Rachael Maskell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a proud member of the trade union movement. No one should go to work with the uncertainty each day that their safety might be put at risk. We as a Government clearly support that for emergency workers, and of course we are legislating for retail workers too. New clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley), addresses delivery workers, and today I stand to speak for my new clause 11, which would do the same for transport workers. Every day, transport workers face verbal abuse, sexual harassment or physical assault, whether on bus, tram or ferry. Transport workers, alongside their trade union, the RMT, are calling for new measures to protect them at work: first, the introduction of a specific offence of assaulting or abusing a transport worker; and secondly, an extension in the maximum sentence, from six to 12 months—not least if sentences are now to be served in the community.

• 4 Jun 2025 · Regional Growth · Hansard source

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  I note that York did not feature in the Chief Secretary’s statement. However, I recognise the outstanding connectivity in York. Today is about creating jobs, and adjacent to York station, the York Central development—the gateway of the economy of the north—will create 12,000 jobs. Will he ensure that there is proper investment in York Central to unlock those jobs and give people in my city and the region the opportunities they deserve?

• 12 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Assessment Review · Hansard source

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  I would be interested to hear from the Secretary of State about what assessments she has made of the impact on public services, particularly adult social care, of the move to change personal independence payments. In my local authority, the director has said to me that she is deeply concerned about the additional costs and about moving people into dependency, as their independence is removed. Can the Secretary of State set out what assessment has been made and provide figures to demonstrate that?

• 8 Apr 2025 · Hospice Funding · Hansard source

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  We have to recognise that the hospice sector is in quite a difficult place financially. However, if there is good advance care planning, money currently spent in secondary care could be invested in the hospice sector and in more community provision. Surely that must be a first step that would not only get better clinical outcomes but be better for the whole of the palliative care pathway.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Community Hospitals · Hansard source

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  One in three hospital admissions occurs in a person’s last year of life, and 43% of people will die in an NHS hospital. Clearly, that is not acceptable when people are at their frailest. What is my right hon. Friend doing to invest in virtual wards so that we can keep those people at home, and in the district nurse workforce to ensure that district nurses have a proper career structure and that theirs can be a profession of choice once again?

• 19 Mar 2025 · Down’s Syndrome · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Mr Turner. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing this debate. The Down Syndrome Act is simple, but brilliant—but it is powerless without the guidance to accompany it. That is why this debate is timely. I also call it timely because the elements of the Act determine the very structure that can support a child through to adulthood, from birth through to work. The Act depends on three main pillars, the first of which is healthcare. At this time, we are putting in place a 10-year NHS plan, putting together the NHS of the future, and looking at how we can keep ourselves well; we are putting in early intervention measures and ensuring that we have the workforce needed in the future. If this guidance is to have effect, we need the workforce and the structures to support individuals and their families. Now is the time to look at that and to put in the additional screening and support that a person with Down syndrome needs to optimise their health and keep well throughout their life. The second pillar is that we are having a massive review of the education system at the moment. We are looking at curriculum change, recognising that the broadening of the curriculum will be much more inclusive. As we review SEND and the whole education system, it is timely to bring in this guidance. It cannot just be guidance around Down syndrome looking in; it must be looking out at other Departments. Again, the time is now. Look at the data: the figure of 80% of children with Down syndrome attending primary school drops to between 25% and 37% in secondary school. That deficit in itself indicates that we need significant change in our education system. We need a schools system that is nurturing, therapeutic and integrated, so that no child feels on the outside of the education they are rightly entitled to. The third pillar is the place of work. We need to ensure that there are more opportunities for people with Down syndrome to engage in the labour market. Just yesterday, the Government published their plan “Pathways to Work”, which I see as a plan in two halves. The first half will enable more people to access the labour market, to follow the career of their dreams, and to have their skills and talents recognised. We need to ensure that everybody with Down syndrome has that opportunity where it can be afforded—if not in a formal workplace, by volunteering in the community or being able to have the most life-enhancing opportunities available to them. When I talk about the second half of the plan, I have deep concern for people with Down syndrome, looking at the proposed thresholds for personal independence payment in which people will have to score at least four points to meet the threshold to access vital funding to keep them independent —the key word in personal independence payments. We need to ensure that we feed into that debate. When we get this right, it will be for the benefit of the whole of society. In York, I think of those people who work in West Offices, where the café is run by United Response and provides real work opportunities, and of the Once Seen theatre company, where I see such talent on display. We must get this guidance—

