Laurence Turner MP: speeches

Speeches

• 17 Oct 2024 · Telegraph Poles: Planning Permission · Hansard source

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  I know that my hon. Friend has been doing extensive work on this issue. There are similar problems in my Birmingham Northfield constituency, and I would be sympathetic to having different approaches in rural, semi-rural and built-up urban areas, precisely because of the issues she raises.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Telegraph Poles: Planning Permission · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles).

• 17 Oct 2024 · Telegraph Poles: Planning Permission · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for making those points. He highlights issues that are common across the wider region and, I suspect, the country. I will come on to some of the regulatory changes that could be made, but it is important to recognise that there was a requirement for companies to share infrastructure wherever possible. However, I will discuss some of the cases in my constituency where that clearly is not happening. I want to draw attention to some of the problems in my constituency. I recently attended a residents’ meeting in a street in Birmingham Northfield called Pineview, a quiet cul-de-sac that is set back from a busy road. The community is close-knit, and over the years, the residents have invested their time and a considerable amount of money to ensure the upkeep of the area. They have lived with underground telecommunications infrastructure, which serves different operators, and they have experienced a positive service. However, residents report that four telegraph poles were installed on the road last year, starting early in the day and finishing late at night, with intrusive spotlights to facilitate the work. There was very limited community engagement, despite the residents taking up the company Brsk’s suggestion that a petition be collected. That was done, but to no effect. I also draw attention to Lovell Close in Weoley. It is another small cul-de-sac, with only half a dozen houses and narrow pavements, but activities by two competing companies are now causing obstruction for residents and users of an adjoining public park. The hope that the infrastructure would be shared is not being observed in practice, and there are ongoing problems with pavement parking across south Birmingham. I know that Transport Ministers are looking separately at this issue, but the fact is that the combination of pavement parking and the loss of pavement space to poles has created obstructions and pinch points. This is a particular problem for those with prams and mobility scooters. There are also problems in the Bournville conservation area, which I discussed recently with the Bournville Village Trust. I place on record my thanks for the local representations that have been made to me in advance of this debate by Councillors Esther Rai, Miranda Perks and Jamie Tennant in my constituency, and Liz Clements and Fred Grindrod in the neighbouring ward of Bournville and Cotteridge. I also want to mention the work done on this issue by my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill)—as she said, she is addressing the same problems in her constituency—and my other constituency neighbour, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns). As a Front Bencher, he is unable to speak in this debate, but I know that he is addressing the same problems and has written to Ofcom on this matter.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Telegraph Poles: Planning Permission · Hansard source

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  I know that a number of colleagues have experienced similar problems in their constituencies to those I will be raising, and I will try to accommodate interventions. I welcome the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), to his place. I am sure hon. Members from all parties welcomed his statement in July: “We fully understand people’s concerns about the excessive deployment of telegraph poles, and are urgently considering options to address this.” As time is short, I will focus on the current absence of a requirement to consult residents under the legislative and regulatory regime that Ministers have inherited. This is not about being against telegraph poles, nor is it about being against the roll-out of fast broadband. New infrastructure is vital in a society that is increasingly dependent on fast and reliable internet services. However, surely it is wrong that when poles are sited inappropriately, recourse for residents is advisory only, and, in many cases, completely lacking in practice. Official statistics suggest that in my Birmingham Northfield constituency, almost 99% of residents have access to superfast broadband. I know that Ministers have some scepticism about the accuracy of those figures, but it is undeniable that broadband coverage is better than in neighbouring rural areas, yet urban areas are the current focus for the roll-out. The case for the changes in 2013 that established the current permitted development regime focused almost exclusively on the need to extend superfast broadband to rural areas and new-build estates. Little to no consideration appears to have been given to how the legislation would impact already built-up, urban areas. The consequences are now being seen in south Birmingham, as some residents are left to accommodate poles that are unwanted, unneeded and obtrusive.

• 15 Oct 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is being generous with his time. I understand his point, but does he recognise, as those of us who are good Fabians on the Labour Benches do, that there is value in incremental progress, and that the Bill’s proposals should be welcomed on their merits?

