Kenneth Stevenson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Dec 2024 · Great British Energy: Job Creation · Hansard source

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  I was delighted to see the Government’s commitment to reindustrialise our nation, creating thousands of jobs in the process. This is the difference that a Labour Government can make, cleaning up the mess of the Tories and putting this country back on track. My constituency of Airdrie and Shotts is at the heart of Scotland’s central belt. Once an industrial heartland, it is full of skills and potential waiting to be unlocked. Will the Minister work with me to ensure that the benefit of the significant job creation that the Government are undertaking will be felt in my constituency?

• 17 Dec 2024 · Great British Energy: Job Creation · Hansard source

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  13. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of Great British Energy on job creation in industrial communities.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Educational Opportunities · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this debate. As a former senior lecturer at a further education college in Glasgow, I recognise the importance of this issue across the UK, but I will focus my brief remarks on Scotland. In Scotland we have had 17 years of SNP Government: 17 years of money being spent on projects that have not worked and 17 years of further education being treated as an afterthought. As a former FE lecturer in engineering, I will always place particular value on STEM courses. A once-great industrial nation, Scotland has communities such as mine in Airdrie and Shotts where the industries of the past still shape who we are today, and indeed where we will go in the future. However, I cannot stress enough the importance of the word “opportunity”. Opportunity for a decent education beyond our school years and for well-paid, secure employment is something we may take for granted, but for many in my constituency it is a distant possibility rather than a reality. I took the time to attend a meeting of the Educational Institute of Scotland, my former union, in North Lanarkshire, and hear directly from FE staff. The words “undervalued”, “overworked” and “underpaid” came up again and again. As a former senior lecturer myself, it was tough to hear that the challenges of working in the sector had worsened only a few years after I left, but my passion to see renewed focus on and investment in FE has only strengthened. The lack of investment is understandable from a Scottish Government that are financially illiterate. We have come to expect this narrow Weltanschauung from them. However, we must understand how it came about: too many people placed at the top of institutions in our country who have never had a trade, never worked their way up learning every aspect of their trade or business, and never understood the basics of how industry works and what technical and human skills are required for a modern workforce. I attended the Open University—an unashamedly Labour policy—and place significant value on a good education and the importance of opportunity in an individual’s outcomes. I will use my time in this place to fight to eliminate barriers to that, and I look forward to working with hon. Members in doing so. Again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe for securing this important and timely debate.

• 30 Oct 2024 · Inward Investment: Scotland · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. It is refreshing to see a Government working across Departments to ensure a pro-worker, pro-business and pro-growth approach that attracts inward investment. After years of Scotland being let down by two poor Governments, how does he see this new Labour Government approach benefiting my constituents in Airdrie and Shotts?

• 30 Oct 2024 · Inward Investment: Scotland · Hansard source

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  3. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on encouraging inward investment into Scotland.

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a great pleasure to follow the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover and Deal (Mike Tapp), and the excellent maiden speeches of the hon. Members for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) and for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), and my hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith), for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) and for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers). I make my maiden speech with a great deal of pride. Serving the people of Airdrie and Shotts is an immense privilege, and one that I will never take for granted. I hope that my dad, Howard, will be pleased as he watches at home, and that he knows that it is the value of hard work that he and my mum, Millie, instilled in me—along with the assistance of many others, including my wife, Julie, who is watching here today—that has brought me to this place. The opportunity for me to make my maiden speech today is all the more special because we are debating the Employment Rights Bill. As we chapped doors across the constituency for over a year, our key commitment was to deliver an upgrade to workers’ rights the like of which has not been seen for a generation. I am delighted that we are making such rapid progress, and I thank the Minister and the Government for putting this at the forefront of our efforts to give Britain back its future. I look forward to seeing the impact of this Bill on workers in my constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, and across the country. I pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, Anum Qaisar. I never questioned her commitment to the job she was elected to do, nor to the causes for which she fought so passionately. I wish her well in the future. Looking back a bit further into the history of the Airdrie and Shotts constituency, and of the seats that came before it, I have to mention some of the giants who have served these communities. From Jennie Lee, a key figure in the creation of the Open University, where I obtained my qualification, to Peggy Herbison, a Shotts woman to her core, who led the way for women in politics and whose impact is still felt in Shotts to this day; and from John Reid, a pivotal figure in the last UK Labour Government, to John Smith, a truly excellent leader of my party, taken before his time, who put the Labour party firmly back on the path towards Government. Although, on reflection, I may be making a rod for my own back by mentioning such influential and consequential figures, it is only right that I recognise their contributions to this place, to the communities I now represent, to the Labour movement and, indeed, to this country. Members will be surprised to hear this, but I am going to make a comparison between Airdrie and the ancient city of Rome—before Members ask, it is not the weather. Like Airdrie, Rome is also built on seven hills. A popular Airdrie pub quiz question is to name them, but I will not attempt to do so today, because of the risk of missing one out—what a start that would be! The communities of Airdrie and Shotts, along with the many surrounding villages, are steeped in industrial history. These towns and villages, including Harthill, Eastfield, Salsburgh, Allanton, Bonkle, Hareshaw, Hartwood, Morningside, Cleland, Holytown, Newarthill, Newmains, Plains, Chapelhall, Gartness, Calderbank, Glenmavis, Caldercruix, Upperton, Longriggend, Wattston and Greengairs, are of great importance to the history of Scotland and the wider UK. In coalmining, manufacturing, textiles, engineering and pharmaceuticals, the communities of Airdrie and Shotts have been home to skilled employment, and they have been at the centre of the various advances we have witnessed in previous decades. In fact, I completed my apprenticeship at a modern manufacturing facility in Shotts that was sadly closed during the times of rapid deindustrialisation. It was there that I learned my trade as an engineer and grew as a person. The advice of ex-miners, steel workers and foundry workers was invaluable. My second career as a lecturer at Anniesland college was informed by the people of Glasgow. I learned so much from my fellow lecturers and from the area’s students. The Shotts factory humour is not generally something I would repeat in this Chamber, but I can share the first piece of advice I got as an apprentice: “Never argue with anybody stupider than yersel, son.” Oscar Wilde, it was not, and having listened to the discourse in this place, I am sure I will not need that advice here. Regardless, I will forever be indebted to the people of the area I was born, raised and worked in. I hope that legislation such as the Bill we are debating today will reignite the industrial and technological potential that exists within these communities. There are two things I could not go without mentioning in my maiden speech. The first is the groups and organisations at the heart of my constituency. My Scottish colleagues will be well aware of the work and impact of St Andrew’s hospice in Airdrie. Many, if not most, people in Lanarkshire will have a relative or a family friend who was cared for by the hospice, and will therefore know its incredible value. It is an immense honour and privilege to serve these people and communities. In me, they have a Member of Parliament who has lived in the constituency throughout my life, who values its potential and who is determined to overcome the challenges it faces. I will do my best to abide by my Stane primary school motto, “Persevere”, and by my Calderhead high school motto, “Facta non verba”—deeds, not words. Today’s debate on the Employment Rights Bill is a critical step towards delivering a long-overdue new deal for working people, and it will be the working people of Airdrie and Shotts who I have in mind throughout my time in this Parliament.