• 6 Mar 2025 · Geothermal Energy · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the work that the hon. Member has done in this area. York has rich sources of deep geothermal. The York Central site could heat 30,000 homes in my constituency, yet the local authority and other bodies do not have the confidence to bring those projects on board. Does he agree that the Government could provide tools and support to enable such projects to come to fruition, as well as just improve basic understanding?

• 10 Feb 2025 · Community and Third Sector Organisations: Employment · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Small organisations can often have the biggest impact. Chocolate and Co. in York is taking people out of the criminal justice system and people who have had a life of addiction and turning their lives around with employment. However, it costs money. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to see a long-term cost-benefit analysis of what these organisations can bring, to ensure they get the funding they need to transform these people’s lives?

• 3 Feb 2025 · School Accountability and Intervention · Hansard source

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  I appreciate all the work that my hon. Friend is doing, but the governance structures of multi-academy trusts lack transparency, not least to the local community. In some areas, their executive boards are choosing members and trustees, without the rigour of accountability. Will my hon. Friend ensure that mechanisms are available to allow far more robust scrutiny of multi-academy trusts, as well as the option to return those schools to the local authority?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Listed Places of Worship Scheme · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Mr Western. Let me set the scene. There are around 80 places of worship in York, from York Minster through to a small Orthodox congregation who wrote to me this week and are seeking a new place—buildings young and old, including well-established places. The listed places of worship grant scheme is essential to their upkeep. I want to raise two matters that have not been mentioned yet. First, the Belfrey, which is adjacent to York Minster, is currently under tarpaulin. The windows have been removed, the walls have been stripped back to the stone, the roof is about to come off and scaffolding is holding everything together. The grant is central to the £8.5 million project continuing; I hope the Minister will explain what will happen to this gutted church and its community of 600 worshippers without it. The grant is worth £1.5 million to them. After a tumultuous fundraising effort by the church, they need the scheme to continue, and urge the Minister to at least confirm that existing projects will continue until their completion. This is about not just the church but the social infrastructure. Some £1.5 million is being invested in mental health support and children and youth services, as well as in making York a poverty-free city. The Belfrey is crucial for my community, as well as for the local economy, tourism and our fabulous heritage sector. It sits in the new cathedral precinct, which is part of the local neighbourhood plan. We must have the spec at the required standard, as 9 million visitors come to York, which is the second-most visited place in the UK, and to York Minster, which is the most visited place in the city. When it opens, it will be a place that not only explains the heritage but enables people to explore their faith. A 15% hole in the budget would stop the scheme. Secondly, York has developed its new international centre of excellence for heritage craft. From stonemasons to glaziers, it will preserve the traditions that many people in this debate will benefit from. In fact, people around the world are looking to the centre. It is unique in the crafts that it will maintain, and it will ensure that the traditions are preserved. Much of the centre’s demand will come from different projects funded by the listed places of worship grant scheme. I hope the Minister will help the centre to greater success as it embarks on this new journey by ensuring that the grant enables demand to be placed at the centre’s door. So many churches and other organisations have written to me saying that the scheme must continue.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  A tourism levy in York could raise £125,000 through a voluntary scheme, but if there were a comprehensive scheme, £1.7 million could go to my local community. Will the Minister not consider such a scheme so that we can raise that revenue for York?

• 6 Jan 2025 · Flooding · Hansard source

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  I put on record my thanks to City of York council workers, as well as to the Environment Agency, for protecting our city over the new year period. Many businesses in my city flood periodically. Will the Minister think again about a review of the insurance system for businesses, so that they have resilience and confidence moving forward?