• 10 Oct 2024 · Gaza and Humanitarian Aid · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this important and timely debate. Earlier this week, the House marked the one-year anniversary of the 7 October atrocities. On that day and the days that followed, Hamas and other groups intended to ignite a wider war, and the death and destruction that would follow in its wake. Today, when over 2 million people have been displaced, over 40,000 Palestinians are dead and the threat of wider war looms all too closely, we must redouble our efforts in pursuit of an immediate ceasefire, the return of hostages and real progress—after these long years—towards a two-state solution that upholds the dignity of the Palestinian people and the security and territorial integrity of both nations. Six months ago, the Israeli Defence Minister said: “We plan to flood Gaza with aid and we are expecting to reach 500 trucks per day.” However, since then the World Health Organisation has warned that lifesaving hospital aid has been cut off, and the UN has warned that starvation has spread throughout Gaza. There were just 52 aid trucks each day in September —a bare tenth of the pre-October rates and far short of the total needed to relieve the extreme distress. Noting the UK Government’s existing assessment that Israel is not ensuring that lifesaving food and medical supplies are reaching civilians in Gaza, I ask the Minister to update us today on what representations and protests the UK Government have made to the Israeli Government on the entry of food and aid into Gaza. Secondly, what steps are the Government taking to work with aid agencies and civil society to offer protection to aid workers, including British aid workers, who face unacceptable risk? Finally, will he give us a broader update on the UK Government’s efforts to progress ceasefire talks and bring forward a credible reconstruction programme in Gaza? I know that hon. Members welcome the decision to reinstate UNRWA funding, but that cannot be the end of the process. I also know that the Minister takes this important matter seriously, and I hope he will ensure that there is further debate and scrutiny in this House.

• 8 Oct 2024 · VAT: Independent Schools · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to follow so many excellent maiden speeches today. I am glad to have this opportunity to talk about schools and education because there is no doubt that schools face very real funding constraints. In my constituency, there are state schools that have been forced to let staff go because the funding just is not there. The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculates that, after school-specific inflation has been deducted, per-pupil funding rose by 0.7% in primary schools over the last 14 years and that spending shrank by 0.5% in secondaries. That compares to real increases of between 5% and 6% over the preceding 13 years. Figures released in response to a written parliamentary question show that over the last five years, per-pupil funding in Birmingham grew less fast than in the west midlands and across England as a whole. In fact, while per-pupil spending will have risen by just under 21% between 2020-21 and 2024-25, CPI inflation will have increased by about 24.5%. In other words, this is a real-terms cut of around 3%, or a loss of around £179 for each child. Some of the schools in my constituency have some of the highest pupil premium rates in the country. These are not just statistics; they represent a loss of opportunity, a loss of skilled and dedicated staff, and the overcrowded classrooms that flow from that. At this point I draw the House’s attention to my declarations in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my background as an officer of the GMB, one of the unions that represents school support staff. There is much for schools and parents to welcome in this Government’s approach, including ending single-word inspection judgments, funding free breakfast clubs, reusing space from falling pupil numbers to create new early-years provision, committing to a new child poverty reduction strategy—the first since the Child Poverty Act 2010 was repealed—and reinstating the school support staff negotiating body. It has been welcome in this debate to hear the concern for school support staff roles in the independent sector. I am sure that will extend to the state sector and I hope that we will see cross-party support for that measure. I want to make a point around SEND. The motion would exempt all children on SEND support from the VAT policy, but SEND support status is determined within schools, and schools in the independent sector do not have the same budgetary restrictions as state schools, which are obliged to set aside nominal SEND budgets. There is a real risk of creating false incentives, as the “Today” programme’s 2017 investigation demonstrated. Ours is the right policy, and this is the wrong motion. I look forward to voting against it later today.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I declared my background in the trade union movement, and I note that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) wrote the manifesto, which he stood on, that proposed cutting the winter fuel allowance. Now that the winter fuel allowance is to be means-tested, we must boost the uptake of pension credit. I welcome the measures Ministers have announced today, so that the allowance can be protected for the very poorest pensioners.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  In my constituency, there are approximately 2,600 pensioner households that do not receive pension credit—that is one of the legacies of the previous Government—but are entitled to it. The Conservatives suggest that they would have rejected the pay review body recommendations, forgetting that one of the first acts of the Margaret Thatcher Government in 1979 was to accept the recommendations of the Clegg commission on pay comparability. If only the Conservative party had more courage today. The winter fuel allowance exists because of a Labour Government: a Government who increased the value of those payments fivefold in 13 years, compared with an increase of zero under 14 years of the previous Government—a real-terms cut of 33%.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  We will take no lectures on hospital admissions, given the state of the NHS that the right hon. Member’s party left us. The Conservatives claimed that they did not know what the pay review body recommendations would be, but the School Teachers’ Review Body recommendations were known to Ministers before July. They will know also that the different PRBs tend to make similar recommendations. Why were most of those recommendations not submitted in good time? Because Ministers were late in submitting their evidence, pushing the timetable until after the election. The Office of Manpower Economics has said: “The work of the PRBs is demand led and essentially non-negotiable—departments set the remits and timetables.” Shadow Ministers talked about productivity gains, but when it came to NHS negotiations under the last Government, productivity was just a slogan. The cupboard was bare. They had nothing to actually ask for.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with the comments of Labour colleagues in this debate, but I want to speak about the particular issue of public sector pay and the attempts made in this debate and the preceding one to turn pensioners and public sector workers against each other, including the public sector workers who have been driven to rely on food banks and payday loans, who I was proud to represent as a trade union official. The 6,000 public sector workers in my constituency must wonder what the Opposition have against them in this debate. A strong economy needs strong public services, but the problem for the last Government—and the public sector workers who worked for them—was that their public finance strategy rested on “imposing the biggest real wage cuts in living memory.” Those are not my words but those of the former permanent secretary to the Treasury, Nicholas Macpherson. The consequences for the services that we all depend on are clear: teaching vacancies have doubled over the past three years, there is an 8% vacancy rate in the NHS and one in 10 999 call handler posts is vacant. We all know the consequences of ambulance delays for pensioners and of cancelled operations and appointments. [ Interruption. ] Does the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) wish to make an intervention?

