Natasha Irons MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q13. Successive Conservative Governments stripped our councils of funding for youth services, pitting them against services that were under statutory protections. That has led to one in eight councils no longer having a youth centre. Croydon, which is London’s youngest borough, is about to lose its youth engagement team and its last crumb of council-run universal youth provision. Can the Deputy Prime Minister outline what this Labour Government are doing to support our young people? Does she agree that it is time to look again at statutory protections for youth services, so that all young people, no matter where they live, can get the services they deserve?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Local Authority Funding · Hansard source

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  13. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that councils are financially stable.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Local Authority Funding · Hansard source

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  Despite an increase in council tax of 27% since 2022, £136 million in exceptional financial support this year and brutal cuts to services, Croydon council’s finances remain broken. As an outer-London borough with inner-London problems, Croydon has historically not received the funding it needs to cover the costs for demand-led services like temporary accommodation, so even if Croydon’s debt was wiped out, it would still need exceptional financial support. Will the Minister outline how councils like Croydon will get the resources they need to meet the complex challenges they face and provide the frontline services that our communities deserve?

• 4 Jun 2025 · Regional Growth · Hansard source

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  I welcome this Government’s funded commitment to making every community across this country better off after the failed promises of the previous Government. I represent an outer London constituency with the oldest trams in the country and pockets of deprivation. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give me and my constituents in Croydon East that next week’s spending review will recognise the contribution that London makes to our national economy, and will provide investment in communities like mine, which were failed by the previous Government?

• 15 May 2025 · Youth Services · Hansard source

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  I understand that MSP colleagues are considering bringing in a youth Act in Scotland, which is quite innovative, and perhaps we should try to emulate some of its provisions. With the closure of over 1,000 youth centres, one in eight local councils now has no youth centres in its area. The workforce crisis has seen youth workers often stuck in low-paid and insecure work. The voluntary sector, which now delivers 80% of youth work, faces its own funding crisis, with 25% of voluntary youth organisations having less than six months of cash reserves. Despite those challenges, organisations across our communities are stepping up to rebuild the village around our young people. Nowhere is that more evident than in Croydon, the town I have the privilege of representing in this place. In Croydon, organisations are working tirelessly to provide the support that young people need: Redthread, which is working in Croydon university hospital to offer young people caught up in youth violence a way out; Reaching Higher, which aims to support and champion young people across school, community and home; Croydon Drop In, which offers free confidential advice and mental health support to young people and families; and Croydon Youth Consortium, which is driving collaboration across local youth charities, so they avoid competing against each other for the same limited pots of funding. Croydon is leading the way in giving our young people a stake in their community. However, due to impending budget cuts and reorganisation, Croydon, which is London’s youngest borough, is on the verge of losing its council-run youth engagement team. The team provides a critical link between the council, the voluntary sector and vulnerable young people across the borough. It provides outreach, runs youth hubs in hard-to-reach areas, and oversees Croydon’s youth assembly. To put it simply, Croydon’s youth engagement team has saved lives. The limited statutory protections in place for council-led youth services mean that Croydon council can shut the service down without running a proper consultation; without asking key partners, such as the police or the NHS, how much they rely on the frontline knowledge the team offers them; and even without consulting the borough’s young people properly, having approached only 31 of them in the process of drawing up its plans. The council claims that some of the services will be retained by inviting the voluntary sector to put in bids to run them, but they cannot replace the consistency, institutional knowledge and co-ordinating role that the youth engagement team provides. As one mother, whose son attends the New Addington youth hub in my constituency, put it: “The staff do such a good job at making everything seem conversational and natural... We’ve had pop up services through charities. But with the youth club, they’ve been able to spend time with a consistent staff team and build relationships with a professional and diverse staff.” I welcome the Government’s commitment to the wellbeing of our young people: their work on a national youth strategy that puts the voice of young people at its heart, and their plans for the young future hubs to tackle the complex causes of youth violence. But I urge them to back up that investment with proper statutory protections for youth services. It is time to stop the erosion of youth work. It is time to introduce statutory sufficiency benchmarks to ensure that no matter where they are, no matter the community they grow up in, all young people have the right to youth work, with measurable minimum expectations. As outlined by the National Youth Agency, that would not only give youth services the priority they deserve, but provide stability to the youth work sector, giving it the long-term structure needed to invest in proper pay, training and support for its workforce. It is not just a moral mission to provide these services for our young people; it is also a practical one. As the Government’s own data shows, young people who receive youth work support as teenagers are happier, healthier and wealthier. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates, for every £1 invested in youth services, we save between £3.20 and £6.40 in wider costs to society. For many, youth work provides a trusted adult; a guiding hand on to the next step when the next step feels impossible. I would like to end by sharing the story of Rania. She is a young woman who, like many across our country, left education full of potential but was paralysed by fear. She battled deep mental health struggles, loneliness, isolation and a crushing sense that she was “not enough” for the working world. Rania got in touch with the King’s Trust. She began to work with Charlie, a youth delivery lead who did not just help her with her CV and job applications; she listened, she believed and she walked her through every moment of doubt. Rania went on to apply for three NHS roles and was offered all of them. She is now proudly working as a band 2 healthcare assistant. As she puts it: “With the support provided, I hardly recognise myself. I still can hardly grasp how much Charlie’s support has impacted me and motivated me to achieve my goals.” That is the power of youth work. At a time when hundreds of thousands of young people are struggling to find a future, it is youth workers like Charlie who are quietly pulling lives back from the brink. If we are serious about ending the youth unemployment crisis, if we are serious about the future of our young people, and if we are serious about breaking down barriers to opportunity, then we must get serious about the long-term funding of our youth services.

