Parliament's party history for this member: Labour ( – present).
Register of interests
Every entry the member has in the Register of Members' Financial Interests, as Parliament currently publishes it. The wording and values are the member's own declarations; nothing here has been assessed by this site.
Totals add only the entries that declare an amount received: payments for work, donations, gifts, and funded visits (register categories 1.1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Ongoing employment is listed but not added, because its figure is a rate rather than a sum received. Each entry is dated by when the benefit happened, not when it was registered, and placed under the party the member sat for on that date. A member who changed party therefore has a separate total for each.
I congratulate my hon. Friend for securing this important debate to Westminster Hall. My constituency, Blyth and Ashington, is well renowned for some world-class sportsmen—as it is commonly said, “You shout down the pit shaft, and world-class sportsmen will emerge.” Given my hon. Friend’s great wisdom and knowledge of rugby league, I wonder if he could say why, despite it being a traditionally working-class sport and despite the many opportunities, rugby league has not flourished areas such as mine in working-class Northumberland.
I refer the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests of support from the trade unions. We have come to something with Royal Mail when the surest way of getting a letter delivered on time is by putting it inside a parcel, but that is the sorry situation we face. What a place to be in with this fantastic national British institution.
For years now, residents across my constituency have been contacting me about issues, and we have discussed things with the staff at the sorting offices, working closely with the CWU and the workforce. The situation we are seeing at the Royal Mail is undoubtedly a deliberate ploy to end the universal service obligation. If things are not halted and the private company is not reined in, we will probably see the end of the Royal Mail.
Like most other speakers, I pay tribute to the staff and the posties who have done a fantastic job. Did the posties not carry on through covid? These are fantastic public sector workers who at one time were so proud of being posties. That is not there any more. It has been bashed out of them.
I recognise that there are time constraints in this debate, but I will mention some of the issues facing my constituents. It is horrendous—it is chaos. We have hospital appointments being missed. We have medical correspondence being missed and delayed. We have financial hardship being caused by late bills and official documents not being received. We have postal votes for democratic elections not being received, and vulnerable residents left anxious and frustrated as they wait for important communications. We have an elderly man who received a fine of £600 because of a traffic incident; he was accused of not returning the letter, despite the fact that he had.
It is not just about receiving correspondence; it is about sending it. I am going to say something pretty coarse, but I make no apologies, because it is important. I had an individual who was taking his well man test; <span id="114" class="column-number" data-column-number="114"></span>he sent a poo sample to the hospital, as you do. Weeks later, he got a letter from the doctor saying, “Sorry, can you do it again? Your sample lay in the sorting office for far too long.” For heaven’s sake, that is coarse, but it is the sort of thing that we are facing. I can see the grimace on Madam Deputy Speaker’s face, and she is right! It is horrendous to think that this is the case. We have got to look at it.
What about the people who are waiting anxiously by the letterbox for results of tests for cancer or other medical problems? What about the people waiting for their passports to go on holiday? It cannot continue. It is important to recognise that the speeches in this debate have been broadly in line with each other, apart from those Lib Dems who say that Ofcom should have more powers and will not accept that—perhaps, perhaps—the renationalisation of Royal Mail is the answer.
The postal service is not a luxury; it is an essential, critical public service. It should exist to serve the public interest, not simply the interests of the market. If private ownership cannot deliver the reliable universal service that people have every right to expect, then the Government must be prepared to act. I want the second option proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones): renationalise the Royal Mail and see how it develops. The message today is simple: the excuses and broken promises must stop; the services must be fixed; and if Royal Mail cannot fix them, we should give the public the opportunity to run it properly once again.
I am sure that I am not the only Member who received an email this morning from, I think, the director of communications at Royal Mail, telling me how things are going to be better tomorrow. I have met with directors of communications—regionally, nationally, next door—who promised the world and, as is typical for Royal Mail, did not deliver. When I have met them, they have all been genuinely decent people, but they have not had any grip on or understanding of exactly what is happening in Royal Mail itself.
I believe the hard-working posties; I believe the people who have been committed to that employment for a lifetime. Royal Mail was established over 400 years ago, and we need to ensure that it continues for another 400 years—perhaps with nationalisation.
My main concern is for working people—working families and working communities. As a former coalminer, I witnessed the promises from Government with regard to a just transition, which failed, in every measure, to materialise. The devastation to communities that had their hearts ripped out is a testament to that failed transition, and we still bear the scars. I welcome the Government’s commitment to invest revenues in a just transition, but communities and workers in the oil and gas industry need cast-iron guarantees of secure jobs in renewables, with comparable wages, terms and conditions. Will the Minister meet me and others who share experiences of failed transition so that we can help to develop a road map that delivers a genuinely fair future for workers and working communities?
I must declare an interest: I am a member of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, and a former miner—probably the only one in the Commons at this moment in time. We must recognise that the Labour party had in its manifesto in 2017, 2019 and 2024 that it would seek justice for the mineworkers in the pension scheme. It is only when a Government are elected that they are allowed to deliver on their manifesto, and we actually did that. We made a huge difference only a few months ago. There is a lot more to do, and I ask the Minister what other people have asked: can he give assurances to the members of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, and the families and widows, that he will do everything in his power to ensure that in the Budget next week, miners in our coalfields are given full justice?
My hon. Friend is a tremendous advocate for kinship carers up and down this country. On more than one occasion, she has mentioned the circumstances that ordinary people find themselves in when faced with relations, close friends or potentially their own kids going into care. It is very emotional.