• 6 Jan 2025 · Health and Adult Social Care Reform · Hansard source

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  I thank NHS staff for working under severe duress over this winter. One way of ensuring better patient flows is to have better rehabilitation, so will my right hon. Friend say what he is doing to improve rehabilitation access not only in acute sectors but out in the community?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Despite York’s new emergency department, a consultant has described to me the situation in emergency medicine, where patients are waiting for days to be discharged and 50 patients are waiting to be placed on wards. We know we have inherited a broken NHS. Will the Minister say what she is doing first to enable primary care to pull more patients out of emergency medicine, in order to see people in the community, and secondly to invest in social care, which will clearly address some of the backlog and the logjam in patient flows?

• 14 Nov 2024 · Council Tax · Hansard source

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  York is the lowest-funded unitary authority in the country, but has one of the highest costs of living. That puts real pressure on it. We are also among the poorest-funded for health, fire and police services. When the Minister looks at the funding formula for local government, will he look at the presumptions made, to ensure more equity in the way it is put together?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Special Educational Needs and Disabilities · Hansard source

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  I want to raise the issue of governance. There are too many minds controlling the system, which ultimately stymies local authorities’ ability to reform services in order to embed a culture of nurturing and to ensure that the best interests of children are represented. While reviewing the SEND system, will the Minister take a look at governance, and ensure that is there is one controlling mind, and it is that of the local authority?

• 29 Oct 2024 · IPP Sentences · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on calling this important debate at the start of this Parliament. I also endorse the comments made about the Justice Committee, and its incredible work scrutinising this issue and coming up with workable recommendations. work scrutinising this issue and coming up with workable recommendations. My constituent, who lived in York before being taken into custody in 2005—19 years ago—was given an imprisonment for public protection sentence on 22 January 2007. His original tariff meant that the Parole Board could have released him on 26 May 2009, but he is still there. It must be one of the most egregious cases in the system. IPP sentences were introduced through the Criminal Justice Act 2003, despite warnings that they would be an affront to justice. They were reformed in 2008 and abolished in 2012, and a total of 8,711 sentences were imposed. My constituent’s family have been superb and have met me, to keep me informed of the progress for my constituent—apart from that there is no progress, because we do not know what happens next. There have been incidents and consequences, but he is seriously unwell, because he never knows the date of his release or how the injustices he has now served will ever be undone. To incarcerate someone indefinitely comes at significant cost—it is beyond comprehension. My constituent’s mental health has significantly spiralled, as he cannot see an end to this nightmare. As we have heard, reports have shown that 90 people have taken their own lives while on an IPP sentence. There have been 1,866 incidents of self-harm; the figure is around 2,000 incidents of self-harm every year, across many years, among those on IPP sentences. The nature of an indeterminate sentence is profound and we understand that denying somebody release has a huge impact. It is often denied as they are not engaging, as my constituent did not for some time, with psychiatric services. He just could not—yet that delayed his progress towards release. After getting a sentence of two years, four months and nine days, he has now served a sentence of 19 years, and his hope is diminishing as he continues to wait for the Parole Board to do justice. He was just 24 years old when a single incident occurred; now 43, having completed course after course after course, he is yet to be released. The Justice Committee report highlighted the inconsistencies in the way IPP prisoners are treated, the failure of the Parole Board to properly stratify risk, and the conditions that prisoners have to satisfy in order to be released. As a result, we see people languishing in their cells without hope of ever getting out. The Parole Board needs to be given the scope to properly look at this measure. That is why I support the recommendations in the Justice Committee’s report on resentencing. It is not just people who are incarcerated who are on an IPP sentence; on their release, people continue on that sentence in the community, and for the smallest misdemeanour can easily be recalled. There is no consistency. People may miss appointments and therefore be recalled. We heard in evidence to the Select Committee how small some of the misdemeanours were that meant people were recalled back into prison. We need to find a way out of this situation. The report calls for resentencing and the reduction of the recall period to five years from the current 10 years. Will the Minister support that change? If not, I ask him to give us a full explanation as to why. This all comes in the context of significant current pressure on the courts. Perhaps a specialist court is needed to review all these cases, to ensure that the decisions are expedited in the resentencing and ensuing release process. We need to ensure that people have the right support to go back into the community, given that the Probation Service is at absolute breaking point, not least as it is having to deal with early releases at the moment. Again, a specialist focus is required. For example, my constituent has been in prison for 19 years, so a lot of steps need to be taken to ensure that when he is released, he is safe to himself, that he gets the mental health support he requires, and that the family also get support over that period. We must recognise the huge vulnerability of these individuals at that time. We also need to ensure that the process is robust and consistent—we have seen inconsistencies in the judgments of parole boards, causing further frustration for many people on the inside—and that there are allocated safe places, where people can start to rebuild their lives. My constituent is fortunate to have family who are prepared and a place to go, but many people do not have those associations because it has been so long since they were on the outside. We need to make sure that real expertise in this area is brought in. When we hear places like the European Court of Human Rights deeming such sentences to be in breach of article 5, on the basis of protection of unlawful deprivation of liberty, the Government cannot sit on their hands. They must act swiftly; and being new in government brings the opportunity to ensure that they do. How is the Minister is going to review the programmes that people on IPP sentences and others are placed on in prison? The Select Committee heard evidence that many are not fit for purpose nor evidence-based. How do we ensure that the focus of those programmes is on rehabilitating people ready for their future life, and that they are not just a process that prisoners have to go through, serving no benefit? The Lord Chancellor and the Minister have to rebuild the criminal justice system—we recognise that. The most important thing is reducing the offending rate and ensuring that we do not continue to see the current levels of reoffending. There are some good models out there, including my local prison, Askham Grange, which has the lowest reoffending rate in the country. With that, there is a proper process in place so that the residents —as they are given the dignity of being called—are given support when coming out and going back into employment and civil society. That invest-to-save model needs funding and support. As we transition services, we need to ensure—particularly for those serving IPP sentences, but also across the wider criminal justice system—that the right support is put in the right place. Ultimately, I turn to the matter of our psychiatric services, because my observation is that many prisons have now become a place where people with significant and severe mental health challenges have to be; it is a failure of our mental health services that they are there at all. Many on IPP sentences fall within that category. If there is a resentencing process, which I hope there is, can we ensure that we also look at mental health support? For many people, perhaps hospital is a more appropriate place than prison. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

