Kenneth Stevenson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · West Bank: Forced Displacement · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for securing time for Members to consider this important matter. Before coming to this place, I was an engineer and senior lecturer at Anniesland College in Glasgow. While there, I had the privilege of undertaking British Council work in Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah, and I have seen at first hand the challenges facing the Palestinian people. I have always supported the right of Israel to exist as a democratic, free and peaceful state. However, illegal settlement in the west bank and the associated forced displacement of Palestinians. The rights of Palestinian people to live and travel freely and not have their land occupied by often violent settlers must be central to any long-lasting route towards peace. I commend the UK Government for sanctioning Israeli Ministers who have repeatedly incited violence against Palestinians. The Foreign Secretary was absolutely correct to say that severe acts of violence by extremist Israeli settlers threaten a future Palestinian state. We must redouble our efforts to highlight a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live peacefully side by side. More widely, while focus has turned recently to the conflict between Israel and Iran, it must not be forgotten that Palestinians are being bombed in Gaza. They are dying in pain. They are being starved—thousands have lost their lives as a result of malnourishment. The treatment of the Palestinian people has rightly been called out by the UK Labour Government and we remain fully supportive of a two-state solution where Palestinians and Israelis can live freely and peacefully. I believe that recognition of Palestinian statehood is critical to achieving that. Illegal settlement in the west bank has been a serious issue for a long time. According to UN figures, the issue is as challenging now as it ever has been. Tens of thousands have been displaced from refugee camps as a result of intense Israeli operations and thousands more Palestinians have been displaced in recent months and years as a consequence of settler violence and demolition of housing. Ignorance will never be an acceptable response. Having been in the region and met Palestinian men and women who live with a genuine fear of settler violence, I will always be of the view that we must be unequivocal in our support for a free and secure Palestinian state. I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North for securing this debate and look forward to the Minister’s update on the Government’s work to end illegal and violent settlement in the west bank.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Coalfield Communities · Hansard source

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  I am pleased that we have the opportunity to debate such important matters. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) for securing the time and commend him on an excellent speech. In the villages and towns that make up the wonderful constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, a common theme consistently arises when knocking on doors: the memory of coalmining, the community spirit and cohesion that existed, and the suffering and devastation felt as a consequence of the cruel Tory policy of rapid deindustrialisation. Airdrie and Shotts, like other constituencies we have heard mentioned, sat at the centre of an industrial heartland: in this case, central Scotland. In such communities, young men and women entered skilled employment in their own home town. We are asking the Government to support further the regeneration of coalfield communities, using modern educational and employment techniques, in the hope that that will become a reality once again. The working people of Airdrie and Shotts have been treated as an afterthought for too long. They have been let down by Conservative and SNP Governments who acted in self-interest rather than the interests of the nation. I am delighted that we now have a Government who will ensure that the people of Airdrie and Shotts can mark the legacy of its coalmining past but strengthen, modernise and deliver a more prosperous future. In my family, we remember my late grandfather Jimmy Stevenson, who worked down the pits for over 40 years; my late father-in-law Drew McCracken, who worked in mines across central Scotland for 40 years, scrambling and digging in 18-inch seams, and who carried his brother up the mine after he was killed; and my brother-in-law Derek McCracken, who worked for 10 years in the mines around Plains and Caldercruix. We owe it to them and the other miners to create a new future. It often goes unnoticed that the inequality faced in former coalfields is staggering. While there are many means of measuring the scale of challenge facing former coalfields, I found particular interest in a figure provided in “The State of the Coalfields 2024”. It highlights that Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, which were analysed together for the purposes of the report, was the joint lowest area for jobs for people of working age, with 44 employee jobs for every 100 working-age people. Indeed, Ayrshire and Lanarkshire witness an above average out-of-work benefit claimant rate and are identified in the report as areas where extensive deprivation exists. That is a direct consequence of 14 years of Tory Government: they deepened the inequalities that have scarred constituencies such as mine for decades. However, Scotland as a whole is a country where health inequality is felt on an unimaginable scale, where the inequalities are deep and divisive in equal measure and where there is no worse time to be poor and in need of healthcare. With one in 14 people in Airdrie and Shotts alone in bad or very bad health, the former coalfields that I represent are held back by ill health because of a Scottish Government who have allowed NHS waiting lists to soar. Almost one in six Scots are waiting, waiting and waiting. There is no doubt that the challenges facing my constituents are significant. There are social and economic barriers, because Governments have not undertaken anywhere near enough work to break them down, but I firmly believe in the potential of Airdrie and Shotts and its people. It is a constituency with skilled workers, talented young people full of potential and an older generation who remember its industrial and coalmining past while wanting the best for its future. I thank the Coalfields Regeneration Trust for the work it does to raise awareness of the struggles faced in constituencies such as Airdrie and Shotts. I must also thank the UK Labour Government for delivering a Budget that sees Scotland receive its largest funding since devolution and a pay rise for working people across my constituency. I look forward to working with the Minister and others to regenerate former coalfields and constituencies such as mine. I encourage the Government to work closely with the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which does excellent work in our communities, as we embark on a plan for change, away from the years of social, economic and health barriers blocking the progress of our former coalfield communities.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Budget: Scotland · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) for securing this debate. It is right that we recognise the positive impact the Budget will have on Scotland. For too long residents in my Airdrie and Shotts constituency have been let down by Governments who have treated working people as an afterthought. They have been let down by incompetence from Conservative Governments here in Westminster and SNP Governments in Holyrood. They have felt the impacts in their pockets and can see the impacts in their depleted public services. However, this Budget puts us on a positive journey towards changing that. The Budget delivers the largest settlement for Scotland since devolution. It will allow potential to be unlocked and public services to be invested in. It is a Budget that has ended the era of Tory austerity, puts working people back to the forefront and prioritises economic growth. It is a transformative Budget that has been a long time coming, and it is little surprise that it is a Labour Government delivering it. I thought the Scottish Government would be pleased with the settlement they have received from the UK Labour Government. It has given them the opportunity to right the wrongs of their almost 20 years of mismanagement and incompetence and deliver a budget that works for Scotland’s working people.