Mark Ferguson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Jun 2025 · Regional Growth · Hansard source

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  It has been good to hear so much talk about left-behind communities today, but I have always hated that phrase, because my community was not left behind by the last Government; it was wilfully abandoned by them. The £1.8 billion for the North East combined authority region is hugely welcome. I welcome the campaigning by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) for the extension of the Metro to Washington, and the world-class Angel network that will be built by Mayor Kim McGuinness, but does the Minister agree that it makes no sense to have a fantastic new train line with fantastic new trains on it if they have to run under a crumbling flyover in the middle of Gateshead, and through an interchange that requires work? Will he work with me and the Mayor of the North East to deliver these additional critical infrastructure projects for the north-east?

• 3 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T8. I am sure that hon. Members from all parties will be looking forward to Olivia’s law, in memory of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, coming into force, thanks to a huge amount of support from my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley), Olivia’s family and other families. What else can be done to ensure that murderers, rapists and other violent criminals are forced to answer in court for their crimes?

• 22 May 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base · Hansard source

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  America backs the deal. Canada backs the deal. Australia backs the deal. New Zealand backs the deal. Our relationship with the Five Eyes countries is our most crucial intelligence relationship, so does the Secretary of State agree that it would have been a dereliction of duty to our country and those four countries to have failed to do this deal?

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 21 May 2025 · Immigration · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way—that roar from Opposition Members is no doubt enthusiasm for what I am about to ask. This week, the Government signed a deal with the European Union that includes, among other things, the ability to find out if someone has been arrested in another European country for people smuggling and the ability to use facial recognition technology. Does she agree that those are exactly the tactics one would need if one wanted to smash the gangs, and yet the Conservative party opposed the deal?

• 20 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and this deal. Perhaps most important to people in Gateshead will be the downward pressure on food prices, so I ask the Prime Minister, when it comes to food prices and to this deal, would he rather listen to Asda, Morrisons and M&S, or to the Leader of the Opposition, who does not think that sandwiches are food?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman mentions UEFA and FIFA. Would he categorise those as organisations where politics is kept at arm’s length and where there is no place for cronyism?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  My constituents in Gateshead have, by and large, been subjected to a lot of dodgy owners in their time. The vast majority of my constituents are Newcastle fans. Many people remember the Mike Ashley era: the grotesque nightmare for Newcastle fans of seeing their football stadium named the Sports Direct at St James’ Park Arena, or being sponsored by Wonga. Even as a Sunderland fan, I found that pretty appalling. But Sunderland were not spared the nightmare of bad ownership. We had owners who used parachute payments—as chronicled in the Netflix nightmare show, “Sunderland ’Til I Die”—to buy a football club. I am therefore delighted to hear that parachute payments are within the scope of the Bill. Frankly, for me, that is a unique selling point of the Bill, not a downside. A lot of my constituents also support Gateshead, which has had challenges with ownership as well. In 2019, Gateshead football club faced a winding up order, and the club was preserved only thanks to football fans including Neil Pinkerton, now Gateshead’s chairman, and Gateshead Soul. I say a big thank you to them, because it is thanks to Gateshead Soul and the current fan ownership of Gateshead football club that I still get to go to Gateshead matches with my dad, and that my son might one day be able to come and watch Gateshead matches with his dad. Ultimately, that is what football and football clubs are about: a sense of place and community. Gateshead has faced a huge number of challenges as a football club. Somewhat infamously in the town, we were relegated in 1960, the last time we were in the football league, but we were not relegated on the basis of sporting merit; instead, we were voted out of the football league. Although there were two teams below us—Oldham and Hartlepool—it was Gateshead who were chosen to be kicked out of the football league. I am pleased to say that if Gateshead are successful in beating Southend this weekend and then progress through the play-offs, we will hopefully have an opportunity this season to right 65 years of wrongs and get back into the football league. However, it should never have happened in the first place. It is something that matters a great deal not just to me, but to my wider community. Opposition Members talk about how football clubs do not disappear, but I am afraid that is simply wrong. The Gateshead who were relegated, Gateshead AFC, disappeared in the 1970s; they were soon followed by Gateshead United, who also disappeared in the 1970s. Those football clubs do not exist any more. The current Gateshead FC is not the same football club as before. That is very important to me because my grandfather, Allen Forster, played for the original Gateshead in the 1950s. In the limited time I have left, I hope the House will allow me to talk about him, because he was passionate about football. He was not only a professional footballer but, in his later years, the secretary of the Northumberland FA. My hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) and for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) have talked about dementia among footballers. My granddad was a footballer who headed big, heavy, wet leather footballs. He did not care—he would not have it any other way. He was a defender; that is what he did. In his later years, he began to forget things. I once found him driving around the village where I grew up, unable to remember how he got there or even how to drive his car back. It has a profound impact. I will never be able to prove that it was anything to do with heading footballs in the 1950s, but it is what I have always suspected, so I think it is important that it is part of our debate. I thank the Secretary of State for bringing forward the Bill, which will be a huge benefit to teams like Gateshead.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  At the FSAs’ 2023 annual general meeting, the shadow Minister said: “Despite the phenomenal success of football at home and abroad, we have seen too many examples of the devastating impact the failure of a beloved club can have on a local community.” My local club in Gateshead was nearly wound up in 2019. Is he really content to maintain the grotesque status quo, which allows too many of us to lose our clubs, to score political points on this matter?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Construction Skills Training · Hansard source

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  Our plans for the renewal of central Gateshead are by far the most exciting investment opportunity in north-east England, with £1.2 billion of inward investment, thousands of new homes and public transport infrastructure, meaning 15,000 construction jobs over the next few decades. Gateshead college, right at the heart of the development zone, is rapidly increasing places on its superb construction course, but much more is needed. Will the Secretary of State meet me and Gateshead college to discuss super-charging construction skills to deliver our plan for growth?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Construction Skills Training · Hansard source

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  7. What steps she is taking to increase the number of construction skills training opportunities.