• 10 Oct 2024 · Mental Health Support · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I think we all agree that, in introducing this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) gave an incredible speech, as all contributors have. I want to talk a little bit about the transitional approach that we are taking in York, following the Trieste model. It is seeing a real transition, in the way the Health Secretary has described, from secondary care, which we know is just not able to cope with the capacity and demand that is placed on it, into a more primary-care and socialised setting. It is really transformative for the people in my city. We are setting up community mental health hubs in my city. We have one, and we are going to have two more to follow, with one working 24/7. The model is co-produced and multi-agency, and is moving to provide open-access support to help people to manage their own mental health challenges, with interventions from health professionals, social prescribing and peer support, and to look at issues around welfare, debt and employment support. Particularly in respect of community outreach, the hub is taking people who feel so neglected, because there just is not the capacity, into a space where they can get support and then progress on with their lives. It is centred around a café where people are encouraged to engage and talk. The café is run by service users, so it is a wholly-owned model, and it is incredibly successful. The Trieste model is considered one of the best models of service provision in the world because of its emphasis on integration with the whole community and with the self, with professional support at hand if needed. In Trieste, very few depend on secondary care or acute psychiatric care, and residential placements are few and far between. We need to look at that, particularly in respect of the transitions and the Government’s ambition. Following a social model means we do not pathologise mental health but deal with it and help people to build on their strengths and to build resilience into the future. Our programme is linked with the local university, York St John University, which runs the Converge programme that enables people to use education not only as a way to deal with their mental health issues but to learn new skills and feel included in our community. It contrasts so much with the traditional model, which we know just is not functioning given the demand on services. I therefore urge the Minister to have a look at what is happening in Trieste and to come and have a look at what is happening in York. Let us put this into a model in which people live with mental health as opposed to struggling with it.

