly commend the decision in the Budget to invest in mental health crisis centres, in order to move those experiencing a mental health crisis away from the accident and emergency unit. Although we will always need crisis support, mental health provision—like physical health provision—should focus on intervention at the earliest possible juncture, rather than relying on emergency care. So often, those in need of mental health care face barriers to accessing help. They face difficulty in getting GP appointments and being referred to the appropriate waiting lists, and they then spend years on those waiting lists. Young people with neurodevelopmental conditions might spend years not being seen by local child and adolescent mental health services, until their case is referred to the private sector because they are about to turn 18 or they are transferred to the bottom of the adult waiting list. The Budget is clear that there is a need for investment. My Scottish constituents have been failed by two Governments. The previous Conservative Government have rightly been the focus of much of today’s debate, but the current Scottish Government have been asleep on the job, quite frankly. All the signs that made Lord Darzi say that the NHS was in crisis in England apply just as much to Scotland. One in six Scots are on a waiting list for treatment, tests or appointments. Hospitals post on social media telling patients not to go to accident and emergency unless their condition is life-threatening—my local hospitals did so on 27 October. GPs are at breaking point, with a prescription system that still requires paper and fax machines, and there is no NHS app or e-prescribing for Scottish patients. I commend the largest budget settlement for the Scottish Government in the history of devolution. Now, the Scottish Government must use it to fix the system that they broke. Devolution is massively important to me—I knocked on doors to campaign for the creation of the Scottish Parliament—and I will defend it with my life, but we want to ensure that it works for everyone, so that there is no chance of “big boy done it and ran away.”

• 30 Oct 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 30 October.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  I would like to associate myself with the remarks made by the Prime Minister. Cumbernauld in my constituency was promised an elective and diagnostic treatment centre by the Scottish Government in 2021. This has continued to be delayed and is now alleged to be mothballed. What assurances can the Prime Minister give me that any Barnett consequentials from today’s Budget will be used to benefit my constituents and not be held on to by the Scottish Government?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  “Buy now, pay later” is attractive to young people who are trying to survive on zero-hours contracts with irregular hours. What assurances can the Chancellor give me that the coming regulations will protect this group from problematic debt?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Pub and Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

  More

  I commend you for your chairing of this debate, Ms Vaz, and I commend the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this debate. I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner), who spoke about the role of the community pub, and the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool), who spoke about the importance of the industry, the challenges it faces and the fact that, when hospitality businesses close, the heart of a community is ripped out. The more rural a community is, the bigger the hole that is left. When the local pub in my constituency was threatened with closure after its lease was up, the PUB stepped in—People United for Banton, not the bar. The village had already lost its post office and its shop and, with the pub about to be turned into residential accommodation, the community stepped in. It formed a management committee, secured community funding and shareholding, and reopened The Swan, fully renovated, in the middle of the pandemic. It is not just a pub; it is the centre and social hub of the community. It is warm and friendly, and last month I was proud to attend the Macmillan coffee morning in the village, along with local councillors. Nearly £2,000 was raised, which isn’t bad for a village of just over 350 people. We can surely agree that we need a good-quality steak pie —that is really important in my part of the world—good coffee, a nice wee gin, and somewhere to watch the football or dry off after a dog walk. Our pubs are vital.

• 21 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  According to research by UK Feminista, over a third of female school pupils have been sexually harassed while at school. Much of this can be traced back to misogynistic online influencers and the harmful impacts of pornography. Will the Home Secretary tell the House what she is doing to prioritise women’s online safety and how she is engaging with counterparts in the devolved Administrations to ensure that no woman or girl is left behind when it comes to ending sexual harassment and the exploitation of women?

• 21 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q11. The Fairways Networking Group is a group of small businesses in my constituency, all of which operate on tight margins. Can my right hon. and learned Friend help me to reassure this group that not only do they have nothing to fear from the Employment Rights Bill, but they have plenty to gain as exemplar employers?

• 15 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

  More

  14. What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of patient access to primary care services.

• 15 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Care · Hansard source

  More

  Access to GP appointments is consistently raised with me in Cumbernauld. A number of constituents have informed me that, having made complaints, they have been removed from the list of the general practice at which they have been patients for many years. Will the Minister raise the matter with the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, so that we can get some resolution for my constituents?

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

  More

  Digital access has become an increasingly essential part of everyday life. However, large parts of my constituency suffer from both slow speeds and digital dead zones, which has a massive impact on residents and businesses, particularly as more of my constituents are embracing flexible hybrid working. Will my right hon. Friend grant a debate on digital connectivity?

