Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alan Strickland and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that absolutely harrowing case. It is important that all the lessons are learnt. An independent process is taking place, but we must be clear about the need to overhaul children’s social care to keep young people safe, and to look again at the framework for home schooling, among other things. We do need to learn those lessons, and we are taking steps. There is a process going on at the moment, and I will update the House in due course.

[Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)]

May I thank the Prime Minister for the leadership that he has shown in securing the half-a-billion-pound deal to secure the future of the Hitachi rail factory in my constituency—a factory left in the lurch by the Conservative party for years? Does he agree that what we also need is a long-term plan for our proud high-tech rail manufacturing to drag it out of the mire that it was left in by the Tories?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The Conservatives really should not groan. I went up to the Hitachi factory earlier this year, before the election. The workforce were extremely anxious about the situation, because they feared that there would be a gap between contracts—[Interruption.] That gap would have meant that people were going to get laid off, and the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) is chuntering from a sitting position, unable to understand the impact on working people.

The workforce were extremely anxious about the situation when I saw them, because they knew that if their colleagues were laid off, it would be bad for their colleagues and their community, and it would mean that they might go and get other jobs and not be able to come back if there was a new contract. I said then that I would do everything I could to ensure that we filled that gap, and I am very pleased that just the other week we were able to say that we have and that there is a contract. I went back up there to speak to the same workforce, and they were very pleased that they now do not have those anxieties. The Conservatives should be ashamed of their chuntering.