Natasha Irons MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jun 2026 · Milburn Review: Interim Report · Hansard source

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  This is not just about work; this is about what it means to grow up as a young person in this country and meeting the ambitions of young people like those in my community in Croydon East. The Government have already announced a number of measures to support our young people. Can the Minister outline what can be done to bring together the national youth strategy, the Young Futures programme, the youth guarantee, youth hubs, health and education to ensure that our response to this emergency is joined up and across all of Government?

• 14 Apr 2026 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her tireless work and campaigning on this issue, both in this place and in our community of Croydon. I know that this moral mission is personal to her, but given her experience, does she agree that tackling knife crime requires a whole-system approach bringing together policing, schools, health and communities? Can she outline how this plan strengthens the partnerships at a local level in communities like ours in Croydon?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme · Hansard source

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  I completely agree. We have to look at economic investment and infrastructure in broad terms. The fact that local plans can unlock local growth corridors and be key to local areas should be included in the assessment of the validity of these projects. Addressing the bottleneck could unlock around £5.1 billion in economic value over the next 20 years and provide resilience and growth for this vital corridor. The Croydon area remodelling scheme would expand East Croydon from six platforms to eight, redesign the track layout and remove the conflicting train movements that cause so many delays today. It could create capacity for an additional four to six trains an hour and, based on previous modelling, could deliver around 15% extra peak capacity. The scheme would also support wider station improvements, drive economic growth and, most importantly, finally get us a lift at Norwood Junction station. Network Rail will not draw up plans for a lift just in case CARS happens at some point in the future, but the Department for Transport has not agreed to restart CARS, which leaves commuters at Norwood Junction stuck in an endless cycle of lift limbo. Further delays to getting CARS off the ground could hold back economic growth not only for the south-east, which is estimated to be the seventh largest regional economy in the country, but for some of this Government’s key infrastructure investments. This Government have rightly stated their intention to grow every corner of this country, and that good public transport will no longer be confined to the boundaries of our city, so I urge the Minister to consider the wider impact that investment in CARS could have on our coastal communities and our towns and regions outside London. CARS is not just good for Croydon and south-east; it is good for the whole country.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Royal Mail: Universal Service Obligation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) for securing this urgent question. In my constituency, we have had a massive uptick in complaints about not only letters being delivered late, but priority service not happening when people have paid for it, and constituents being advised to collect post from delivery offices without prior notification of an attempted delivery; essentially, they are asked to become their own Royal Mail. Having met local workers over Christmas, I know that they are working incredibly hard to keep on top of this, and they are just as frustrated as my residents. My biggest concern is that when Members have raised the issue with Royal Mail, its response has been, quite frankly, rude, dismissive and a bit lacklustre. Will the Minister please outline what he will do to ensure that postal services are protected in my community, and communities across the country?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the hon. Member’s concerns. My constituency is an outer-London borough that has long been deemed as having inner-London support through finance, and it has inner-London problems—it is not particularly leafy, and deprivation is tough and takes a massive toll on our councils. Does he understand that addressing deprivation, the cost of housing and things like temporary accommodation are crucial for places like mine?

• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I want to add my voice on this point. In Croydon, we find ourselves in a similar situation, in that inner London boroughs put their children into our part of London because the housing is slightly cheaper. I also have constituents who have faced exactly the situation that my hon. Friend outlined: being threatened with homelessness, with the council discharging its duty, if they do not take a placement in Birmingham. In some cases, that means people losing their job, their children losing places at school, and losing all connections with their family. There needs to be a holistic look at how we support councils to keep families locally, but also at how we prevent councils having to pick up the tab for these terrible situations.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I join colleagues in thanking the Secretary of State and the Minister for Local Government for their work on this matter. We talk about outdated data; places like my Croydon East constituency, in an outer-London borough, have been treated as though we have an endless pot of cash, or are endlessly wealthy. However, my constituency has pockets of some of the highest deprivation in the country—an issue that this funding formula seeks to address. Does my hon. Friend agree that this fresh approach, which brings an end to Tory austerity, is exactly what our councils need?

• 17 Dec 2025 · Local Government Finance · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government’s taking into account deprivation in the multi-year funding settlement. If there was ever a demonstration of what a difference a Labour Government can make, it is this: investment in our poorest communities, not crippling Tory austerity. It looks like in Croydon we are set to get an extra £158 million over this Parliament, which is a game changer for us. Will the Minister outline the timetable for our getting this extra investment? I thank her again for her work.