• 15 May 2025 · Youth Services · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the long-term funding of youth services. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this debate, Members for supporting it, and all the organisations that have provided material for today’s contributions. This Government have stated that they are on a mission to break down barriers to opportunity, to ensure that every young person in every part of our country gets the best start in life and has access to the tools they need to thrive. As has always been the case, a young person is shaped not just by what they do in a classroom or what they hear in the playground, but by the community they grow up in and the stake they have in it. That is what youth services are. They are a safe space outside school, and the place to broaden horizons and build meaningful connections with the outside world. As an elder millennial with baby-boomer parents, I know that every generation believes that theirs has had it the hardest, but in our day we at least had the luxury of living our most awkward and vulnerable years without the glare of social media. At least we had the opportunity to fail, to be odd and to learn who we were before we presented ourselves to the world. Whether it is the impact of covid, the cost of living crisis or trying to prepare for a world of work that is constantly changing, our young people are facing unprecedented challenges in a country that, for too long, has not invested enough in their wellbeing. As a result, in England one in five children and young people now have a probable mental health disorder. The number of emergency hospital admissions for children aged five to 18 due to a mental health crisis increased by 65% between 2012 and 2022. Incidents of youth violence remain at high levels, with 3,000 knife crime offences last year involving a child. The Office for National Statistics reports that 16 to 24-year-olds are now the loneliest group in our society, and the Good Childhood report states that the UK’s children and young people are the “unhappiest in Europe”. This damning picture of what it is like to grow up in this country should shame us all, because, as they say, it takes a village to raise a child. What has happened since the 2010 spending review, which saw funding for youth services pitted against services with greater statutory protections, is the systematic dismantling of the network of support that used to keep our young people safe. The village has been replaced by a patchwork of voluntary organisations, with fewer and fewer council-run youth services bidding endlessly for one-off pots of funding that will inevitably come to an end.

• 6 May 2025 · Health and Social Care Reform · Hansard source

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  Last week, the Centre for Young Lives published a report on the state of mental health support for children and young people across England. It outlines that despite an ongoing crisis in mental health among young people, “There remains a 55% treatment gap” between adult and children’s mental health, and that “fewer than 10%...of ICBs have a dedicated strategy” for supporting children’s mental health. Will the Secretary of State consider strengthening statutory guidance for ICBs to ensure they assess the local need of children and young people, publish treatment gap data on an ongoing basis, and create joined-up, community-based mental health support for our young people?