• 24 Apr 2025 · Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I think your position is clear from your response, but for the avoidance of doubt and in the time that we have remaining, is Natural England confident that this model will deliver better outcomes for nature overall? Marian Spain: We are confident that the model works. The detail will come as we work through which topics and which situations we actually apply the environmental delivery plans to. It is perhaps also a version of the answer to a previous question; the plans themselves can rule things in and out. We may decide, for example, that a piece of ancient woodland cannot be replaced and would therefore not be subject to these measures, so that is another safeguard.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I wonder if the hon. Member can explain to me how spending £22 billion extra on the national health service this year can in any way be described as procrastination.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I have a question to which I know the answer. The question is “How many new hospitals were built in the last five years?” and the answer, of course, is “Zero”. Is it not the case that the 40 new hospitals promised by the last Government were not new and were not hospitals, and there certainly were not 40 of them?

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I am barely getting going but would be delighted to add an extra minute to my speech.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. This has been an interesting and enlightening debate in some ways. Of all the subjects on which the Liberal Democrats might have brought a motion to this House, it is fascinating that we are talking about new hospitals, as I think everybody would agree that the Labour party has invested both historically and under this Government in the national health service. In fact in the last Budget back in the autumn, £13.6 billion extra was allocated to NHS capital expenditure—a record amount. I know that Opposition Members have not particularly enjoyed repeated references to the coalition years. I do not think anybody in this House particularly enjoys remembering the 2010 to 2015 period. The Conservatives certainly do not, and apparently the Liberal Democrats—

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  If we want the tone to be constructive, we should be constructive about the fact that Labour is going to be building hospitals, when no hospitals were constructed over the last five years. The reality is very clear: hospitals do not simply appear; we cannot wish a hospital into existence. They require two things: money and time. If we wish that there were more new hospitals in this country, we should go back in time to 10 to 15 years ago. That would have been a fantastic time, when borrowing was much cheaper than it is today, to have invested in hospitals in all our communities. Unfortunately, the cancellation of the building schools for the future project was basically the first act of the coalition Government, and there was a lack of investment in schools and hospitals. As the shadow spokesperson the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) has said today, we are cleaning up the mess that has been left. That was the characterisation of the early 2010s, but it is very much more realistic today. The shadow spokesperson accused the Government of a lack of imagination. Well, there has been no lack of imagination here; there has been magical thinking from the Liberal Democrats, who apparently believe that a taskforce will generate the billions of pounds necessary to build hospitals immediately.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Hospitals · Hansard source

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  I am keen to make progress. I have repeatedly made this point to Conservative Members, who I do not feel are taking the advice, but I will repeat it to the Liberal Democrats, who I equally do not think will do so. I have a huge amount of experience in opposition—a lot of us on the Government Benches have a lot more experience of it than we ever wanted. If we are really serious about what this country needs, we cannot just say that we want to have hospitals now and expect them to be delivered if we simultaneously oppose revenue-generating measures in the Budget. I am afraid that what this motion is about, which has been revealed by many of the speeches, is opportunism. We all want more investment in the NHS and that is what this Government are delivering. A great point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) when he said that it is not simply a matter of buildings, but a matter of people too. The best maternity facility in the country is in my constituency at the Queen Elizabeth maternity hospital, yet it is in a very old building. I want a new building for that maternity hospital. I want far better resources for the staff. I hope that it will come in time, but they are doing a fantastic job with what we have got. We need to support those in the NHS rather than knocking them down.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her statement and for her swift action. The people of Scunthorpe will be grateful, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) noted, that stands in contrast to the way in which the people of Redcar and other areas were so cruelly abandoned by the last Government. The steel industry is not the production of steel alone; it also includes the supply chain. The Davy Roll Company, now Union Electric Steel, in my constituency, at the heart of Gateshead, performs a vital role as the last cast steel roll maker in the UK. The Minister has met representatives from the company, so will she update me on the work that she is doing to protect not only the steel industry where steel is made, but the wider supply chain?

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for his speech and his decisive action. This will be a meaningful day for the people of Scunthorpe. I know how important jobs in the steel industry are. Davy Roll, otherwise known as Union Electric Steel, has stood at the heart of Gateshead, in our town centre, for over 150 years. It is the only cast steel roll maker left in the country and it is at risk of closure. Steel is incredibly important for our future, and the Government are taking decisive action. I am reminded today of a place close to my constituency. Ten years ago, the people of Redcar were let down. I pay tribute to Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), for their campaigning. At the time, Redcar had the second most efficient blast furnace in Europe, and yet it was abandoned, along with 2,300 jobs. A proud town was let down. Today, Scunthorpe and Redcar have learned the difference a Labour Government make and the difference decisiveness makes: they save jobs and change lives.

• 7 Apr 2025 · Israel: Refusal of Entry for UK Parliamentarians · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that the counterproductive and concerning actions of the Israeli Government in this regard, and the contemptible response from the Opposition Front Bench, have one thing in common, namely that neither will command the support of the British people?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T9. Socketts newsagents in my constituency is more than 100 years old, but it faces closure because of gangs of masked youths shoplifting. What will the Minister do to help Socketts and ensure that it can stay open?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Hansard source

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  Dodik’s reckless rhetoric has been noted many times in the House this afternoon. Can the Minister assure me that work is being done with partners in the region to ensure that there is no contagion? I am thinking in particular of Kosovo.

• 28 Mar 2025 · Water Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the under-recognised aspects of sewage and pollution is their huge impact on the tourism industry and our ability to attract people to this country so that they spend their money here?