Adam Jogee

Party affiliation

Parliament's party history for this member: Labour (4 Jul 2024 – present).

Register of interests

Register on Parliament's site

Latest on this tracker 530

1. 29 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Local Government Reorganisation

   I welcome the announcement in this statement that the Minister has scrapped the disgraceful and discourteous announcement made in July 2026. He is right to throw it out, but my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme want and deserve certainty and clarity, and I did not hear much of that in the statement, so may I ask the Minister three very quick questions? Will he confirm how Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent MPs will feed into the review? How much money will our local authorities get to redress what they have spent so far? And may I urge him to focus on the new mayoral authority announced yesterday, because that has the support needed to achieve a change of this scale?

   Hansard source
2. 29 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Budget Resolutions

   I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have already edited out lots of my speech, but I will try to read through my scribbles. In this Budget, His Majesty’s Government are taking the necessary steps to make everyday life that little bit easier for people back home in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and thank goodness. Those steps and that determination stand in stark contrast with the chaos, instability and nonsense that we see at Staffordshire county council. This week we received news that Staffordshire county council is on to its fourth leader at County Hall since the county council elections in May 2025. It is an uninspiring and unfunny game of musical chairs, and my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme deserve much better. Our community is a great place and is home to good, hard-working, decent people. They deserve every little bit of help announced yesterday to make life that little bit more manageable, and there is much to welcome. I am pleased that more than 40,000 homes in my community will receive the £100 payment, as we have heard from colleagues across the House, to help with their energy bills, and that we have extended the 0% rate of VAT on electricity bills until July 2027. We are finally acting on gas standing charges, and there was more good news on fuel duty, too. We are taking more businesses out of paying business rates by increasing the small business rates relief threshold—important, too, for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in my community. In fact, these changes will mean that around 52% of all retail, hospitality and leisure properties in the west midlands will now no longer pay business rates at all. That will go some way to helping the much-loved and much-used pubs and restaurants in our town centre and communities, as well as boosting our local economy and keeping local people in work. We saw action on paternity leave, which will make the system fairer—that is excellent. I welcome the £55 million of funding that will be made available to accelerate the delivery of the violence against women and girls strategy—that is important stuff. I look forward to working with <span id="529" class="column-number" data-column-number="529"></span>the Chancellor and colleagues from coalfield communities to finally deliver the justice that our coal miners deserve. While I will never shy away from my concerns about local government reform and the impact that would have on my community, I am delighted that the Government have announced that a new mayoral strategic authority for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire is on its way. It will bring power, investment and decision making closer to those of us who live, learn and work in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and that is to be welcomed. I have a bit more time left. <em>[</em><em>Interruption.</em><em>]</em> It would do a disservice to my constituents not to use the time. Since I was elected, I have seen up close how our local authorities have passed the buck at every stage, and my constituents have suffered because of it. The change to a mayoral strategic authority will give us the opportunity to fix a broken transport system, to invest in our young people and to boost the resilience of our region, all with our local communities at the heart of the process. This Budget is one part of helping communities like mine recover from years of delay, dither and de-industrialisation. We owe it to the hard-working, skilled people who built our town and the young people who will move it forward to keep pushing for better. We have a proud history, a strong identity and huge potential, and with this Budget, we have begun the journey of reinvesting power and control into communities like mine. I will continue to do everything I can, as Newcastle-under-Lyme’s representative, to make sure that my constituents’ voices are heard loud and proud. There is a minute and 23 seconds back to you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

   Hansard source
3. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

   Madam Deputy Speaker, you know that I will take any opportunity, whatever time of day it is, to champion my community and our county, as will my colleagues. That is why many of us from Staffordshire are here at this late hour. The House has heard me talk before about the wonderful people who live, learn and work in Newcastle-under-Lyme. They work hard, pay their way and bring their skills and smarts to whatever they do, and they were wise enough to vote for me—for which I am very grateful. Over the centuries, people in Newcastle-under-Lyme and across Staffordshire made things. They built things, discovered things, and they showed a nation how things can and should be done. That is why my Staffordshire colleagues and I are here tonight. We are determined to ensure that our people, particularly our young people, are able to access the jobs and opportunities that they deserve. I am pleased to see the Government Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner), in his place. He will be hearing lots from us about our concerns with the at-times botched and unwanted roll-out of local government reform in many parts of Staffordshire. I look forward to having that conversation with him. Newcastle-under-Lyme is synonymous with workers and working. We are rooted in our industrial heartlands. Our coalfields community and our coalminers were driven by diligence and determination. Mining in our United Kingdom was not just about coal, though. It was about camaraderie, courage and power. It was about families and communities, bound together by shared experiences, overcoming hardships and supporting one another through thick and thin. The worst legacy of Thatcherism was tearing industry apart, destroying communities and our industrial heartlands and not doing anything to replace them. There was no focus on upskilling, no focus on investment and no willingness to ensure that those same people and their families—who they screwed over—were not left and forgotten. It says a lot that some in politics today who pretend to care about working-class people describe themselves as Thatcherites. They are telling us who they are, and we should listen to them. Our people back home made things work. In fact, they powered our country. Without that power, we would not have been able to emerge as a global leader in manufacturing and as one of the biggest economies in the world. As important as it is to look back at our industrial heritage with pride, today we must redouble our efforts to ensure that people in Staffordshire do not fall behind in the race for the jobs of the future.