Lots of people who accept kinship carers, such as Linda Watson in my constituency, feel the need to ensure that their children are not taken into care. They need to give them the best possible start in life, or the best way in life, at whatever age they are. A lot of kinship carers believe that a pat on the back, a rub on the back of the neck, a pat on the head and a big thank you are not enough. They need financial support so that they can give these kids, who are already in a difficult position with their family life and all the rest of it, a good start in life. In order to do that, kinship carers need the right support; they need adequate financial support.
The Royal Mail sorting offices in my patch are in absolute chaos—they are in meltdown—and I am really concerned that someone will end up in a tragic situation because of the lack of service. I have met Royal Mail on numerous occasions and there has been no change whatsoever—in fact, the service is getting worse. What can the Minister do to remedy the situation before somebody needs to be held accountable for a very serious situation?
On 1 January next year, the Government will rightly ban the disgraceful practice of fire and rehire, yet some employers appear determined to exploit the situation before these protections take effect. In the north-east, Taylor Wimpey has just issued dismissal notices to 31 joiners and 19 scaffolders in an attempt to force them on to worse terms and conditions, leaving hard-working families facing uncertainty in the run-up to Christmas. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on this shameful practice and join me in urging Taylor Wimpey to withdraw those notices and return to meaningful negotiations with the workforce and Unite the union?
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for securing this really important debate.
First of all, I pay tribute to PC Matthew Blades, PC Tom Clough and PC Jess Turnbull, three police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Jess Turnbull, who was killed only two or three miles from where I live, was 18 years of age when she lost her life. She had her life ahead of her. She joined the police force because she wanted to change the world and help people and she died at the age of 18 on 8 June. We should always remember the dangers that individual police officers and members of the police force put themselves in in the normal course of their duty.
Previous speakers have set out in detail the scale of the cuts faced by police forces across the north-east, so I do not intend to repeat those precise and excellent facts and figures. But it is fair to say that the years of Conservative austerity had a devastating impact on policing in our region—absolutely devastating.
It should not be forgotten that it went far beyond cuts to police budgets. Austerity reached into every corner of public life. The Crown Prosecution Service, prisons, the Probation Service, mental health services, education and countless other services were cut to the very bone. As those services weakened, police officers were increasingly left to pick up the pieces, facing growing demand with ever-dwindling resources.<span id="87WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="87WH"></span>
At the same time, crime itself has evolved. The digital revolution has brought enormous opportunities, but the criminals have adapted just as well too. Police forces have been expected to tackle sophisticated online crime, combat the spread of misinformation, and manage an ever-growing burden of statutory checks and administrative tasks, all without the resources required to meet those challenges. It is all about resources and financing.
Again, I want to place on record my sincere thanks to the police officers serving my Blyth and Ashington constituency. Just for the record, my constituency is based in Northumberland, which, for those who are not aware, is cradled between the Scottish border and North Tyneside. It is the political no man’s land. I think Ministers generally forget where we are and have not really adapted the financing required for the police service that we desperately need. I feel sorry for some of these police officers, who go to work day in, day out, facing the problems they have in Ashington, Blyth, Bedlington, Newbiggin and Choppington, because of the lack of financial resource, with resources in general facing an uphill battle. I want to mention Inspector Dawn Sykes and Inspector Wayne Daniels, who serve our communities with great professionalism and dedication in the most unbelievable circumstances. I thank Northumbria’s police and crime commissioner, Susan Dungworth, who has worked tirelessly to ensure that the priorities of local people remain at the heart of policing.
I want to focus the rest of my remarks on what budget constraints have meant for the communities I represent. South-east Northumberland contains three of the county’s four largest towns, yet two of them have no police station at all, so members of the public cannot simply walk into one and speak to an officer. That is a direct consequence of funding pressures. Two of the largest towns in Northumberland have no manned police stations—the police stations are still there, but there is nobody in them.
The situation gets worse. The police station change has an immense impact on the people of south-east Northumberland. I will give a simple example. A constituent noticed that his neighbour’s porch light had been on continuously for several days. Concerned for their welfare, he phoned 101 to request a welfare check. After waiting almost an hour for his call to be answered, he gave up and went to Ashington police station, in the centre of the town, in person. When he arrived, he found a sign stating that the station was closed to the public, with an arrow directing him to a telephone on the wall so he could ring 101 again. That is unreal, but it is something that has happened right throughout the country, by the way: the closure of major police stations in major towns, right across the UK. We rightly pride ourselves on a system of policing by consent, but we also rely on the good will and public spirit of people such as my constituent. After an experience like that, I suspect he might think again about taking similar action.
Earlier this year, the custody suite in Bedlington closed, with the police citing funding constraints. That was another blow to local policing. Officers who make arrests in my patch must now transport detainees to Newcastle for processing, taking valuable police time and resources off the streets at critical times. We see that <span id="88WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="88WH"></span>in my patch all too often. An already stretched police force is routinely called upon to respond to threats, the likes of—
Thank you very much, Mr Wishart. We see lots of things occurring due to lack of resourcing in my patch. We have masked motorbike riders, shoplifting, antisocial behaviour, county line drug dealing—it goes on and on. The police need the resources required to tackle not just those types of crimes but basic crimes as well.
It has been nearly two years since the contaminated blood inquiry report was published. People think that the matter is finished, but it is not: some 18,000 infected and affected individuals still have not begun their claims. Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm to this House her commitment to the contaminated blood community, and will she meet the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood so that we can discuss the best way to press those cases home expediently?