• 9 Sept 2024 · Student Mental Health · Hansard source

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  Last year, there was a 38% increase in the number of CAMHS referrals in Birmingham, while also a sharp fall in the number of young people seen within six months of a referral. Does the Minister agree that we need much more preventive support in schools, and closer working between education and health bodies?

• 3 Sept 2024 · Ofsted · Hansard source

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  The decision to end single-word judgments will be welcomed by education professionals across Birmingham. I have seen in my own household the mental and physical toll that the old system could impose. Can the Minister confirm that the new school report card will allow Ofsted to assess SEND inclusion alongside SEND attainment?

• 2 Sept 2024 · Birmingham City Council: Public Services · Hansard source

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  I recognise that the Secretary of State has inherited a very difficult situation. Under the Conservatives, Birmingham lost 40p in the pound and 60% of local authority jobs were lost—some of the sharpest cuts in the country. Our city is now facing cuts of more than 50% to some public service budgets, but new information has come to light and it is clear that part of the basis for the original intervention under her Conservative predecessor was wrong. Can—

• 2 Sept 2024 · Birmingham City Council: Public Services · Hansard source

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  1. If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of her Department’s statutory intervention at Birmingham City Council on the adequacy of public services provided by that council. [R]

• 29 Jul 2024 · Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  Crime and antisocial behaviour was the No. 1 issue on the doorstep during the election, and my constituents in Birmingham Northfield are paying the price for years of cuts to community services and neighbourhood policing. Figures released last week show that there was a 10% fall in recorded crime in Birmingham last year, but the number of shoplifting reports was up by a third. Will the Minister arrange a meeting with me, Simon Foster the West Midlands police and crime commissioner, and Birmingham city council, to discuss how respect orders and other measures can reduce the crime and antisocial behaviour that is blighting our communities?

• 29 Jul 2024 · Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  15. What steps her Department is taking to tackle antisocial behaviour.

