Siân Berry MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 9 Sept 2024 · Medicines · Hansard source

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  Alongside hon. Members who have spoken on behalf of other parties, I welcome the changes. Naloxone saves lives: it brings people back from one of the most final and, in many cases, fatal mistakes they can make. This is a really important change to make, but I hope that the regulations will be kept more closely and continuously under review, rather than us just coming back to the topic in two years’ time, as is mandated. Drugs policy must be evidence-led. As we see the benefits, hopefully quickly, of wider access and of more people having naloxone available in their work, it might be a good idea to see whether we can widen access any further. I have been reading the careful, evidence-based and considered responses from a range of different charities, including Release. It seems that there are quite a few groups of workers who ought to be able to use the first route—the expanded definition of workers who can easily access and use the drug—rather than the second route, under which they access it not directly but via a separately accredited provider of naloxone. As Release says, one of the simpler ways to achieve that might be to make it a pharmacy-available drug rather than a prescription drug, with some exceptions, as we have now. I do not want to say, “Don’t do this”; I am saying, “Do it, then review it and go further if you can.” Many groups of workers will have the experience of unexpectedly meeting people who are going through overdose more often than others will in their daily work. There are now also more people working with those who will unexpectedly be going through overdose because of the wider prevalence of synthetic opioids and the other routes to becoming a victim of opioid overdose. They include student welfare workers, youth workers who are not necessarily involved in youth justice, local councillors potentially, night-time venue staff, transport workers, who are not currently on the list, street cleaners and park workers. Once we see the benefits of wider groups being able to access naloxone easily, it may become obvious that some of these other groups ought to be trained and given simple access—potentially through pharmacies to anyone who asks. This is not to quibble. I am obviously restating quite a lot of what was said in the consultation. I hope that we continue to look at the evidence and expand this as quickly as possible. Every life that we could save, we should save. The harm that could be done is minimal in comparison.

• 4 Sept 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for his very serious and compassionate statement. The events of June 2017 feel like yesterday. Although I cannot imagine how the people directly affected are feeling right now, we must act in every way we can, and we must act together as much as possible. However, I note that the inquiry’s report does not make new proposals on transparency and accountability for social housing tenants and leaseholders, particularly on access to fire risk assessments and related information, which are still very hard for residents to access—I saw that for myself in London, and I am still seeing it in Brighton. The previous Government did not act on the calls for housing associations to be subject to freedom of information requirements, despite them including calls made by the Information Commissioner as long ago as August 2017. Will the Prime Minister act now to fix these gaps in resident empowerment and access to information? That would be very simple, but it is not covered by today’s report.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Greens are not agnostic on privatisation. We very much support the principle of the Bill and look forward to its progress. I want to make a short speech on amendments 2 to 5, which I tabled. They are very simple and common sense; their goal is to leave open the opportunity for elected devolved bodies to set up companies that they own, in order to bid to run railway services under the overall guidance and wing of Great British Railways. The Bill, which restricts the definition of a public sector company to those owned by Ministers, either here or in Wales or Scotland, does not allow for that. That seems to clash with the direction of travel towards more public sector devolution, with which my party and I agree. It would improve and future-proof the Bill if we amended proposed new section 30C of the Railways Act 1993 so that Ministers could in future choose a company set up or owned by combined authorities, or by groups of unitary, county, district or borough councils who decided to co-operate, ahead of further devolution, on improving their railways. Any decisions on the award of franchises, on the suitability of a body to run and own local railways, and on where investment should go would remain fully with Ministers. I tabled the amendments in a constructive spirit, and I hope that they will start a constructive conversation that will continue here and in the other place as the Bill progresses.

• 2 Sept 2024 · Violent Disorder · Hansard source

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  The ugly, racist mob violence in our towns and cities this summer was incited and organised by far-right groups, often using electronic platforms including Telegram and X. For example, on Telegram, groups have distributed instructions for making petrol bombs. Locations of hotels housing migrants and offices of immigration lawyers were also shared. Elon Musk, the proprietor of X, has greatly amplified some accounts that promote racist violence in our cities, while failing to take action to remove others. In the Home Secretary’s response, will she look at options for prosecuting those who own platforms that may have enabled or committed crimes under section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006?