• 6 May 2025 · Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  The 80th anniversary of VE Day and VJ Day is a time for us to remember and honour those who fought to defend our freedoms, our values and our people. It is also a time to recognise the contribution that veterans from across our country continue to make to their communities. For many of our veterans, their service to this country and their commitment to fighting for our values do not end when they leave the military. I will take this opportunity to tell the House about one such veteran from my community, Mike Lyons. I did not know Mike for very long, but one of the privileges that we have in this place is that we get to meet people who we instinctively know are the best of us, which is what Mike was. He served in the military for seven years, and was a member of the Royal British Legion’s New Addington branch for more than 30 years. For many years, Mike ran the Final Roll Call campaign to ensure that world war one soldiers who returned from fighting, and who were institutionalised due to what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder, were properly honoured and given their rightful place in history. His campaign led to 26 servicemen who were buried in unmarked graves, without a military burial, finally being given the dignified memorials they deserved. Mike wanted to ensure that their memories lived on and, just before Christmas, asked me to light a candle for them in Parliament. Our candle of remembrance in Parliament quickly turned into a full-on candle-lighting ceremony at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. At one point, someone questioned whether we needed insurance for the bugler. Sadly, Mike passed away before our ceremony could take place, but with the support of his family and friends, we held our ceremony as planned. In March, it was a privilege to welcome Mike’s family, his friends, his local councillors, community leaders from the family centre and New Addington Pathfinders, members of the Royal British Legion, Army cadets, members of Croydon’s veteran community, the Minister for Veterans and People, flagbearers and a bugler to Westminster Abbey for our candle ceremony. I hope that we did Mike proud. As we look ahead to the 80th anniversary of VE Day and VJ Day, we must commit ourselves to ensuring that our armed forces community is looked after now and in the future, so I welcome the Government’s announcement of a UK-wide support system for our veterans. In Croydon, we have launched the Croydon Cares for Veterans campaign to raise funds for SSAFA Croydon and the New Addington branch of the Royal British Legion. As it was for the second world war generation and for Mike, it is our actions that demonstrate our commitment to the people who serve this country. It is our actions that will protect our values, and it our actions that will honour what our armed forces community continue to fight for today.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Croydon Area Remodelling Funding: Brighton Mainline · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Gentleman: sustainable long-term funding is the only way for any area outside London to grow sustainably. In addition, CARS would see significant improvement to East Croydon station, Britain’s 21st most used station, by adding two new platforms, a larger concourse to improve facilities for passengers and better connections to local transport networks. It also provides an opportunity to modernise Norwood Junction station, Britain’s 117th most used station, by extending the platforms so that more services can stop there and adding a footbridge with a lift to finally bring step-free access to this much-loved local transport hub. Despite a consultation with stakeholders and passengers showing that 90% of respondents were in favour of CARS, in 2020 the previous Government shelved these crucial infrastructure plans, turning their back on economic growth in Croydon and across the south-east. However, passenger numbers on the Brighton main line continue to recover well post-pandemic, with station entries and exits at East Croydon station now back up to almost 80% when compared to their pre-pandemic levels and back up to 92% at Gatwick Airport station when compared with the same period. Given the renewed interest in the expansion of Gatwick airport, the need to look again at CARS is more vital than ever. Gatwick is Europe’s busiest single-runway airport and with the Gatwick airport to Victoria route being the seventh busiest flow for rail passengers nationally—second, when we take out the Elizabeth line extension—even without a second runway, demand for train services into Gatwick are already reaching capacity. The economic case for Gatwick expansion, creating an estimated 14,000 new jobs and generating an estimated £1 billion a year for the British economy, has been well documented and the Government have outlined that any expansion would need to see the number of passengers arriving at Gatwick via public transport increase from its current 44% to 54%. It is not hard to argue that without the urgent improvements that CARS brings to this line, that ambition is difficult to achieve. Further delays in getting CARS off the ground could not only hold back economic growth for the coast-to-capital region—a region estimated to be the seventh largest regional economy in the country—but it could also hold back economic growth for our country.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Government Finances: London · Hansard source

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  Councils are at the coalface of politics and are leaders in delivery. From potholes to parks and parking, local councils deliver the things that we care about. For too long, our councils have been failed by central Government. They have been undervalued and underfunded. In London, where councils receive 28% less funding per Londoner than they did in 2010, boroughs are now at crisis point. London’s housing emergency has pushed an estimated one in 50 Londoners into homelessness and pushed London councils into spending £4 million a day on temporary accommodation.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Local Government Finances: London · Hansard source

