Scotland Bill

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech in such an important debate. It is an honour and a privilege, which I hope I will never take for granted, to stand here representing my constituency. I am sure that you will agree that my new colleagues have set the bar very high in their maiden speeches and done their constituencies proud, not least the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), who delivered an excellent speech.

However, I have to disagree with many of my new colleagues: although they may have very pleasant constituencies, it is of course mine, Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, that is the most beautiful and inspiring. From our industrial heritage in the mother town of the potteries to the beautiful Victorian parks and canals, I bow to no one in maintaining that I live in the most beautiful constituency in the country. But it is not just the architecture and the landscape that make Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove so special; it is the people, to whose industry and talent our city stands as testament.

My constituency was built on the blood, sweat and tears of working people. It was their labour in the great industries—pits, pots and steel—that drove our city forward. We gave the country and the world a celebrated ceramics industry, including the crockery used in this House, which, for the record, was made in my constituency. But our creativity goes far beyond that; it is reflected in the work of so many proud Stokies, from Josiah Wedgwood to Reginald Mitchell, who designed the spitfire, and from Clarice Cliff to Robbie Williams.

Local businesses are capitalising on this in the new and creative technologies, from augmented reality to tidal lagoon power. We need to harness this creativity in order to build a brighter future for my city and for my residents where the stories of these successes are the norm, where my constituents have more options for skilled work, where Stoke-on-Trent will no longer be a living-wage blackspot and a zero-hours-contract area, and where the blight of poverty and the use of food banks will be consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs rather than being a daily occurrence.

I am lucky enough to represent the best of British—the kindest, most industrious people—but my community deserves better. They embody what Government Members would call the big society, but what we in Stoke simply call community. In spite of the savage cuts made by this Government and the impact on real people’s lives, we have seen the best of humanity as they unite to look after each other and protect our city. From Mike and Pat at the Burslem Park Pavilion, where they have created a social enterprise to restore one of our country’s original Victorian parks, to Rev. Ashley Cooper and his amazing team at Swanbank church who were granted the Queen’s award for voluntary service for their community work. It is not just these incredibly generous community acts that I wish to celebrate, as we also have wonderful facilities protected by the community to mark our place in history, from our war memorial gardens in Tunstall to the Victoria Hall in Kidsgrove, which the Speaker of the House himself visited during the previous Parliament to promote local democracy.

All these organisations were well served by my predecessor, Joan Walley, who joined this House when I was only seven years old. I know how respected and well thought of she was by people from across the political spectrum. She was noted for her passion not only about our local football team, Port Vale, but about issues pertaining to the environment, serving my party and our country as a shadow spokesperson on transport and the environment when we were last in opposition, and then as Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee in the previous Parliament. As our MP for 28 years, she has left huge shoes to fill, and I hope to do her proud.

Joan was not the first woman to represent our seat. In fact, I have the honour of being the third female Labour MP for my constituency since the war. The first was Harriet Slater, an inspiration, who was elected in 1953 in a by-election. She became the first female Whip to serve my party and this House. However, it is her passion against racism that I wish to comment on. Sixty-two years ago she sat in this Chamber as a new MP and was so horrified by the tone of the debate that she intervened to make her maiden speech without any preparation—something I really cannot comprehend. The subject of that debate was the colour bar, where Members of this House were actually debating whether black and white children should be educated in the same classrooms. This was abhorrent to her as it should be to all of us. She intervened in anger, and I hope to replicate her conviction and her passion in the years ahead to protect and promote the hard-earned equalities that we now take for granted.

It is with that thought that I wish to turn to the subject matter in hand. I stand here today, probably much to the confusion of hon. Members from the SNP, as a proud Scot. I was born in Edinburgh. I am the granddaughter of a blacklisted Scottish steelworker who became a miner, and my father was blacklisted for leading the first insurance industry strike in Scotland. My mother Lucy is also a proud trade unionist and quite simply my inspiration as a strong and determined woman who dedicated her life to fighting for those who could not fight for themselves. It is because of her commitment and support that I stand here today. I simply hope to emulate her. Her family were forced to flee the Russian pogroms, scapegoated in the name of nationalism and intolerance. My family were not militant, but rather proud socialists and, most importantly, internationalists. They saw nationalism, at worst, as an evil doctrine which poisoned working people against each other, and at best as a distraction from the true battles we fight to make the world a better place for the people who need our help.

For these reasons, I have spent most of my life campaigning against the politics of hate and division, against extremism and nationalism. I am proud of the leading role I have had with Hope Not Hate to defeat the BNP and to make sure that UKIP was limited in its success. But nationalism comes in many guises, and we need to stand united to fight for a better world and for the good of our communities, which is why I will also be fighting for the Union. I will be campaigning for a fair deal for the people of Scotland just as I will be fighting for a better deal for north Staffordshire. There is much more that unites the communities of Bonnybridge and Burslem than divides them. Poverty is poverty whether in Stoke-on-Trent or Stirling, and equality of opportunity needs to be the same in Kidsgrove as it is in Kirkcaldy. We are stronger when we are united.

We have much work ahead of us, but in the words of one of my more famous citizens, Arnold Bennett:

“It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.”

I will keep climbing that hill because I know the view will be worth the effort. I look forward to serving the people of Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove in the years to come, and I hope to live up to the faith they have placed in me.