   Hansard source
4. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

   I am grateful to my constituency neighbour. She makes an excellent point, which she knows that I agree with. I will come to ceramics. She is correct to raise those points. We hear far too many stories about our young people being lazy and unwilling to put in the graft to get on in life.

   Hansard source
5. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

   As ever, my hon. Friend puts it as well as anyone else could, particularly when it comes to the sorry state of affairs at county hall. In Newcastle-under-Lyme, we are lucky to have a youth hub, too, but as she says, it is of great importance to ensure that the county council steps up and helps us to deliver those services for our people. I look forward to working with her to hold the county and whoever its leadership is to account in the period ahead.

   Hansard source
6. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

   I will give way to another neighbour.

   Hansard source
7. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

   My hon. Friend, who represents the town where my mother was born and raised, makes an excellent point. I could not put it better myself, so I will not attempt to do so. Many of the young people that she and my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth mentioned want to contribute to the communities they live in, and many live with the ambition of having and seeking a meaningful career, but, after being failed for so long by the generations of political leaders that went <span id="142" class="column-number" data-column-number="142"></span>before us, many of our young people just feel forgotten. Tonight, Staffordshire’s MPs tell them that they have not been. Young people across Newcastle-under-Lyme are facing some of the most profound challenges in the country when it comes to entering the world of work. In my constituency, there are 57 suitable vacancies per 1,000 residents aged 18 to 24, which is 47% below the national average. Those statistics make for sobering reading. We do not just need the vacancies. We need to make sure that our young people have the skills that employers are looking for.

   Hansard source
8. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

   I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I will be sure to raise that with the Secretary of State for Education at the next opportunity. As I said, we do not just need the vacancies; we need to make sure that our young people have the skills that employers are looking for. A shortage of quality jobs, or the lack of skills required for the jobs that are available, means that so many of our talented young people feel forced to leave the community they call home to seek and find meaningful work elsewhere. Communities like Newcastle-under-Lyme lose out not just on economic growth, but on the dynamism and skill that bright local people bring to the jobs market. Those who choose to stay in their community face the entrenched inequalities typical of our industrial heartlands. Communities such as Silverdale, Knutton and Cross Heath have higher levels of health inequality and lower levels of life expectancy. So many interconnected factors are at play in communities when it comes to the challenge of ensuring that local people get the jobs they need. In the summer, I welcomed my hon. Friend the Minister to meet the North Staffordshire citizens advice bureau in Newcastle town centre. He had the opportunity to hear all manner of things from the people he met, but particularly from young people who were struggling to deal with their money and to navigate entering the job market. Yes, we need our businesses to employ people, but if people cannot get to work, what is the point? That is the situation facing many traders and their employers in Newcastle-under-Lyme thanks to the sheer incompetence of Staffordshire county council.

   Hansard source
9. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

   Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

   That is a good point well made by my hon. Friend. She is correct. Like her, I have many rural communities that would absolutely benefit from a sensible approach to transport from Staffordshire county council. In that fight, as in many others, she has my full agreement. My town has been brought to a standstill by road closures on different neighbouring roads at the same time and by delayed works that just do not seem to get finished, and there has been little leadership or communication from those in charge at county hall. I have written directly to the leader of Staffordshire county council and have heard absolutely nothing back. When I have received responses, most of them are nonsense. In fact, I have 22 letters in response to my raising issues that local people have brought to me as their Member of Parliament, and they all essentially say the same thing: “This has been added to the County Councillor’s Divisional Highway Programme or the DHP”. Then we hear nothing more.

   Hansard source
10. 26 Oct 2026·Parliament·Adam Jogee

    Jobs and Employment: Staffordshire

    My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it is not a party point. I suspect that the right hon. Members for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) and for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), and the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) would agree with other Staffordshire MPs on the point she has made: the county council is missing in action and is failing to deliver the services that our people deserve—and that they pay for. We are not asking for favours. We are asking for things to be done properly and in a timely way. If the county council cannot fix our roads in a sensible and ordered way, without impacting businesses and stopping people getting to work, school and the hospital, it should get out the way and let others do so. We know the challenges before us, but what do we do about them? There are examples of best practice within organisations such as the King’s Trust, which for half a century has given young people across the kingdom and the Commonwealth the confidence and skills they need to succeed and thrive.

    Hansard source

2024 General Election: Newcastle-under-Lyme

Election result on Parliament's site

Parliamentary career

Career on Parliament's site

Published contact details

Only the details Parliament publishes for this member. Contact page on Parliament's site