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  Of course I agree. It is imperative that we solve this crisis. With overspends in children’s and social care services across London, seven London boroughs require exceptional financial support to balance their books, and Croydon council is one of them. As with councils across the country, poor decisions and failure in governance, mixed with chronic underfunding, saw the council issue its first section 114 notice in 2020. As an outer-London borough with inner-London problems, Croydon has historically suffered from a financial settlement that does not reflect the demands on its services. The debt built up over successive administrations now costs the council £71 million a year to service, and it borrows £38 million of that from central Government. Although I appreciate that it is not something the Government can just write off, I urge them to work with Croydon council to restructure the debt and find a long-term solution to bring down the cost and its impact on day-to-day spending. Debt is not Croydon council’s only challenge, because even if the debt were wiped out, it would still need to borrow an extra £65 million from the Government to balance its books. Although there are overspends in the areas that we would expect, such as children’s and adult social care, the council is also grappling with a number of neighbouring boroughs placing vulnerable people in temporary accommodation in Croydon while not funding the ongoing associated costs. A massive 24% of people in temporary accommodation in Croydon have been placed there from outside the borough, with the highest number of placements coming from Lambeth, Lewisham and Bromley. With families often stuck in temporary accommodation for many months or even years, it falls to Croydon to pick up the further, ongoing costs with regard to demand-led services. With councils across London bidding for accommodation and social care placements in Croydon, the council is often forced into a bidding war to provide support for its own residents. Will the Government look at funding London councils properly, and introduce measures such as including deprivation in the local government funding formula, or increasing the local housing allowance in line with inflation and removing the cap on how much councils can reclaim to cover the costs of temporary accommodation? Will they also consider ways to reduce profiteering in the marketplace for demand-led services, consider legislating to ensure that a home council continues to fund the costs of care when children are placed outside their home borough, and ensure that a family’s home council continues to fund the costs of placing homeless families outside the host borough? I ask because no one wins when councils are forced into this situation and pitted against one another. If we want people to see and feel the change that they voted for, on their streets, in their communities and across this country, it is properly funded councils that can deliver that. If we want the services that communities rely on every day to be of the highest quality, it is properly funded councils that can make that happen. If we want to make it feel as if the lights have finally come on in this country, it is properly funded councils that can flip the switch.

• 20 Mar 2025 · Knife Crime: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) for securing this important debate. Knife crime among children and young people is a national emergency that should shame us all. With 3,000 knife crime offences involving children reported in the year ending March 2024, this crisis cannot be ignored. Each one of those offences represents a young person caught in violence—someone’s son, someone’s daughter, someone who deserved better. In Croydon, where we have some of the highest rates of knife violence in London and where too many young people have lost their lives, we know the impact of knife crime only too well. In Croydon, Elianne Andam, a 15-year-old described by those who loved her as “vibrant, bright and loving” was taken from her family on her way to school, in an act of violence that is beyond comprehension. Too many young lives have been taken too soon, too many communities are living in fear of the next tragedy and too many families are being left in unimaginable grief. I welcome this Government’s commitment to halving knife crime over the next 10 years and the urgency with which they are taking action, including going after the criminal gangs that are grooming our children into crime and trafficking them across the country, introducing Ronan’s law to crack down on the online sale of knives, and banning zombie knives, However, it is not enough to be tough on knife crime—we must be just as tough on its complex causes. I welcome this Government’s plans to roll out the Young Futures programme. As is often said, it takes a village to raise a child, but with universal youth services seeing a 73% cut in funding since 2010 and young people often stuck for years on waiting lists for child and adolescent mental health services, where is that village today? What can young people point to that demonstrates that this country is willing to invest in them, to back them and to support them? I urge the Government to move faster in prioritising the wellbeing of our children because, as is also said, if a child is not embraced by the village, it will burn it down to feel its warmth. In Croydon, in partnership with the Mayor of London, organisations are working tirelessly to provide support to young people and to rebuild that village around them. They include Redthread, which is working in Croydon University hospital; the groundbreaking My Ends programme; Reaching Higher, which supports young people in schools, communities and at home; Croydon Drop-In, which offers free mental health support; and Croydon Youth Consortium, which is driving collaboration between local youth charities. Croydon is leading the way in giving young people a stake in their community. However, due to impending budget cuts Croydon, which is London’s youngest borough, is on the verge of losing its youth engagement team. That team provides a critical link between the council, the voluntary sector and vulnerable young people across the borough. It provides outreach and runs youth hubs in hard-to-reach areas. Put simply, Croydon’s youth engagement team saves lives. As the Government build their Young Futures programme and look to create a national youth strategy, I urge the Government to ensure that they work with and not against the grassroots organisations that know their communities best, provide long-term funding for youth-centred provision in local areas and look at increasing statutory protections for local youth services, so that they are given the priority they deserve. Knife crime among children and young people is devastating, but not inevitable. Now is the time to invest in prevention as well as enforcement, to listen to those working on the frontlines of this crisis and to give our young people the support they need, because our communities, families and young people deserve better.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Croydon’s youth engagement team is a council-run service that provides critical support for young people across Croydon, including keeping kids away from being groomed by gangs, supporting a youth assembly that gives kids a civic voice, and providing a youth hub in New Addington, in my constituency. Those services are now under threat because Croydon council deems them to be non-statutory and needs to make savings. Will the Leader of the House allow time for a debate about long-term funding settlements for youth services and how we can ensure they are given the statutory protections that they need?