• 7 Oct 2024 · NHS Performance: Darzi Investigation · Hansard source

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  Is a real pleasure to follow the new hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). I am sure that he will be a rising star on the Liberal Democrat Benches. It is a pleasure to follow all hon. Members who have made their maiden speech today. I am really grateful for the analysis that Lord Darzi has set out for us. The NHS has never been under such duress, nor have its staff, but following a diagnosis, we need a prescription. That is what I want to talk about today. We live in an ageing society, and while we celebrate the medical advances since Labour was last in power—in diagnostics, treatments, digital and technology—we know the urgency with which we need to apply them. Transformation has to be central to the agenda. I congratulate the Secretary of State on his focus on the NHS bringing about the transformation that is needed. However, before we can look at that, we need to look at the financial flows in the NHS, which are not working, and the governance structures. I am not talking about reorganisation; I am talking about having one controlling mind in the right place in the service, overseeing the system. At the moment, there is too much focus on secondary care. That is sucking resources and work into that part, and driving inefficiency. Moving services into primary care is the key to unlocking the productivity and savings that are needed. It will improve health as well. In the short time that I have, let me point to two examples in my community. First, in mental health, 30 Clarence Street is set up to be open access, so that there are no more long queues to see mental health practitioners, and multidisciplinary, with the public sector and the voluntary sector working hand in hand to meet people’s needs. I invite the Secretary of State to come and see that service, because it is what we should be doing across our NHS. Two more hubs are to be set up in my constituency, leading the way on mental health. Then there is the work of Nimbuscare in primary care settings; it is pulling out from the NHS all the services that do not need to be in the secondary part. It is unplugging the backlog at the front door of the health service, while ensuring that we are looking after people at the back door. That is the transformation that our health service truly needs. I wanted to share those examples, and set out how they can be extended to build the NHS of the future.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Short-term Lets: Regulation · Hansard source

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  It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on an outstanding presentation of all the issues that we have been wrestling with for so long. I spent six months on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill fighting for the licensing of short-term holiday lets. We only managed to achieve a registration scheme and a consultation on a change in use class. As my hon. Friend said, that would grandfather the rights of existing short-term holiday lets, locking in the inequity that we already see in our communities. I have around 2,000 short-term holiday lets in my own constituency and I know the challenges that they bring as housing demand outstrips supply. As a result we have a serious housing crisis, not least where we have clusters and people lack access particularly to family homes. Short-term holiday lets break up communities and distort the normal community life that we have come to expect. We need a Bill—I have one I prepared earlier, which I presented to the House in 2022; I believe it still stands today. I will talk the Minister through my Bill, which has a licensing scheme rather than a registration scheme for the conversion of domestic properties into short-term holiday lets in exchange for a fee, differentiated of course if somebody lets out a single room in their own property. Local authorities could issue fines or remove licences if conduct was criminal or if antisocial behaviour continued in the home. Also, a licensing scheme would ensure proper standards in the homes, with environmental controls, health and safety standards and electric and gas checks. That would bring short-term lets level with the traditional B&B sector so that there was no inequality there. It would also restrict the number of days that they can operate. Local authorities would be able to determine the standards within which they practised, giving them control in local communities. The Bill was drawn from best practice across the world where schemes have already been tried, tested and tweaked, so we know that it would operate well. It would improve safety, the environment and communities. The licence would be renewed every three years to balance the administrative burdens with the need for inspection. It would be self-funding, with no extra cost to local authorities. Every short-term holiday let would have a named person who could be contacted and who would be liable for the management of the property. Also, the licence would say how many people could stay at the property so that there was not an overcrowding problem. We know that as Friday night comes and the wheelie trolleys go down the streets, neighbourhoods are in fear because they know the parties are about to arrive. Well, we can get on top of that and also the criminality. These places have been used as pop-up brothels, for child exploitation and as drug dens. By ensuring that a proper scheme was in place, we could get on top of that, too. It would help the industry, landlords, visitors, and most of all communities and would regenerate our housing for the purpose for which it was built.

• 12 Sept 2024 · NHS: Independent Investigation · Hansard source

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  I agree with my right hon. Friend: this is the most devastating analysis that I have read of the NHS in over 30 years. It just shows the challenges that lie before him. Talking of challenges, will he challenge the integrated care boards to focus on moving resources into primary care? In particular, will he look at what is happening in York, where Nimbuscare has been able to pull out services from the acute sector and deliver work in the community?