• 17 Dec 2025 · Youth Services · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the delivery of youth services by local authorities, including services under section 507B of the Education Act 1996; to require local authorities to specify groups of young people to receive particular services for the purposes of personal and social development of people in those groups; to make provision about the inclusion of youth services in arrangements for the inspection of children’s services and social care services; to make provision about targets for the delivery of youth work and measurement of delivery against those targets; to require local authorities to consult users and prospective users of youth services about the provision of those services; and for connected purposes. As outlined in the Government’s national youth strategy, every young person deserves a safe place to go, a trusted adult to turn to, and the opportunity to develop skills, confidence and a sense of belonging. For generations, youth services have provided exactly that; they have offered support beyond the school gates, stability when home life is difficult, and early help long before problems escalate to crisis. Today, though, too many young people are growing up without access to those services. The duty on councils to provide youth services already exists in law. Section 507B of the Education Act 1996 requires local authorities to secure sufficient leisure-time activities for young people. However, the law does not define what “sufficient” means. There are no clear expectations, no common standards, and no effective way to assess whether the duty is being met in practice. This lack of clarity has left youth services vulnerable when councils are forced to balance competing statutory pressures. As a result, funding for youth services has been cut by £1.2 billion since 2010. Over the same period, the number of council-run youth centres has fallen by more than half. What remains is not only smaller in scale, but increasingly uneven in reach, with spending on youth services ranging from around £1 per young person in some areas to over £130 in others. That inconsistency is the predictable outcome of a statutory framework that is vague, weakly enforced and too easily sidelined. That matters because youth services do not exist in isolation. When they are absent, pressures do not disappear, but simply resurface elsewhere. In England today, one in five children and young people have a probable mental health disorder. Incidents of youth violence remain at high levels, with 3,000 knife crime offences last year involving children. The Office for National Statistics reports that 16 to 24-year-olds are now the loneliest group in our society. Last year’s “Good Childhood Report” states that the UK’s children and young people are the unhappiest in Europe. I have seen at first hand the impact that a lack of statutory protection and the defunding of youth services can have on a community. In Croydon, London’s youngest borough, we have lost our council-run youth engagement team. That team of youth workers provided a critical link between the council, the voluntary sector and vulnerable young people across the borough. The lack of statutory protection meant that this vital service was cut without proper consultation with key partners like the local police and the NHS, and without consulting widely with Croydon’s young people. Although Croydon’s voluntary sector is doing all it can to step up and step in where the council has stepped back, without sufficiency benchmarks there is little that our community can do to ensure that Croydon’s youth services are delivered consistently across the borough and in a way that reflects local need. The purpose of the Bill is to address that structural weakness. It starts with a simple premise: if Parliament places a duty on local authorities, that duty should be meaningful and clear, and should hold local authorities to account. Youth services should not be left to chance and young people should not be left waiting for support that never comes. At present, statutory guidance sets out broad principles but avoids firm expectations. It does not define minimum levels of provision, workforce capacity or accessibility. Over time, this lack of clarity has hollowed out provision and widened regional disparities. The Bill proposes benchmarks around three core areas. First, on workforce capacity, youth work is a skilled profession, built on relationships, trust and safeguarding, so the Bill sets expectations around access to qualified youth workers, recognising the importance of professional expertise alongside volunteers and community organisations. The expectations are not about imposing a one-size-fits-all model or micromanaging local delivery. They are about setting a clear national floor below which provision should not fall, while leaving local authorities free to design services that reflect local need. Secondly, the Bill proposes targets and benchmarks for delivery, which could include a per head funding model, the distance that young people must travel to access services, or ensuring that there are enough safe spaces for young people in each area. The benchmarks would bring transparency and comparability to spending decisions, and make it easier for councillors, inspectors and local residents to see whether youth services are being properly resourced. Without a clear sense of what adequate investment looks like, youth services will always struggle to compete with other statutory responsibilities. Thirdly, the Bill proposes ensuring that young people are consulted, so that services reflect local need and young people’s priorities. Youth services work best when young people help to shape them, and the Bill seeks to embed consultation, participation and the democratic involvement of young people in the design of their services. The good news is that this has been done before. In the early 2000s, national guidance set out clear expectations on leadership, workforce and inspection. Those arrangements have since fallen away, but they demonstrate that it is possible and appropriate for the Government to define what sufficiency looks like. The Bill also recognises the reality of modern delivery. Local authorities increasingly work in partnership with voluntary and community organisations. That partnership working will be made stronger if it is underpinned by co-ordination, data and accountability. By strengthening reporting requirements and linking youth services into existing inspection and outcome frameworks, the Bill aims to support improvement rather than impose punishment. The aim of the Bill is to make youth services a core part of the local safety net, not an optional extra that disappears when finances are tight. That is important because youth services sit at the point where opportunity meets prevention. About 85% of a young person’s waking hours are spent outside the classroom. What happens during that time shapes their wellbeing, their confidence and their future. The evidence is clear: investment in youth services pays off. Research by UK Youth and Frontier Economics shows that every £1 invested in youth work delivers between £3.20 and £6.40 in social value, through improved wellbeing, reduced crime and better long-term outcomes. This is not just a moral investment in our nation’s future; it is a practical one too. In that context, we must wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s national youth strategy, the political focus that it gives our young people and the extra £500 million of investment that comes with it. The strategy rightly recognises the importance of youth work, and the need to look again at the statutory framework that underpins it. However, a commitment to explore and review, although important, does not in itself restore provision on the ground. Young people who are growing up today cannot wait years for clarity to emerge. This Bill takes the Government’s stated ambitions and gives them the practical effect that is needed. It replaces ambiguity with clarity, aspiration with benchmarks, and guidance with accountability. It strengthens an existing duty rather than creating a new one, and it builds on mechanisms that are already in place. This is not about dictating a single model of provision; it is about setting a fair and transparent baseline so that no young person is left without support simply because of where they live; it is about giving local authorities the framework they need to prioritise youth services and to work effectively with voluntary and community partners; and it is about ending the often patchwork postcode lottery of provision that young people currently face. The Youth Services Bill offers a practical and proportionate way to achieve that. It strengthens the statutory duty, provides clarity where there is currently confusion, and helps to ensure that youth services are treated as a core part of our commitment to the next generation. For those reasons, I commend it to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Natasha Irons, Dr Lauren Sullivan, Josh Dean, Jim Dickson, Shockat Adam, Vikki Slade, Mrs Sharon Hodgson, Abtisam Mohamed, Gareth Snell, Afzal Khan, Rachael Maskell and Kim Johnson present the Bill. Natasha Irons accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 January 2026, and to be printed (Bill 353).

