State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Helen Goodman

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I despair, because having stood at this Dispatch Box, led for the Opposition in Westminster Hall debates and worked on the Pension Schemes Bill, with the matter before us taking centre stage, I have spoken about this issue, like a lot of other Members, many times. However, it is not the Scottish National party that I blame for that, nor is it members of the Labour party, and it is definitely not the ’50s-born women who have been energetic, consistent and strong in pushing this issue.

The Conservative party is the reason we are debating this topic yet again, but we know that many Conservative MPs pledged their support for these women by making speeches, by taking up photo opportunities, and by becoming members of the all-party group. A few months ago, I stood here and highlighted the fact that there were no fewer than 37 of them. Among them are the hon. Members for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), for Salisbury (John Glen), for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan)—that is just nine of them.

This weak Government continue to stick their head in the sand and hope that the issue will go away. I do not know how many more times I or anyone else has to say this to the Minister: the issue is not going away.

I am frustrated and impatient that we are yet again debating this topic when the Government could do something to fix the problem right now. I do not understand the politics of why the Government refuse to address it. They angered the older generation during the general election, and look what happened: their huge predicted majority failed to materialise, and now they are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is making a very good case. As a 1950s woman, I am extremely sympathetic to the 4,000 WASPI women in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that what the Government have failed to understand is that some of these women have been working since they were 15?

[Alex Cunningham]

That is most certainly the case, and the Government need to understand that. My wife herself has been working since that young age.

For some reason, the Government persist in pushing huge numbers of ’50s-born women into financial difficulty and distress. It is time for the Government to put their pride aside and do what is right.

Public Forest Estate (England)

Debate between Alex Cunningham and Helen Goodman

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on introducing the debate, because it is absolutely clear that the way in which Ministers incorporated the power to sell the forests in the Public Bodies Bill was designed to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. Furthermore, the Bill was published before the consultation document, which I suppose we can take to be part of the Maoist approach that the Government are now taking to the management of public business.

Hamsterley forest, in my constituency, is a Forestry Commission forest that has 200,000 visitors every year. It is the largest forest in County Durham and includes two sites of special scientific interest, Low Redford meadows and Frog Wood bog. A huge number of my constituents are concerned about what is going on, and they are right to be concerned.

One of the most important points about people being able to visit forests is that it makes them a source of economic regeneration. That is absolutely vital in many parts of the country. People need access for physical and spiritual restoration. What is the point of the Prime Minister giving speeches on the importance of well-being when he denies people access to the sources of well-being? He said in November last year about well-being:

“I am excited about this because it’s one of those things you talk about in opposition, and people think ‘well of course, you say these things in opposition, but when you get into government you’ll never actually do anything about it’”.

But the reality is on page 42 of the impact assessment that the Secretary of State published last week, which states that the Government

“did not see it necessary to carry out a Health and Wellbeing Impact Test, because if access is reduced at preferred woodland it is likely users would substitute their preferred woodland for another”.

In other words, “Your wood is closed, go to the one 60 miles away.”

The main problem with what the Secretary of State is doing is that she does not seem to understand the importance of landscape in developing our national consciousness and identity. She has seriously misjudged the national mood. In his wonderful book “Landscape and Memory”, Simon Schama writes:

“If the entire history of landscape is indeed just a mindless race towards a machine driven universe, uncomplicated by myth, metaphor and allegory, where measurement not memory is the absolute arbiter of value, then we are indeed trapped in the engine of our self-destruction.”

He illustrates that point with a poster from world war two of somebody walking through the countryside, and the caption is, “Your Britain—fight for it now”. That is true today, as well. Do the Secretary of State and other Ministers think it is an accident that Robin Hood has such a hold over the imagination of the nation’s children? Of course it is not. It is because every child knows what eludes Ministers—that the forest is a place where we can be free. The Secretary of State evidently wants to take on the role of the sheriff of Nottingham.

Since 1500, the central argument on the true purpose of the nation’s forests has been the same. It is a question of development or conservation. The Prime Minister is not the first to see the value of green photo opportunities. Charles I was always sure to be painted under a spreading oak tree. The similarity between them does not end there; Charles I was the last king to sell the Forest of Dean. The Prime Minister should reflect on what happened to him after that.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is the one who promised the north-east that the region would suffer more than most from Tory policies. The Forestry Commission owns 67,000 hectares of forest in the region, more than anywhere else in the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have abandoned the people of the north-east, and now want to sell or give away their forest heritage and their play places?