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a powerful point, and I will talk about the mitigation that absolutely must be there. I talked to a director of public health this morning who said we should implement a warm homes on prescription scheme. Evidence from the Energy Systems Catapult and the NHS pilot in Gloucestershire found that such a scheme was value for money and helped people stay well. Government could really help. Sadly, demand on GPs will rise, queues at A&Es will grow, more beds will be occupied in the NHS and social care will be placed under more demand. Tragically, according to University College London and the Institute of Health Equity, there were 4,950 excess winter deaths due to cold homes under the previous Government. I feel sick to the stomach each time I repeat that reality, because I cannot process how Governments past did not protect those vulnerable people—Labour must be different. We need mitigation, because we must protect those under our care. Otherwise, what is the point of power? One constituent has had leukaemia. They need to put the heating on to keep warm, but they cannot afford to because it costs £300 a month. A recently widowed constituent, at the depth of their personal sadness, is now scared they will not survive the winter; they cannot afford their heating. Another constituent goes to bed at 5 o’clock to keep warm. One constituent told me he wears jumpers, a coat and a warm hat, but the air is still cold and damp. Then there is Rose, who is registered as severely vision-impaired and living alone, who said: “I am a council tenant with no extra assets”. She told me she was scared and “abandoned”—the winter fuel payment was her lifeline. I have many, many more accounts like that. It is colder in the north, so costs are higher. The UK Health Security Agency recommends indoor temperatures should be at least 18°C. Some people need higher temperatures to keep warm. It is not just the physical impact that matters; people are anxious, tearful and scared each year.

• 5 Sept 2024 · SEND Provision · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. What a mess—young people broken by a broken system. The Children and Families Act promised so much, but without people, money and the rest of the system to back it up, it could never deliver. When the wait for the diagnosis is over, the battle for the EHCP is won and masses of resources have been spent, the demand is still not being met. Staff do their very best, but still people are falling out of the system. I have spent the past year digging deep, looking at the local, the national and the international to bring best practice to this space. I have looked at the environment, the community and the child. On the environment, I say to the Minister, “Go back to the Department and rip up the behaviourist approach to education. It creates a world where neurodiverse children—those with anxiety or mental illness—and even the timid cannot survive.” Instead, we should adopt a therapeutic, nurturing approach so that all children can thrive. In York, where schools have done so, all gain from recognising the need for every child to be safe, valued and included. It is a happy place where a child will strive for excellence and the whole child will be able to navigate their way through this world, rather than an obstacle course of micro-traumas, stress and anxiety. Let us not build bigger and bigger schools, but create more therapeutic and intimate spaces that belong to the children and where they can thrive. We should bring children out of home schooling, out of their bedrooms, off the streets and back into the classroom. School must be safe for all those children. We also need to recognise, as the Government do, the failed nature of the curriculum. Let us build space for our brains and our bodies. Are we really shocked that young people are failing when only half of them is engaged? We have cut out arts, music, sports, nature, dance, play, exploration, wonder and fun. Yet all children, especially those with SEND, benefit from that balance. When I visited Sweden, I went into schools to hear about what they were doing. They brought people into the heart of the school, not prescribing from an EHCP but taking a whole-child and a whole-school approach, using the skills of psychologists, teachers, occupational therapists, physios and speech therapists for all children. Let us recognise that school community and ensure that we value its members. Our teaching assistants do so much of the work, yet their pay is so poor—that must be addressed.

• 22 Jul 2024 · NATO and European Political Community Meetings · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on the leadership he showed not just at NATO, but at the European Political Community. Working together and collaborating are important, not least in the unstable world that we are in. Could he set out what discussions he had about the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement in the light of its renegotiation deadlines next year?

