Oral Answers to Questions
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) is a tireless campaigner for the Wylfa nuclear site in her constituency. As she knows, at the spring Budget the Chancellor announced that Great British Nuclear has reached an agreement to purchase the site at Wylfa, and it and one other site will be vital to achieving our aim of more energy security from nuclear power. Decisions have not yet been made on the final sites to be used, but, as ever, she makes a very strong and compelling case for her area. I know that as soon as a decision has been made the Energy Secretary will be keen to update her at the earliest opportunity.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
As I said to the House last week, I understand the strong feelings across the Chamber about these matters and the desire for urgency in addressing them. Following the ombudsman’s multi-year investigation, it is imperative that we take the time to review the findings thoroughly; I am not entirely sure I agree with the hon. Lady’s characterisation of all of them so far. Broadly, we are committed to making sure that pensioners have the dignity and security that they deserve, including through the triple lock, which is increasing pensions by £900 this year. I welcome tomorrow’s debate on the ombudsman’s report and we will, of course, take all views into account as we identify and implement next steps.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Andrew Griffith
As the hon. Lady will know, the Government are investing in medical manufacturing. I would be happy to meet her or businesses in her constituency to make sure that they can access those funds. However, it is only the good stewardship of our economy that has allowed us to continue to invest record amounts in research and innovation in the UK.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Michelle Donelan)
Ensuring that regulators have the right skills and capabilities to regulate in their domains is fundamental to the effective delivery of our approach on artificial intelligence regulation. To support that, we have established a central co-ordination function, which will provide regulators with guidance on implementing the regulatory principles and help them to identify emerging risks and challenges. The £10 million funding we have announced to jump-start regulator capacity and capability will form a crucial element of this work.
Rebecca Long Bailey
AI in the UK still lacks sufficient regulation, despite the pace of change and the risks posed. The Government stated that they expect to introduce
“a statutory duty on regulators requiring them to have due regard”
to the five high-level principles outlined in the AI White Paper. So will the Secretary of State confirm if and when she will legislate for that, and what factors will inform her decision?
Michelle Donelan
The risks of AI are still emerging, so the priority of this Government is keeping pace with those risks, to keep the public safe. That is why we have an agile, sector-specific approach, utilising our world-leading regulators, whereas the Opposition keep calling for legislation on an area they do not understand.
Tributes to Sir Tony Lloyd
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Tony was one of the best of us: a decent, kind man dedicated to helping people. As we have heard today, often he was unassuming and he never showboated the brilliant work he did. Such was his commitment to public service, he rarely felt comfortable taking personal credit for the great work he did, preferring to quietly and furiously work in the background to get done what needed to be done. His career was never about him but about the people he was trying to lift up. Because of that, Tony was loved.
There are so many stories and messages of warmth from his friends and colleagues, and I have just a few that I want to share. Ian Stewart, a close friend who was formerly the MP for Eccles and then Mayor of Salford, said:
“Tony phoned me before Christmas (he must have been in hospital when he phoned, although he didn’t mention that). He said he wanted arrange a meal and a drink with me. I explained that Mez was ill and we thought she might have Covid. I suggested that he and I should get together as we regularly did either between Christmas and New Year or early January. He agreed but then calmly said he loved me and Mez and that I should let her know that.
First and foremost Tony was a true and close friend of 50 years. He was a real trade union socialist, with a good heart and a strong desire to help those in need.
He was a Statistician by trade lecturing at the University of Salford when we first met. People were always bemused when they found out he was good at maths. Tony was a product of the post war Labour Government’s Welfare State and Education System. Which he never forgot.
I ran his campaign to become the Chair of the parliamentary trade union group.
I ran his campaign to become the Chair of the parliamentary Labour Party.
I had great respect for him as a politician and dear friend.
In 1988, Tony was the first Politician to be interested in and support the creation of the synergistic social partnership model for good governance and socially just resolution of complex problems.
Tony and I were invited to attend our friend Chan Singhs inauguration as the Temple President of a Manchester Sikh Temple and we wore Turbans together. We looked the part.