• 3 Sept 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Chair, for calling me to speak in this debate on public ownership of the railways. As a lifelong trade unionist who has spent the last 20 years campaigning to bring public services back from the private sector, this issue is understandably close to my heart. I congratulate all the other Members who have made their maiden speech today. New Members from across the House have shown their passion and their reasons for being here. I very much appreciated the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) for reasons that may become apparent. It is a great honour to be the first Member of Parliament for the new constituency of Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch. My thanks go to the people of the communities that make up the constituency for placing their trust in me. I pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, Stuart C. McDonald, who was MP for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East for the last nine years. It is appropriate that I am making my maiden speech as the ballot for private Members’ Bills takes place in the Lobby, because the progression into law of his private Member’s Bill, protecting the rights of parents of premature babies, shows that we can all make a difference when we work together in the House. As Stuart C. McDonald said in his maiden speech, the former Member for Glasgow South was also called Stewart McDonald, and there continued to be significant confusion. Many Members may not be aware—well, the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) will know—that there is a further complicating factor locally, in that East Dunbartonshire council’s Kirkintilloch East and North and Twechar ward is very ably represented by Councillor Stewart MacDonald. I thank all of them for the commitment that they have shown to their communities. I wish to thank a further predecessor, Rosemary McKenna. She served initially as Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, then as Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, from 1997 to 2010. When I was a young woman activist in the Scottish Labour party, Rosemary was one of the big influences on me that eventually brought me to this place. She was one of the people who sat me down and said, “Maybe you should think about standing.” The new constituency of Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch runs from the boundary of Glasgow in Millerston to the boundary with Falkirk at Castlecary, and is bisected by the M80 motorway. It is served by Croy station on the main Glasgow to Edinburgh express railway line, with Stepps, Greenfaulds and Cumbernauld being on the local line from Glasgow. Rail services are vital in a constituency where people travel to work. Cumbernauld was designated a new town in 1955, but it has a very rich history. It includes Cumbernauld village and its weavers, and Condorrat, and the rich farmland between the Campsie hills to the north and the Luggie water to the south. There have been settlements there since before Roman times. The northern boundary of Roman Britain, the Antonine wall, runs through the constituency. The Bar Hill fort, garrisoned by people from across ancient Europe and the middle east, which was established to protect the wall, is still accessible from Twechar. Evidence of the mining history of the constituency remains strong. There is the Kilsyth Victoria cottage hospital, one of the places in the constituency where I first went to work; the remnants of the miners’ rows, which are now farm outhouses; and the vast swathes of new housing built on former colliery land in Cardowan, Chryston, Kilsyth and Twechar. It would take a far braver woman than me to make comments about football in the weeks leading up to or following an Old Firm game. Cumbernauld’s most famous outing on film was in the 1980s Bill Forsyth classic, “Gregory’s Girl”. For those who are not familiar with the film, it centres around a school football team who experience a significant improvement in form when one of the girls, Dorothy, turns up for the trials and subsequently plays up front as a striker. This film is a firm Murray family favourite. Our house was burgled when I was quite young, and the younger members of the Murray family were probably more upset that the “Gregory’s Girl” video was in the recorder that had been stolen, so it is poetic that one of Scotland’s biggest women’s teams, Rangers Women, play all their home matches at Broadwood in Cumbernauld. I am sure that I can pass on the best wishes of probably most in this House for when the team faces Arsenal’s women’s team in the semi-finals of the first qualifying round of the champions league tomorrow. As I have said, one of the big selling points of the constituency is its connectivity to Scotland’s central-belt cities. If there is to be that connectivity, we need a proper, integrated public transport system, based on public need, rather than on the most profitable routes. No matter which part of the constituency I am in, what people want to talk to me about most is public transport—whether it is an amended railway timetable that means that there are no services after 10 am on a Sunday, or a bus service that gets cancelled because there is no cover to allow the driver to take a break. During the summer holidays, the youth group at Twechar Healthy Living and Enterprise Centre planned a day trip to Millport using the bus service. It involved multiple buses and ferries, but it required phoning around to get lifts back to the village for the last leg of the journey, as the Twechar bus stopped running at 5 pm. Like most of us, I have spent more time than is healthy considering the basis of my politics and values. One benefit of making my speech later on is that I have been able to listen to the maiden speeches of so many other Members. When the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) made his maiden speech, he spoke about Galloway dairy farms, which was important to me because I immediately thought of my grandmother. She grew up on one of those farms. The oldest daughter of the dairyman, she was bright; she passed her 11-plus and was entitled to a place at the grammar school. But in the 1920s, dairymen’s daughters did not go to grammar schools, certainly not if they were the eldest and they had six younger siblings. She never forgot that, and among her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren there was an expectation that we would take all the educational chances open to us, and fight for them when they were not obvious. We were expected to “stick in” at school, go to university and, when we had got our qualification, embrace a life of service. I am proud to come from a family of teachers, doctors, civil servants, health workers, school staff and social care staff. I am also proud of the fact that my parents are here today. We were supported in challenging things that were not fair and standing up for ourselves. It is probably no surprise that I ended up a trade unionist in the health service, fighting for public services and never shutting up. For the whole of my working life, I have worked in partnerships and tried to build alliances between workers, and between communities. Many of the communities of Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch are at a point of transition. It is in a spirit of partnership and alliance that I will work to strengthen the bonds that bind our people together. I will work in this place, and in Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, to confront the challenges that we face around those points of transition, and to ensure that it is what unites us that guides us. This afternoon, we have heard from across the House all the points that unite us. Let us focus not on difference, but on areas of agreement, because we cross paths far more often than we cross swords.