• 17 Jul 2024 · Debate on the Address · Hansard source

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  May I congratulate all new and returning Members on their election success? The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) is right in saying that it is the greatest of privileges to be able to represent our constituents. I certainly pay real attention to my constituents in York Central and assure them that I will do all I can to ensure that their voices are heard, not least with the privilege of being in power. We must make the most of every opportunity, as today’s King’s Speech has clearly demonstrated for all to see. First, on stabilising the economy, I say to those on our Treasury Bench that York Central will play its part not only by creating 12,500 new jobs in the York Central development, taking forward advanced rail technologies and biosciences, but through BioYorkshire, with 4,000 green-collar jobs and a green new deal for York and wider Yorkshire. It will be a huge privilege to work with Front- Bench colleagues to see that come to fruition. It is not just about the economy. We will build the homes and the public services that we longed to see in Opposition. We will overturn the injustice that has crushed so many hopes and so many communities, entrenched now in inequality, and ensure that we build those services in the interests of the people we represent. Labour’s employment rights Bill will be so refreshing to workers. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am a proud trade unionist. I am proud of the work of trade unions: working people, working together for a better future, ending fire and rehire and the disgrace of minimum service level agreements, and giving workers fresh rights from the day they start work. I ask my Front-Bench team to consider my private Member’s Bill to outlaw bullying at work, ensuring a legal definition of bullying alongside discrimination and harassment and providing a route to an employment tribunal to seek justice, alongside an enforcement body to improve workplace culture. It could be transformative, reduce absenteeism and increase productivity, and it needs including. I stand here as a Co-operative MP, of which I am so proud. I will ensure that we embed our values in the Government’s agenda, growing the co-operative sector, ensuring community energy alongside Great British Energy, creating those safer high streets and enabling local ownership so that assets in our communities are given back to our communities. Labour is determined to build the homes that our constituents desperately need. York has a serious housing crisis. Council housing and first homes will show that Labour is on the side of families and communities. With rents out of control and housing disparity failing our communities as the market determines everything, we can once again control the right that people should have to live in a safe home. The renters’ rights Bill and the draft leasehold and commonhold reforms will make a difference to my constituents, and I am proud that they were in today’s speech. I am still on the campaign trail on Airbnbs and short-term holiday lets. The last Government said before the summer that they would legislate and regulate, but they did not. I trust that my Front-Bench team will now bring forward not a registration scheme—we know where these things are—but a licensing scheme so that we can control the growth of short-term holiday lets. There are 2,000 of them in my constituency—one in 10 houses. We need to take control of all housing. I gently say to the Minister that we have been waiting 68 years and counting for a local plan. We need York’s local plan to be delivered. It will no longer be like pulling teeth to get action on NHS dentistry. My hon. Friend the Minister is already at work delivering for our future, but we should look at the Health Committee’s report from the last Parliament on NHS dentistry. It set out a blueprint to really reform dentistry, to ensure access, treatment and better oral health. As we know, the NHS as a whole is on its knees. As a former physio, I know the importance of getting it back on its feet again. When we left office in 2010, the NHS was the most efficient health service in the world. Our ambition in government must be to restore those credentials, and not just in health but in social care, too. This must be the Parliament of social care, to complete the deal that people can have security in later life, this Government will take care of them and they do not need to fear those latter years. There is so much we need to do on health. We have heard today about the Mental Health Act and the tobacco and vapes Bill, and so much more is on our agenda. I will do everything, as I have for over 30 years, to work for a better health service built by that radical, reforming 1945 Government. I trust that this Government will be as radical and as reforming as that, ensuring the NHS is safe in public hands. Finally, I turn to education. I say to our education team that we need a new approach. We need to rip up that behaviourist approach that is doing so much harm to our young people, and introduce a nurturing, therapeutic approach to education. I am heartened to hear about the children’s wellbeing Bill, which is so needed at this time, and reviewing the curriculum and ensuring that young children leave school not just with good results but as confident young people, whose wellbeing and mental health are as important as their exam results. I further call on the Government to take action on academy trusts, which have spun out of control. We need accountability, and education funding spent on actual education, not on executive salaries and bonuses, as it currently is. We need education brought back under local authority control, so that the whole system can hold together and work together. Those changes at Ofsted are necessary, but we need to ensure that all our children have access to a nurturing education system that will make a difference to them and their future. I will work with our Front-Bench team to ensure that we are looking after children, no matter what challenges they face at home and school.