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

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  I thank all the Members who have given their maiden speeches. It was moving to hear all of them, particularly the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean). I am making a note of everybody who mentions youth services, and he did some very good advocacy: he is on my list. It is great to be speaking on my first Bill in the House, and that it is a Bill that brings passenger railway services back into public hands. The fact that this measure made it through the dramatic sift of Labour policy that took place before the election, and is among the first and most urgent pieces of new legislation we are looking at, is I believe in no small way due to the Secretary of State’s own commitments to this policy and her dedicated internal advocacy for it. I wish that more of her colleagues had been so willing and determined to push for similar Bills to bring other privatised services such as water and the big six energy companies into public hands, but that does not diminish my delight this evening. I recently mentioned to her how much I was looking forward to scrutinising and where necessary helping to improve other upcoming Bills under her remit, including the buses Bill and the more detailed railways Bill. This is all great work. As far as this Bill’s key principle is concerned, the Secretary of State will have noticed that public ownership is popular with me and is popular with the people. In 2024, that principle is supported for the railways by 76% of the public. That support has risen steadily for the past decade; it was even backed before the election by 60% of those intending to vote Conservative. Bringing the railways back into public hands has been in my party’s programme for as long as I can remember. It is also close to the hearts of my constituents in Brighton Pavilion, for whom the legacy of the failed policy of privatisation is one of poor services, inefficiencies and very high costs for passengers. An annual season ticket between Brighton and London currently costs my constituents the best part of £6,000. That cost has risen by approximately 40% in the past 10 years—far more than wages in Brighton have risen. In the face of service cuts and failure to invest, passengers have had to form local pressure groups such as the Preston Park Train Campaign to save services. In so many stations, understaffing and disabled access remain dreadful, creating appalling discrimination against passengers—and don’t get me started on toilet provision. I am not just here to praise the Bill or celebrate its principle. I do have some questions and comments—all to be constructively taken, I hope. The Bill is very short and very simple, and I wonder whether it could benefit from some additional detail and a wider scope. I will keep my comments brief at this stage, but on each point I would welcome more detail from the Secretary of State on her thinking. I also request a meeting with her to discuss the issues before Committee of the whole House. First, I want to talk about the exceptions from the Bill. From the information I have, it appears that the Bill will not bring into public ownership the regional services currently let by concession contracts, including the Elizabeth line, Mersey Rail and the London Overground, or any of the services on open-access routes, including Eurostar, Grand Central, Heathrow Express, Hull Trains and Lumo. For passengers, hearing the Government promise to bring private operators into public hands, but then hearing that a service they use will be excluded, will be a disappointment. I hope we will hear more soon about how those gaps will be filled. Also out of scope, as the Bill’s title indicates, are rail freight services. The public might have expected those private operators to be among the first for action, especially as getting freight off the roads and on to rail has so many benefits in addressing road danger, congestion and climate emissions. Another exception from this Bill to bring passenger railways back into public hands is the rolling stock companies. Quite honestly, most members of the public do not have much awareness of it, but the rolling stock in which we travel is another public asset that is worthy of public investment and should not be held merely for private rent and profit by companies that add no real value to the service. At the very least, the Bill could have included a prohibition on new arrangements of that kind. Finally, I feel that there is a potential gap in the Government’s plans around rail devolution. The Bill’s definition of “public sector company” will allow franchises to pass only to companies wholly owned by the Secretary of State or her counterparts in Wales and Scotland, not to those owned by other elected bodies whose remit includes, or might in future include, managing transport in an integrated way within an area of the country. I am very interested in further exploring the Secretary of State’s thinking on that, because a Green principle close to my heart is subsidiarity: making sure that ownership and power are devolved to the lowest and most practical level. In the case of integrated, multimodal transport planning and investment, particularly for day-to-day travel, the best level is often a regional or sub-regional travel-to-work area. At that level of planning, sustainable travel across different modes can be linked up in a responsive network with convenient interchanges, rational timetables and shared ticketing across modes. Profitable commuter routes on a railway might also directly help to cut car dependency in isolated villages by subsidising essential connectivity by bus, for example. This kind of transport planning is best done alongside and in tandem with planning for new homes and businesses, for which the right scale is also a regional or sub-regional area, working with the involvement of local authorities, people and workplaces. Like many people, I am slightly concerned about the centralising tendency that we can detect in a range of recent actions from the leadership of our new Government; I hope that it will not dominate transport and planning policies in this House. If the Secretary of State agrees to meet me as requested, I will be very interested to hear more about how she expects the upcoming devolution Bill to interact with this Bill and with the future railways Bill in respect of her plans for how centralised the future planning, management and ownership of transport as a whole will be. Admittedly, the places in England where this kind of devolution applies, and where rail franchises might sensibly pass to companies owned by cities and regions in the near future, are currently very few. However, when we have franchises serving nearby metro mayor areas, such as TransPennine Express and Northern, which are already under the wing of the Department for Transport; when the Mayor of London already has his sights firmly set on taking over specific services; and when there might, as I hope, be greater devolution of powers to combined authorities and areas in the south-east region and Sussex, where I now represent many people dependent on rail services, it does seem strange to introduce a Bill that appears to need amendment to rule in such an exciting prospect. When the Government are about to give more powers to local authorities to run buses, it also seems strange not to help them to work together to run suitable railways. Will the Secretary of State explain what plans there are to better link up railways and bus services? Will she discuss them with me before Committee? Those are all my comments and questions. I am very much looking forward to the future, and I am looking to help build the best future we can from this new and refreshing approach of public ownership. I reiterate how pleased I am to be making such a speech, rather than one bitterly complaining about a Government who have completely the wrong idea; I hope that my questions and cautions will be taken in that spirit.