• 5 Feb 2025 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  I welcome this Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls, and their investment in the domestic abuse protection order scheme in Croydon. However, Croydon’s youth engagement team, who focus on helping to prevent young women from being brought into gangs through grooming, abuse and vulnerability, are facing cuts due to the budget constraints facing the council. What more can the Government do to support local communities and local councils to prevent young women from being dragged into gangs through grooming and things like that?

• 5 Feb 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for meeting me and other Croydon MPs to talk about our council’s legacy of debt. The Minister talks about early help and prevention. Will the funding formula take account of things such as youth services, where early help and prevention can have a massive impact on what councils have to spend over a longer period?

• 5 Feb 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I had hoped that we could move away from this pitting area against area. I can assure the shadow Secretary of State that I am from an urban area with high deprivation, but with very high transport costs for children to get to special educational needs placements, and also massive temporary accommodation costs. Perhaps we need to move towards a better model that takes in all the issues we face in all of our areas. In that way, we are not fighting each other, but working together to get better local councils across the country.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  Childhood is a precious thing. It can shape us or break us. Too many childhoods have been stolen—by poverty, abusers and the inaction of the previous Government. In Britain today, 3.5 million children are growing up in absolute poverty. More are being placed in unregistered children’s homes, and it is estimated by the Education Policy Institute that 300,000 children are missing from the education system. Although Opposition Members seem to have woken up to the evils of child abuse and exploitation, they cannot deny that their lack of care and urgency on these issues has made our children more vulnerable. Their failure to act has created an environment in which it is estimated that almost half a million children experience some sort of sexual abuse in this country every year, and their failure to implement a single recommendation from the Jay report has made it easier for groomers in every corner of our country to continue to rob our children of their childhood, their future and their dignity. That is the cost of the previous Government’s do-nothing approach to child abuse, and they should be ashamed. The previous Government’s failure has also seen councils struggle to cover the spiralling cost of placements. In Croydon, where I am privileged to be an MP, the council has had to cough up almost £87 million to cover the cost of child services. With 31% of children there growing up in the shadow of poverty, Croydon’s young people have been failed by the inaction of the previous Government. It is time to end the previous Government’s addiction to failing our children, and support the Bill. The Bill cuts the cost of sending children to school by introducing free breakfast clubs and tackling the cost of school uniforms. It also prevents vulnerable children from falling through the cracks by bringing in a register of children who are educated from home, and introducing a unique identifier, so that children are visible across the system. The Bill is the single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation. A vote against it is a vote against children’s safety, their childhoods and their future. It is shameful that, even in opposition, Conservative Members continue to drag their feet on child protection, continue to fail our children, and continue to put the interests of their party before the best interests of our country. Unlike the Opposition, we will not turn our back on our children, we will not accept failure, and we will finally put the wellbeing of our children first.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement · Hansard source

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  I welcome the extra funding going in to tackle homelessness, especially the £15 million allocated to Croydon council. After 14 years of Tory Members turning their backs on local councils, local councillors and the communities they serve, does the Minister agree that there is a cost to doing nothing when it comes to reforming local government funding? Can he outline what kind of support might be available to councils still carrying large amounts of debt?

