Keir Starmer MP: speeches

Speeches

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  It is really important that we unleash the economic potential of north Wales, including by kick-starting the investment zone, which is backed by major businesses like Airbus and JCB, to leverage £1 billion of private investment; investing £975 million to benefit aerospace workers at Broughton, where I met the fantastic young workers; and securing £1 billion of investment in Shotton Mill, securing 300 jobs on Deeside. We put a record amount of money into the Welsh Government at the Budget—a decision that was opposed by Plaid.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Every person should have the right to work, and we will always protect the most severely disabled and those with lifelong health conditions. We need to support Medina and the 200,000 others like her who can and want to work. That is why we are investing £1 billion in personalised and tailored employment programmes and introducing the right to try work guarantee. The Conservative party presided over a failed system that did not help them and then blamed them. We will never do that.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Because it is completely unnecessary. I have teenage children. Almost every school bans phones in school; they do it already. We need to concentrate on what is really important here, which is getting to the content that children should not be accessing. I would genuinely like to work across the House on that, because there is a huge amount of work to do. But the battle is not with schools already banning phones; the battle—an important, emerging battle—is to work together to ensure that the content that children are accessing, wherever they are, is suitable for their age.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  It was Labour that introduced academies and pushed up standards. This is not ideological. I am a parent of two teenage children, both of whom go to a state school, so I am invested in this, and it matters hugely to me. There is nothing ideological about it. That is why we are driving up standards, as we always have done.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Our plan for change has already cut NHS waiting lists by almost 200,000. That has happened for five months in a row during the winter months. The local trust’s waiting lists in my hon. Friend’s area are down 93%, and he is doing great job for his community. We have already delivered 2 million extra appointments that we promised because of the record investment in the Budget. The Conservatives cannot have it both ways: if they welcome NHS investment, they cannot criticise raising the money to pay for it.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Lady talks about the record of the last Government. Under their watch, a third of children started school without appropriate-level development, such as not being able to use a knife and fork. A quarter left primary school without the required standard of reading, writing and maths, and one in five children was regularly absent. That is why we are pushing up standards, with more information from Ofsted, transparency for parents and more interventions where schools need it.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Yes of course, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows. Online safety is important, and important new measures are coming in the next few months under the Act. We need to see whether we can go further on this issue, because there are concerns about whether the measures go far enough. But will the laws be made in this place? Of course they will.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a great champion for his constituents. We are investing £600 million in training up to 60,000 more skilled house builders to support the next generation and deliver 1.5 million new homes. We are creating technical excellence colleges and investing in Stansted airport, creating 5,000 jobs nearby, which will create more opportunities for young people in Harlow.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me, but I do not know the details of the particular incinerator she speaks of and I am not across that. I will make sure, however, that she gets an answer to her question in written form as soon as possible.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I have full confidence in the Chancellor—thank you.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  We will set out the details just as soon as we can, on the basis of the principles that I set out earlier. The welfare scheme overall is not defendable on terms, but it must be one that supports those who need it. The details will be set out.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a superb local champion. Regardless of which club any of us supports, we share a love of the game and they are at the heart of our communities. Albion Rovers is exactly that—a huge point of local pride. I would encourage all efforts to secure the future of the club.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the concern about the situation at Heathrow and I think everybody is very concerned by what happened last week. There are clearly questions that need to be answered on a number of fronts in relation to what happened, and an investigation is ongoing. I will not announce particular parts of our policy and strategy here, at this stage.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  We are investing £100 million in adult and children’s hospices to improve facilities, equipment and accommodation, as well as £26 million in funding through the children’s hospice grant. [ Interruption. ] Conservative Members’ cries and moaning would have a lot more value if they started their questions with an apology for crashing the economy in the first place.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question; he does great work to bring our communities together, especially in Slough. Any form of racial or religious-based hatred is abhorrent and has no place in society. We have set aside over £50 million to protect faith communities and freedom of worship. That is the right thing to do; it is a shame that we have to do it. Our £15 million community recovery fund has been supporting communities affected by the disorder last summer—again, that is the right thing to do, but it is a shame that we have to do it.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  This is a really important issue, and Labour in Scotland has been clear that it would separate that role. That is the right thing to do, for the reasons that have just been articulated; it is the obvious thing to do, and obviously it is what we do in England and Wales. There have been calls for a review of this issue since 2021, but the SNP has not acted fast on those calls. It really does need to bring forward proposals now to deal with this problem, which has been sitting there for a very long time.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. Potholes are a real nuisance; if somebody is using their car or van for work and they hit a pothole, they are looking at a bill of several hundred pounds, which for many working families is unbudgeted for. That is why we are handing the West Midlands combined authority an additional £8.6 million to help repair its roads, as part of a record £1.6 billion invested across the country. On top of that, every council must now publish how many potholes it has filled so that we can show that we are making progress and delivering—something that did not happen under the last Government.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for emphasising this issue again. Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children is sickening—I think all of us across the House would agree on that. A peace settlement in Ukraine must see Russia held to account and those children reunited with their families. In specific reference to my hon. Friend’s question, the UK is playing our full part in international efforts, including funding the Bring Kids Back initiative through the partnership fund for a resilient Ukraine. I want to reassure the whole House that we will do everything we can to see those children returned and reintegrated as safely and quickly as is possible.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  This is a once-in-a-generation moment for the security of our country and our continent. We have set out the fully funded increase in defence spending to 2.5% in 2027, the biggest sustained boost since the cold war, but that must benefit British jobs and British businesses. That is why I will make sure that my hon. Friend gets the meeting that he wants with the relevant Minister.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I congratulate all colleagues working on the Bill and taking part in the debate. It is an important issue on which there are different views across the House and within parties. The Bill is a matter for the House, but it is the Government’s role to ensure that every piece of legislation that passes through Parliament is effective and workable, so we will continue to work with my hon. Friend, as the Bill’s promoter, to do that in the same way that we do for every private Member’s Bill that passes Second Reading. If Parliament chooses to pass the Bill, the Government will implement it in a way that is safe and practicable.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. The courage of these campaigners, after simply appalling cases, is astounding and I find it humbling. I am pleased that the Minister for Victims my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) will be meeting the group—today, I think—and I look forward to meeting them in future, because we must prioritise victims and make sure that sentences punish offenders and protect the public. I thank him for raising that really important set of cases.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for fighting SNP incompetence on behalf of her constituents. Yet again, the SNP is failing island communities. Hospital appointments are being missed and livelihoods destroyed. Scotland has a proud history of shipbuilding and engineering. The SNP should be supporting Scottish workers and focusing on delivering for our communities.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Shale Gas Wells · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member asks about shale gas. There are very real economic and environmental consequences to fracking, and communities have clearly said no.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Shale Gas Wells · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Member knows that there are real consequences of fracking, as I have set out. What we need to do to secure our independence and the next generation of jobs and to lower bills is move at speed to renewable energy. That is why I am pleased that record investment is coming into renewable energy so that a tyrant like Putin cannot put his boot on our throat. If the Conservative party do not want to support that investment, they should say so.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  We are working closely with our European colleagues, and the EU in particular, on a reset of the relationship. We will not be returning to freedom of movement—I have made that clear repeatedly —but we are making good progress.