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

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  Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me. I congratulate the hon. Members for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter), for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) and for Southport (Patrick Hurley) on making excellent maiden speeches today. I am so honoured to be here in this historic Chamber today as part of a brand-new group of Green colleagues, who I must now call my honourable Friends. We are very pleased today to hear a wide range of new Bills being proposed. We welcome some measures. Some we will seek to improve and some we will seek to change or add to. Listening to people in my constituency during the election, it was hard not to be affected by the strength of public feeling and distress about the climate emergency and the degradation of our natural environment, and by the huge desire to defend social justice and public services. This Parliament must seek to deliver for them. This is my maiden speech; I stand here thanks to the votes and values of the fantastic people of Brighton Pavilion. They have put their trust in me and the Green party, and for that I extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation. Brighton has always been a truly special place, from its origins as a fishing village and Roman villa complex, to its Regency and railway booms, with its huge sense of spirit and a warm welcome to every visitor to our famous beach. But Brighton has always been so much more than a seaside resort. The richness and variety of our culture and entertainment is legendary. From Victorian innovation, through the 1960s of my parents and my own decade of youth in the far away 1990s, to the present day, our music, theatre, comedy and literary traditions have always blended with cutting-edge, creative and exciting counter- culture movements to reflect and enrich the modern world. Our cultural richness has survived, strived, struggled and then thrived through many turbulent times, not least the recent pandemic, and I am confident it will continue to do so for many centuries to come. I am proud that the latest census confirms that nowadays my city is home to one of the UK’s largest populations of LGBT+ people, and that we host the biggest and best Pride celebrations, including Europe’s largest Trans Pride, which will be this weekend. Brighton and Hove is a welcoming city in so many ways, and I am very proud we are a city of sanctuary, committed to a culture of hospitality and welcome for those seeking refuge from war and persecution. Brighton Pavilion has a history of dedicated, long-serving MPs. From its first election as a single-Member constituency in 1950, it was represented until 1969 by Sir William Burke Teeling, an Irish writer and self-described “amateur tramp”, who walked from London to Newcastle to explore how councils were tackling unemployment. Our MP was then Julian Amery for 23 years and Derek Spencer for five years, before David Lepper served in this House as a highly-respected and hardworking MP for 13 years. And, of course, I have one of the easiest and most pleasurable jobs among new MPs in paying tribute to my immediate predecessor. Brighton is also a special place because it has been at the heart of the green movement in England and Wales, and that continued when our own, beloved Caroline Lucas won the seat for the Green party in 2010. Caroline held the seat through three further elections, leaving a 14-year legacy that I look up to as a shining mountain to climb, as I take my very first steps here today. As well as being an excellent constituency MP, of the many ways in which Caroline influenced policy, I was most charmed by her success in working with the nature writer Mary Colwell to win a new GCSE in natural history. Helping to inspire and train up a generation of new David Attenboroughs is a real national service. Most impressive has been Caroline’s steadfast and long-standing opposition to threats to the public’s right to protest. Caroline lived that principle and through it played a key role in ending fracking in the UK. I know that all of us sitting here today are humbly aiming to live up to the high standards, values and work ethic that she represented, and to serve here with the same energy and enthusiasm. It is those principles that will guide my work as an MP, as well as some of my own values and enthusiasms. People who know my work in other places will be aware that listening to and supporting young people is something I feel very strongly about. It is therefore with huge pleasure that I commend to the House the incredible work of Brighton and Hove Citizens, which has just won a huge campaigning victory with a beautiful example of raising up and empowering young people and their voices to make change happen. With schools across Brighton and Hove working with colleges, religious groups, workers, universities and the charity sector, Brighton and Hove Citizens has this year won a big new commitment from the council. After a long and engaging campaign, sixth formers Fi Abou-Chanad and Tally Wilcox presented a 2,000 signature-strong petition and won a pledge for hundreds of young people in Brighton schools to benefit from investment in mental health support and counselling. That is just one group of young people among many inspiring organisations across our country that I cannot wait to hear more about in this job. They include Green New Deal Rising, the UK Youth Climate Coalition, YoungMinds, People & Planet, the National Society of Apprentices, the National Union of Students and many more. Young people should have a louder voice wherever decisions are being made, not just when they organise. I am therefore disappointed to see no specific Bill in today’s list removing barriers to voting for young people, including voter ID and age limits for elections to this House and English local councils that do not apply in Wales and Scotland. Our 16 and 17-year-olds, and our young people, need a real voice and need those measures in this Parliament. I hope that, when we debate the Bills put forward in today’s King’s Speech, the voices of young people are sought out and listened to, and that many changes and additions are made where they are needed most, including removing the two-child benefit cap. I am grateful for the patience of hon. Members in listening to me. I greatly look forward to seeing the impact of the young voices I plan to raise up in this Chamber being granted the same attention and respect.