Business of the House

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend raises a subject close to my heart. I would normally say, “I shall write to the Minister who can advise him about further pots,” but I can probably tell him now because I have a 1930s lido in my constituency that I am renovating. I know how much the lido will mean to his constituents—it is not just a leisure facility but part of their heritage. There will be other funds, and we should connect him to other projects that have been supported through the coastal communities fund to really ensure that he has got the best advice to take that forward. I will write to the Minister on his behalf, but I am also happy to assist him with anything that I have learned along the way.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

In earlier comments, I found that the Leader of the House was trying to suggest that ambulance workers are not co-operating with management as nurses are. I recently visited my local picket of ambulance workers, and there was a protocol in place: when there was an emergency, the picket immediately and voluntarily went to see the patient. Will she withdraw her comments? Has she noted that this morning The Telegraph says that recent weekly statistics show that 2,837 more people than usual died, which is 20% higher than the average. Does she accept what is happening? There is not a shred of evidence that the strikes are causing these problems; it is a failure of management of the NHS by the Government.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Let me clarify for the hon. Gentleman that this is not about people not wanting to protect life. It is not about a moral judgement on behalf of those individuals. People who work in the blue-light sector and people who work in caring professions care deeply about the wellbeing of others. That is why they are in those professions. The problem is how these minimum service levels are arrived at and ensuring that we can have confidence in them and that they are also arranged in a timely way. Unlike nursing unions, which have a clearly defined and agreed way of working that covers the whole of the area affected by industrial action, the other services that I have referenced do not. They are very fragmented, and arrangements are often worked out with local management, as opposed to across the nation affected. This is about protecting the public and ensuring that when industrial action takes place, we can still protect the public. It is most acute, I am afraid, in the transport sector. I hope that that clarifies the position for the hon. Gentleman.

Business of the House

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for continuing to raise this matter. He will know that when the Ministry of Defence has looked at this and other issues, it has a judgment to make about whether a future inquiry would be in the public interest. The difficulty is, of course, that this is not necessarily a public interest, but a very private interest for family members and others involved. I will write to the Department on his behalf and ask it to explore other ways in which perhaps there could be some closure for that family.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Season’s greetings to you, Mr Speaker, and all members of staff of the House. On today’s nurses’ action, which has been taken most reluctantly, I want to say that two of the closest members of my family were gravely ill for weeks in Yorkshire hospitals, and I had an accident and almost lost the use of my leg, which was recovered thanks to the skill of the staff. The nurses looked after all three of us, as they do tens of thousands of other patients every day. They do not ask for anything, except that we leave that hospital better than we came in. They stand by us; it is time we stood by them. The Leader of the House no doubt believes she is an extremely persuasive person, and no doubt she is, so can she not, over the weekend, persuade the Prime Minister to make a statement on Monday or Tuesday—since there is another action on Tuesday—that he will resolve the nurses’ case to their satisfaction so that we can have a Christmas where the NHS begins to rebuild?

Business of the House

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Lady’s claim is not borne out when we look at who people vote for across Scotland. The Scottish National party is now a single-issue party. It is not gripping the issues affecting people in Scotland, and there is growing disquiet about that. This week we heard from the Auditor General on the subject of financial mismanagement; there are hundreds of millions of pounds relating to the ferry contracts that he cannot even account for. As we come out of the pandemic and we want our public services to be able to recover, and that should be the focus of the Scottish nationalist Government.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House may know that yesterday, during discussions about biodiversity in Canada, the Secretary-General of the United Nations said that humanity was is in danger of becoming a “weapon of mass extinction”. In my constituency there is proposal for a major incursion into the green belt that would threaten 27 separate native species, including some ancient woodland. Will she find time to reaffirm the Government’s commitment to green belt land and biodiversity, and may we have a debate on this essential subject, which should provide the background for any planning decisions for the future?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard the Prime Minister express his commitment to the green belt during Prime Minister’s questions this week, and the 2030 target to halt species decline is one of the planks of the Government’s environmental strategy. I am sure that a debate on that strategy and its success to date would be popular, and the hon. Gentleman will know how to apply for one.