• 29 Jul 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  Congratulations on your election, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a privilege to follow so many excellent maiden speeches this evening, including from my hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean), for South Ribble (Mr Foster), for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia), for Smethwick (Gurinder Josan) and for High Peak (Jon Pearce), and the hon. Members for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young), for Taunton and Wellington (Mr Amos) and for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry). I apologise if I have missed any. They were a tribute to the wealth of talent and experience in this Parliament. I am grateful for the opportunity to make my first speech in support of this Bill, which will hopefully lead the permanent way to better value for taxpayers and better passenger services. Transport has sometimes been seen in this place as an unfashionable Department—a stopping-off point for ambitious politicians on the way up, and occasionally on the way down—but it is clear that this attitude is not held by this Front Bench team or this new Government. There is, however, some historical basis for that view. When Barbara Castle was appointed Transport Minister, Harold Wilson told her: “Your job is to produce the integrated transport policy we promised in our manifesto. I could work something out myself given half an hour.” When Nicholas Ridley told Margaret Thatcher that he wanted to privatise the railways, she responded: “Railway privatisation will be the Waterloo of this government. Never mention the railways to me again.” Down the years, hon. Members on the Conservative Benches must have privately wished that Mrs Thatcher’s view had been taken to heart by those who came after. In fact, given the previous Government’s record of reclassifying Network Rail into the public sector, abandoning the traditional franchising model and nationalising a quarter of passenger services, I half expected to see Conservative Members joining Labour tonight in support of the Bill. It was a privilege to work as staff in the shadow Transport team during some of those long years in opposition. May I take this opportunity to say how welcome it is to see the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), in her place? She brings real expertise to the role from her time as Chair of the Transport Committee and in the shadow Transport team. She will be an outstanding Minister, and I am grateful for her support and guidance down the years. Another shadow Transport Minister in that team was Richard Burden, my Labour predecessor for Birmingham Northfield. Richard ably represented Northfield for 27 years. He is well remembered in this House for his boundless enthusiasm for the motor industry, and for his steadfast commitment to social justice, which has continued into what cannot be called a retirement, through his activism in pursuit of better local health services and support for the humanitarian cause in Palestine. His support meant a lot to me during the campaign, and I am sure his friends on both sides of the House extend their good wishes to him. I also want to pay tribute to my immediate predecessor. In the space of just one Parliament, Gary Sambrook became well known locally and, through the 1922 Committee, in the Conservative party nationally. He and other candidates fought a campaign that was untouched by the disgraceful tactic of intimidation that was witnessed elsewhere in Birmingham and which must have no place in our public life. I am certain that this is not the end for Gary in Birmingham politics, and I wish him well. To talk about Birmingham is to tell a tale of two cities. That is as true of the Northfield constituency as it is elsewhere. Pockets of relative affluence sit cheek by jowl with deprivation. The historic village centres of Kings Norton and Northfield lie a short distance from the new estates, like Weoley Castle, that were built to serve the needs of Birmingham’s growing economy. The fortunes of the constituency rise and fall with those of Birmingham, but the seat is also defined by its outer estates—New Frankley, Rubery and Allens Cross—which are distant and distinct from the city centre. All these communities face common challenges, including crime and antisocial behaviour, and the decline of the traditional high street. They have been hit hard by cuts to neighbourhood policing and by the decision last year to not proceed with the regeneration of Northfield’s high street. There is much to do. For most of the constituency’s history it was best known for the Longbridge car plant, which also drew in workers from the surrounding areas of West Heath, Rednal and beyond. For 100 years, Longbridge paid handsomely into the national purse, and it was essential to our defence in times of crisis. During the second world war, Longbridge and its shadow factories produced many of the armaments and aircraft that kept our nation free. If the House will excuse a diversion, I am reminded at this point of my grandad’s story, often repeated with pride to us as children, about his time stationed at the air defences at Billeseley Common, when he—almost—fired a rocket at an encroaching German plane. The site that began as the Austin works was an important part of our national life. At its peak, it employed some 25,000 people. Models from the Austin 7 to the Metro became part of our shared culture. It is hard to believe that next year will mark the 20th anniversary of Longbridge’s closure. That occasion must be marked appropriately in Birmingham and in Parliament. The site is now home to an ambitious redevelopment project and, importantly, some manufacturing jobs are returning, but travel just a short distance and the scars of that closure are still plain to see. The male employment rate remains a staggering 10 points lower than in Birmingham as a whole. Shamefully, average monthly wages are £300 lower in the constituency than they were in 2010, after inflation. The scourge of in-work poverty is never far away. Today, my constituents are most likely to be employed in public services. I am proud to be the son of two teachers even if, sadly, the headquarters of the NASUWT, the Teachers’ Union, which my parents were members of for many years, is just over the border in the neighbouring constituency of Bromsgrove. There will be more to say—much more—in this Parliament about the funding and delivery of services in Birmingham. It is enough to say today that after 14 years of severe cuts, the second city is bleeding, and I welcome the statements that the new Government have made about the importance of putting local government funding on a sustainable footing. The new Government’s plans to establish a fair pay agreement for adult social care, and to reinstate the school support staff negotiating body, will also make a real, material and long overdue difference to thousands of low-paid workers in the Northfield constituency, most of them women, who I was proud to help represent as an officer of the GMB union, and whose skills and professionalism have been undervalued for too long. If I could achieve one thing in the time I have in this place, it would be to secure improvements to special educational needs and disabilities provision. It is a cause that is close to my heart: I was one of those children. I know what it means to have to fight to avoid being defined by other people’s low expectations. I know the stigma that is the mark of attitudes that are still common and from words that I will not repeat in this place. I wish that I could say otherwise, but it never leaves you. I know, too, that a child’s life can turn on access to an identification or a single decision about adjustments and resources—or even for the want of a few encouraging words. So if I speak for a moment in anger, it is because too many children and families in Birmingham and beyond face barriers that are higher now than they were 25 years ago, in breach of the promise that life for each generation will be better than for the last. It is not enough to fight for people within a failing system; we have to change it. That is one of the causes I came to Parliament to advocate for, and I welcome the commitments on SEND made by the Education Secretary and the Prime Minister in the early days of this Parliament. I would like to end by talking about family. Before me came generations of factory workers, electricians and shopkeepers, painters and polishers, cleaners and coachbuilders, jewellery makers and japanners—some escaping famine’s shadow—who were born in Birmingham or who came to call the city their home. In the last few weeks, I have thought about those I knew and those I did not, and what they might have said if they could have seen this day, just as the hard accumulated years of millions of working lives form the prologue to the new deal for working people and the history that this Labour Government will make. I have thought, too, about public service—about the challenge of proving to be equal to the task ahead and to the hopes of the people who trusted us to represent them in this place; Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope to be.