• 5 Dec 2024 · Improving Public Transport · Hansard source

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  There you go. As a Londoner who grew up with a well-integrated, well-run and efficient public transport system, I know when I raise issues around under-investment from the Government into our services, there will be colleagues who represent constituencies such as the one my husband grew up in who have to wait an hour for a bus to the nearest town and who will have little sympathy for this whinging Londoner. However, fourteen years of failure from the previous Government have left public transport in every part of our country failing to keep pace with the needs of the people who rely on it. On their watch, cancelled train journeys rose to a record high; passengers have had to navigate 55 million different types of ticket options; and buses are driving 300 million fewer miles per year compared with 2010. For our corner of south London, the previous Government’s mismanagement led to cancelled schemes, failed projects and accessibility for passengers being ignored. Croydon is London’s most populated borough with a projected population growth of 7.9% by 2041. In my constituency last year, East Croydon station had over 20 million journeys passing through its gates, making it the 21st most used station in Great Britain. For my constituents, using East Croydon station means dealing with congestion, antisocial behaviour and a failed footbridge project that is now known locally as “the bridge to nowhere.” The project, originally designed to improve accessibility to the station, has been beset by delays and caused endless frustration for residents. After a decade of inaction and local taxpayers’ money going into the project, Network Rail has now downgraded its plans and removed direct access to platforms, which has caused more frustration for passengers and more congestion at the station, adding insult to injury for my community. Under the previous Government, the Croydon area remodelling scheme—a scheme designed to address congestion on the Brighton main line and upgrade Croydon’s train stations—was shelved. As that scheme is no longer going ahead, Norwood Junction station in my constituency, which is the 79th busiest station in Britain, will not get the investment that it desperately needs—no improvement to platforms, no improvement to services and no improvement to accessibility—and the addition of a new lift has been deemed too complicated by Network Rail without the scheme’s wider improvements. I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving public transport across every part of our country, to putting passengers first, and to working with our regional mayors, not against them. Not only does that mean more regions of our country will benefit from public control of bus networks and from train services with fewer delays, but for my constituency it means a Labour Government working with a Labour mayor to finally give us the trams that we so desperately need. Yes, I am fortunate to be a Londoner who has had access to all the public transport that I could possibly need, but with a Government who invest in every region, we can do so much more.

• 12 Nov 2024 · National Youth Strategy · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s commitment to bringing youth services together, and we in the all-party parliamentary group on youth affairs, which I chair, look forward to playing our part. However, owing to the 73% reduction in youth services at a local level, local groups such as Croydon Youth Consortium in my constituency have had to step up where local government has stepped back. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the Government will leverage, rather than working against, the best practice that those groups have established by working together and not competing against each other for certain types of funding?

• 16 Oct 2024 · Access to Primary Healthcare · Hansard source

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  Of all our public services, our NHS is the one that unites us the most. It is in the room that our children our born in. It is there when our parents get old and when we receive the worst possible news. It is there for us no matter who we are, what we do or what we earn. Our NHS belongs to us all. The previous Government inherited an NHS that was working, with the highest satisfaction levels and lowest waiting times in its history. The state of the NHS today, where 2.8 million people struggle to contact a GP every month, demonstrates their utter contempt not just for this precious institution, but for the people it serves. There can be no greater example of the previous Government’s failure than the declining health of our young people. Last year, the number of under 18-year-olds on waiting lists for paediatric care in England soared to a record high of over 400,000. As Lord Darzi’s report shows, our children are some of the sickest in Europe, with the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, and poor oral and mental health. Under the previous Government’s watch, 40% of children lost regular access to a dentist, the number of children waiting more than 52 weeks for community health services hit 94% in just two years, and one in 5 children is estimated to have a mental health problem but is unable to access the right treatment. The previous Government failed our children from head to toe. That is reflected in the experience of young people in my constituency, where they and their families wait months and sometimes even years for support. Parents are desperate for help, young people are desperate for healthcare and everyone is desperate for hope. Labour has fixed our NHS before and under this Government we will fix it again. Following Lord Darzi’s report, the Prime Minister has recognised the need to change our health service, and has set out this Government’s intention for a 10-year plan to change our NHS. Our Health Secretary has already committed to putting in the extra resources we desperately need for primary care, including £82 million of investment to recruit 1,000 newly qualified GPS, and to finally reform the broken dental contract to get more dentists into the communities that need them. Unlike the previous Government, we will fight for our NHS. We will not allow primary care services to continue to be overwhelmed. We will not leave patients rotting on waiting lists, and we will not let our children be the sickest in Europe. We will fix our NHS. We have fixed it before, and we will fix it again.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB · Hansard source