• 10 Jul 2025 · London’s National Economic Contribution · Hansard source

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  I want to highlight the local impact of that £2.2 billion, which means that my community in Croydon will finally get new trams. Croydon is not the only place in London that has trams, but we have the oldest trams in the country, and the sustainable, multi-year funding settlement means that my outer London borough will get the transport it needs for the people in my community to access the opportunities of central London. Does my hon. Friend agree that a Labour Government and a Labour Mayor working together with long-term funding and a grown-up conversation leads to prosperity for everybody?

• 10 Jul 2025 · Educational Attainment of Boys · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) for securing this very important debate. I rise to speak on an issue that cuts across every postcode, every classroom and every community: the persistent and growing gap in educational engagement and attainment among our boys. Although I declare an interest by admitting to the House that I am the proud mum of two boys, we must make it clear that this is not about pitting one group of students against another. It is about recognising that some of our boys—particularly those from working-class backgrounds and from the British Caribbean community, and boys with special educational needs—are being systematically left behind by a system that was never designed with them in mind. Over the past decade, nearly 1 million five-year-old boys have started primary school already behind. By the age of 11, girls consistently outperform boys in reading by around seven percentage points, and in writing by about six percentage points, while the maths gap sits at around five points. By GCSE level, 68% of girls achieve at least grade 4 in English and maths, compared with just 63% of boys. These are not trivial differences; they are measurable, systemic and enduring. Among pupils eligible for free school meals, the attainment gap falls across the same old fault lines, with just 34% of white boys and 36% of black Caribbean boys achieving at least grade 4 in English and maths. In Croydon East, I have heard from teachers, youth workers, parents and students that our young people, and those who support them, know that they do not lack talent, ambition or even motivation, but opportunity. We need a curriculum that speaks to them, mentoring that looks like them and teachers who truly believe in them. I welcome this Government’s commitment to breaking down barriers to opportunity, to raising standards and to giving all children the best start in life. Now is the time to consider how we invest in early intervention, before exclusion and the school-to-prison pipeline take hold, to look at how we expand male role models with male teachers, but also with mentoring and youth outreach in the community, and to change accountability systems in schools so that we are not punishing creativity, but have a more inclusive approach to how people learn. It is time for us to stop asking why boys are disengaged, and to start asking what we can do to change how we re-engage them, because every boy in Croydon and all across Britain deserves the right to learn, thrive and dream.