He was part of that small group of politicians who were underestimated; underrated; and underused in Parliament. His quiet, calm manner belied the gut instinct and passionate reaction to inequality and lack of social justice experienced by oppressed communities, whether at work, in the community, in the UK or Sub Saharan Africa. He had been the Minister for Sub Saharan Africa in the Blair Government. He was a genuine internationalist, and understood the real global implications and need to battle against neoliberalism at home and abroad.
A genuine man of the people. And one of the few politicians I will miss sharing a meal and a drink with.”
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), who cannot be here today as he is recovering from an operation, asked me to share this funny story:
“He was so special and a warm character but there was also a very naughty side to him and I’d like to share this story about him.
I’d missed breakfast and I was really quite hungry and was hoping the delicious jerk chicken would be on offer and headed off to “The Debate”, the cafeteria in Portcullis House in eager anticipation.
But imagine my disappointment when walking up to the entrance to cafeteria and looking up at menu board to see the row of usually packed canteen serving stations totally empty, no staff and no customers. There’d been some sort of problem and services were disrupted and there’d be no lunch in the Debate today.
I tried to take in the full extent of this lunchtime disaster.
I was standing there, open mouthed in disbelief, with my hand still outstretched in automatic pilot poised to pick up a tray from the pile to put my non existent food on, as if in total denial and unable to compute, whilst simultaneously scouring the sad notice of temporary closure that only served to reinforce my disappointment and with it the dawning realisation that I’d be eating somewhere else today.
I must have had a look on my face of complete bewilderment and disappointment in equal measure, when my friend Tony Lloyd, who had observed my frozen form as he made his way through PCH, quietly walked up to my side, still invisible to me, and said very gently and so caringly, with a wicked twinkle in his eye: ‘is there a daughter we could ring?’
Rest in peace Tony.”
Paul Dennett, the Mayor of Salford, said:
“Sir Tony Lloyd MP was a great man, a person & politician of great integrity, someone who often did the right thing quietly, without fear or favour, a great friend of Salford & its peoples. My thoughts & prayers are with Tony’s family & friends at this time”.
Outside the world of politics, Tony’s real and unending love was for his family, and it was in that context that I first met him. At the age of five, in Stretford, he was my first ever MP, although I did not know that at the time, when I was running around his and his wife Judith’s house, driving everyone mad playing “She-Ra: Princess of Power” with his daughter Siobhan, who was my friend at school. We were usually having a row about who would be in the role of She-Ra that day, causing Tony or Judith to have to come and sort out the problem diplomatically.
I remember a house and family full of love and warmth, and a family who often supported mine. It was only years later that I realised what Tony actually did for a job. That was important because, growing up, there was a tendency to believe that MPs were in some special class of their own, and that people from backgrounds like mine could not be MPs. But Tony was different. He was one of us, a man of the people, and a proud member and supporter of the Irish diaspora in Manchester. He gave me the courage to believe that if he had become an MP and could serve to help people, then maybe—just maybe—people like me could do it, too.
I send all of Salford’s deepest love and prayers to Judith, Siobhan, Angharad, Kieron, Ali, Carmen, Carys and all Tony’s family and loved ones. To Tony, I say: “You were an inspiration to all of us in this place. If we can be just one ounce of the good man that you were then I know the world will be far better, kinder place.”
Oral Answers to Questions
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Prime Minister
May I express my sympathies to my right hon. and learned Friend’s constituents for what they have been through, and commend them for setting up the It’s Never You charity? I will ensure that he and the organisers get the appropriate meeting with the Minister to discuss its important work. He is absolutely right that parents who are in that situation should have all the support they need, and we will make sure that that happens.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
We have also provided considerable support in the here and now for households with their energy bills: £900 of direct cost of living support this financial year on top of a record increase in benefits, along with winter fuel payments of up to £300 this winter for pensioners, because they are particularly vulnerable. We will continue to look at all the support we have to ensure that those who need it are getting the help they deserve.