• 29 Jul 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the shadow Minister for giving way and I compliment him on his staying power during a very long debate. He talks about fares and affordability. Can he explain why, under the Government who have just exited office, fares increased on average by 4.7% each year, almost one and a half times higher than the rate under the previous Labour Government?

• 19 Jul 2024 · Israel and Gaza · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Foreign Secretary and his team to their places, and strongly welcome the decision announced today to restore funding for UNRWA, which will be recognised by many people in south Birmingham as an important step—among many others—towards ending the horror that we see today in Gaza. The Israeli Government’s decision to end the legal routes for Palestinians to work in Israel has played an important role in the entrenchment of poverty and political instability in the west bank, alongside the illegal settlements programme. Will the Foreign Secretary make representations on this important matter, recognising that both the Israeli Histadrut and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, as pillars of civil society in both nations, have an important role to play in the establishment of a lasting peace?

• 18 Jul 2024 · Clean Energy Superpower Mission · Hansard source

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  As a recent official of the GMB trade union, which has been mentioned in this statement, I welcome the Secretary of State and his team and officials to their place. How welcome it is to have a change of Government from the record of the last 14 years, with the ducking and delaying of difficult decisions on issues from nuclear to gas storage, and the exclusion for too long of workers’ voices from the decisions that affect the energy system. In opposition, my right hon. Friend established an energy transition working group to bring together trade unions and workers’ voices at the heart of energy plans. Can he confirm today that continuing that group in government will be an early priority for this new Administration?