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  I must declare an interest: I will mention Channel 4 in my speech, and I was previously an employee of that organisation. I am really pleased to speak in today’s debate, following an incredibly exciting few months of sport. From the football world cup to the Wimbledon championships and the T20 world cup, whatever sport people were interested in, this summer there was something for everyone. Of course, communities around the world turned their attention to Paris for the Olympic and Paralympic games. Team GB gave a formidable performance, winning 65 medals at the Olympic games, and ParaGB won a massive 124 medals at the Paralympic games, finishing second overall in the medals table. I was delighted to cheer on Croydon’s own Thomas Young in the 100-metre sprint at the Paralympics this year. He gave a stellar performance, and I know that people across Croydon will be looking forward to cheering him on at Los Angeles 2028. There are a number of benefits associated with sports broadcasting, especially when it is available without financial barriers on our publicly owned platforms. Watching the incredible success of our Olympic and Paralympic greats is inspiring, particularly for our children and young people, who might just find themselves a new hero to look up to and a new sport to try. Sport England emphasises the impact that engaging in sport can have on young people, including building positive experiences, improving physical literacy and offering them an environment where they can build confidence in a safe space. One of the barriers to engaging in physical activity is access, so I am pleased that the Government have committed not just to ensuring that children and young people are being taught the required physical education curriculum but to supporting grassroots football clubs, local community groups and widening opportunity so that as many people as possible can get involved in physical activity. I pay tribute to one of the many grassroots organisations based in my constituency of Croydon East—an organisation that I recently had the pleasure of visiting. The Croydon Harriers train at Croydon Arena alongside another wonderful grassroots club, Croydon FC. They work to give young people and children sporting opportunities such as training camps and after-school clubs, and they are part of the fabric of the local community. However, in Britain today not all young people have access to such wonderful organisations. For too many young people and adults with disabilities, opportunities to get involved in sport can feel inaccessible. Sport England has found that those with disabilities are twice as likely to be inactive as those without a disability, and the charity Activity Alliance found that only 25% of disabled children are regular participating in PE lessons. Those numbers are far too low, but the high-profile coverage of the Paralympic games put out by Channel 4 is helping to change perceptions of para sport, bring new audiences and increase participation. Channel 4’s 2022 report, 10 years on from the 2012 Paralympics, revealed that over two thirds of the UK’s population tuned into the games, and that 76% of people said the channel’s “Meet the Superhumans” campaign opened their eyes to what disabled people can be capable of. Almost three quarters of viewers aged between 12 and 16 said they were more comfortable talking about disabilities after Channel 4’s coverage. Viewership of the games this year reached record highs, with 20 million viewers across linear and streaming platforms, attracting a larger proportion of young people than other channels. That is the impact that public service broadcasting can have. Our Paralympians were already brilliant and doing amazing things in their sport. What they needed was a platform to inspire our nation. Sport can change lives. It can connect us and inspire us. I think I speak for Members across the House when I say that we are so proud of Team GB and ParaGB’s performance in this year’s games. I want to thank them for their contribution to our nation’s story, for their incredible talent, and for inspiring a nation.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Fly-tipping · Hansard source

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  Local councils battling this torrent of fly-tipping tend to deploy CCTV, but it then takes people to watch the CCTV to find the culprits. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should give councils the funding to staff that CCTV surveillance but also make use of the footage, such as by creating an online wall of shame, as we did in my previous council? That might put that footage to good use.