Nuclear Test Veterans: Medals
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Johnny Mercer
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and his constant campaigning on veterans’ issues. When it comes to awarding the medal posthumously, the criteria will be laid out in 2023, as I have said, but families will be able to apply. I accept that whenever we do something such as this, it will come too late for many, and that is obviously a point of regret, but we will do everything we can to make sure that the families who have lost loved ones are able to apply and are looked after through that process.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
I was with my constituent Laura and her granddad John yesterday as the Prime Minister made his announcement, and they cried with joy. I thank the Minister for his unwavering support and for everything he has done to make yesterday a reality. I also thank for their unwavering support the right hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), and of course LABRATS, the BNTVA, Susie Boniface of the Daily Mirror, and nuclear testing veterans themselves.
Days such as yesterday, when politicians transcended party lines for the common good, do not happen very often, and we should celebrate them when they do, but the Minister knows that much more needs to be done. I know that he is truly supportive of the veterans, so will he undertake to ensure that the Prime Minister meets me, my constituent and other nuclear testing veterans to discuss war pension reform, financial support, the release of blood and urine records, and research and an inquiry into all that happened to those men and their families?
Oral Answers to Questions
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(2 years ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes his point in his usual inimitable way. All I will say is that I think it is important that we all take responsibility for our actions, and that is precisely what I have done today.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Lady, who has been a consistent champion on this issue, for which I recognise and pay tribute to her. My understanding is that the information is available to veterans and their families, who may request details of their service and medical records, but if the hon. Lady would like to write to me, I will make sure that she gets an adequate answer on her more specific point.
Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
On behalf of my constituents in Salford and Eccles, it is an honour to pay tribute to Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and to send our heartfelt condolences, love and prayers to her family, the royal household, all who loved her, and the nation, at this sad time. It is undeniable that she served us with unrelenting duty, dignity and kindness. Her dedication to uniting us all was a beacon of goodness throughout her long reign. She never failed to lift us up in the hard time and through the good time.
As we have heard tonight, on her 21st birthday, as a princess, she said:
“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service”.
She never broke that promise, keeping her pledge with love and warmth for more than 75 years. She really was a shining example of the best of us. May she now rest in peace. We extend our love and support to His Majesty the King as he assumes his new office, in what can only be a period of profound pain. God save the King.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. Friend very much for what he has said. One of the most important things that has confounded Vladimir Putin has not only been the heroic resistance of the Ukrainians but the unity of the rest of the world and, I must say, so far, the relative unity—the important unity—of this House.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Member very much for bringing those facts—new facts—to the attention of the House, and I know that my office has already been in touch with the group concerned to make sure that we have a proper meeting. I hope very much that she will be there, and we will be able to discuss all the issues that she has raised.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)
The pandemic has affected all communities in our country. This Government have done their utmost to protect lives and livelihoods. We have targeted economic support at those who need it most. For example, rolling out unprecedented levels of economic support worth over £200 billion has provided a much needed lifeline for those working in shut-down sectors such as retail and hospitality, the workforces in which are disproportionately young, female and from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background. We have taken action to ensure that disabled people have access to disability benefits, financial support and employment support, such as the Work and Health programme, and we have extended the self-employment income support scheme, in which some ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented.
Rebecca Long Bailey [V]
Analysis of the labour force survey by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the shut-down sectors worst affected by the pandemic have a higher than average proportion of workers who are women, who are disabled and who are from BAME backgrounds. In Salford, where this economic picture is stark, the number of people claiming universal credit has more than doubled since January. Will the Minister, first, commit to demanding that the Chancellor strengthens support to those struggling, as advised by the Social Security Advisory Committee, such as protecting the £20 universal credit uplift and extending it to people on legacy benefits? Secondly, will she request bespoke financial support packages for the worst hit sectors?
Kemi Badenoch
The hon. Lady will be aware that the Chancellor will be announcing his spending review this afternoon, and I think she will find that many of the questions she is asking will be answered at that point. With respect to the sectors that have been shut down, as I said in my first answer, we recognise that those people who are on low incomes have been disproportionately affected, and those groups are the ones who have most benefited from the interventions that the Treasury has put in place.