Business of the House

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her continuing campaign. Business questions is becoming known as “Freeport Thursday” in my office, because she is always championing the project. I also congratulate her on the non-partisan way she does so. In addition to campaigning in Parliament, she is winning over supporters from her community and from across the political divide: I understand that the Isle of Anglesey County Council is putting jobs and local prosperity before politics and is supporting her and the Conservative manifesto commitment to enable this project to go ahead, bringing benefits not just to Wales but to the whole UK.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Everybody in the House knows that the reason the Bill on Monday has been changed is that the Government cannot deliver a majority for their top-down, random house building targets to be imposed on various local councils. May I make a helpful suggestion to the Leader of the House? Why not have a debate about house building and how we deliver our targets without damaging local democracy? That would test the views of the House and give me a chance to oppose a 3,000-house development in south Featherstone, which will do massive damage to the community and the local environment.

[Penny Mordaunt]

We are continuing with the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. There will be a second day on the Bill. That will happen shortly, and I will announce it in the usual way. The delays to some Bills are because of things such as the Finance Bill, which is pretty important, but house building is incredibly important. We want to ensure that people have the opportunity to have a safe, secure home and also the opportunity to own their own home, so I am sure that a debate on that topic would be welcomed by all Members.

Business of the House

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

The International Trade Committee had six months in which to examine the agreement before the commencement of the CRaG process. The Government’s commitment to holding debates on free trade agreements during that process is subject to the timeliness of requests and the availability of parliamentary time, and my hon. Friend will doubtless appreciate that there is a wide range of competing demands on time in the Chamber before the House rises for the summer recess.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I am sure you will agree, Mr Speaker, that fish and chips are the great British culinary gift, and that the local fish and chip shop is often the centre of a community. You may not agree that the best fish and chips in the world are made in Yorkshire, but I will concede that the second best are on the other side of the Pennines.

Mr Malcolm Tully has run the same fish and chip shop, feeding the same community, for 30 years, having used his miner’s redundancy money to set up the business. However, it is now under threat because of the rising costs of various artefacts that he needs to use, and there are tens of thousands of other small businesses in the same perilous position. Will the Leader of the House organise a debate in Government time so that we can discuss the pressure on fish and chip shops and all the other small businesses in the country?

[Mark Spencer]

I declare my interest, Mr Speaker.

Let me join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Malcolm Tully on the work that he does. Fish and chip shops are indeed a great community asset, and there are some great ones in my constituency. They do face huge challenges—particularly the price of sunflower oil, which is driving many of their costs—but the Government recognise the great contribution that they make to our communities, and we should support them.

Business of the House

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Since this subject was last raised in the House, I have become slightly conflicted, because there is a freeport bid coming in from quite near me, in Bristol. However, it would not be right for me to campaign for my own area from the Dispatch Box. Freeports are a fantastic idea, which is why there is so much support for them and why so many Members want them in their constituencies. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his welcome efforts to campaign for a freeport in the east midlands, and I will make sure that his representations are passed on to the Treasury. He really is a great advocate for his constituents, and I hope that they will be able to reap the benefits of a freeport, but then I hope that the economy generally will be able to reap the benefits of many freeports.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab) [V]]

We rarely debate the Government’s poor treatment of the north, where life expectancy is falling for the first time in a century, but where we have seen the severest cuts to public health service provision of any region. There are now 195 fewer GP surgeries in Yorkshire and we have the slowest declining covid infection rates. Meanwhile, the Government sent half of the north’s vaccine supply down south. We know that they cut free school meals for the autumn break, but hunger, poverty, service cuts and covid all march hand in hand. May we therefore have a debate in Government time on their disgraceful health record in the north of England?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Mr Speaker, I will of course bow to your wisdom on this, but I believe the word “balderdash” is parliamentary, and it applies to the hon. Gentleman’s question. The Government have stood with the north throughout this pandemic, with over £10 billion in support for local authorities, additional Nightingale capacity and millions of vaccine doses already delivered, and we are putting the region at the centre of our community testing plans, with 300,000 in Liverpool being among the very first to benefit. Looking ahead, we will be building on the £13 billion for transport across the region and £5 billion for the northern powerhouse, with High Speed 2; Northern Powerhouse Rail, our multi-billion pound rail investment; a £4 billion levelling-up fund, building on billions of pounds of towns fund investment; £4.2 billion for the local public transport fund; and four hospitals in construction, or about to start, as part of our 40 hospitals plan. This Government’s record in the north is second to none. We are building back better, and we are building back better in the north first.