• 2 Sept 2024 · Technology in Public Services · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) for his moving and powerful words. It is an extraordinary thing to become a Member of Parliament, and becoming a Labour Member of Parliament who gets to sit on the Government Benches is even more extraordinary. I share the sense of pride and urgency that we have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) and from the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) in their maiden speeches, and I congratulate them on their contributions to this debate. It is the honour of my life to represent Croydon East in this place, so I thank the people of this new constituency for putting their faith in me. I will never forget what a privilege it is to be their voice in Parliament, and I will do all I can to fight for Croydon’s future. As south London’s most iconic borough, Croydon is a place so big that it needs four Members of Parliament to represent it. Like the reunion tour of a much-loved ’90s band, my constituency has been reformed under an old name with new boundaries, so I pay tribute to my predecessors, starting with the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) for his work for the people of Selsdon and his commitment to public service. While I cannot apologise for campaigning against him in the election, I can attest to the number of constituents who spoke highly of him and his contribution to their community when I met them on the doorstep. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones), who is not only Croydon’s first female MP, the founder and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime and violence reduction and now a Minister in this Government, but the kind of MP where everybody knows someone who has been helped by her. I thank her for her kindness, advice and encouragement over the past few months, and hope to build on her legacy and continue to stand up for Croydon in the way that she has always done. I am thrilled to join those Members and my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), someone who continues to work tirelessly for his constituents and who, as Secretary of State, is now taking on the urgent fight to clean up our waters. I look forward to us working together in the best interests of Croydon. Croydon East represents so much of what is great about our city. Whether it is the bustling life of South Norwood, the close-knit communities of Addiscombe and New Addington, or the stunning views from Shirley Hills, Croydon East is a place filled with diversity, ambition and strong values. However, even in this vibrant corner of south London, the shadow of inequality persists. Whether it is the fact that a child in Croydon East is twice as likely to live in poverty as one just a few miles away in Croydon South, or that a man living in New Addington North has a life expectancy a decade shorter than a woman living in Shirley South, these stark disparities remind us that too many remain trapped in a cycle of inequality. When we talk about technology in public services, we must not get lost in grand plans and digital transformations: we must remember those who use these services, and how they will be put to use. What do they mean for the community leaders at the coalface of the cost of living crisis—those who run services such as the Food Stop, Pathfinders and the Community Family Project in New Addington that often step up when there is no one else to step in? What do they mean to groups such as the Friends of Shirley Library, which is fighting to keep the library open—a place that not just tackles loneliness and isolation, but plays a critical role in closing the digital divide? What do they mean to my constituent Michael Lyons, a veteran who has campaigned to ensure that the memory of servicepeople from the first world war lives on? How will we ensure that digital public services remain as accessible to him as they are to the rest of us? With a considered application of technology, we have an opportunity to break down barriers instead of creating new ones, to bring people closer to democracy instead of driving them further away, and to rebuild our public services so they work better for the people who need them most. As someone who grew up in south London in a family that was always political but did not think that politics was for people like us, I know that the decisions that we make in this place have the power to change lives for the better. Choices that have been made in this room took my family from sleeping on our living room floor to decent social housing. They enabled my mother to go back to university to retrain and to get a better job. And they gave me the opportunity to go to university, to get a career in public service broadcasting, to serve my community as a local councillor and to make my way to these Benches. As an MP in London’s youngest borough, I want to spend my time here putting the wellbeing of our young people back on the political agenda. There is no longer-term plan than ensuring that our young people have the opportunities they deserve, so that they can go on to live the successful lives that we want them to. We need a national plan for what it is to be a young person in this country, and I look forward to showing how Croydon stands ready to lead that vital work. Finally, every Member of the House will have those people in their lives who have supported them to get here, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank mine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh), who allowed me to see that there was room for people like me in places like this. Without her encouragement and advice, I simply would not be here. I can only hope to be half the MP that she is. I thank my mum and dad for their support and unwavering belief in me. It is their hard work and determination that changed our lives, and I am so proud to continue our family’s track record of serving our country. To my spectacular husband, who encouraged me to get involved in politics because he was sick of me shouting at the TV: thank you for your patience and your endless support, and for being the greatest dad imaginable to our lads. It is really an extraordinary thing to be a Member of Parliament. I hope that in our time here, we make choices in this room that change the lives of the people outside of it for the better.

• 2 Sept 2024 · Council Funding · Hansard source

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  16. What steps she is taking with local authorities to help ensure that they have adequate resources to fund local services.