Budget Responsibility Bill

Amanda Martin Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Chairman]

I call Amanda Martin to make her maiden speech.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Ms Ghani. I start by commending my hon. Friends for their impassioned speeches, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher). He will be pleased to know that I will not be a contender this year in the competition that he mentioned. Maybe later, menopause depending.

It is a huge honour to stand before you today as the newly elected Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North. This moment is not lost on me; I am filled with immense emotion at the thought of representing the place where everyone I love lives. Portsmouth is a city rich in history, innovation and, most importantly, community spirit and pride. It is also a place of firsts. Throughout our city’s storied history, we have been pioneers in many fields, be it shipbuilding, maritime trade or cultural advancement. Portsmouth has always led the way, and it is that spirit of innovation that I intend to champion while in this House.

I am deeply humbled to make my maiden speech in this debate highlighting the importance of fiscal standards, because during the election campaign so many people told me that their mortgage had gone through the roof, or that they had lost the ability to buy or rent their first home, or indeed any home, because of the actions of the last Government.

I understand personally what it is like when a full-time job does not even cover the bills. My gramps was a train driver. He taught me the importance of hard work and public service. He introduced me to the trade union movement and to the Labour party, which I am proud to say have been at the centre of my adult life. My mum was a factory seamstress and my dad was a plumber and then a police officer. As a kid, times were tough, but our house was always full of love, humour and determination. My dad worked three jobs and my mum set about making childhood the very best it could be. My gramps navigated the tracks with precision and care, my mum sewed with love, and my dad served his community. I know I will bring the same attitude to my time in this House, because the opportunity here is so very precious.

Like so many of my colleagues on the Government Benches, I was the first in my family to go to university and the first to become a teacher, but thankfully not the last to enter what I still deem to be the very best profession in the world. The right education really does empower young people and give them belief and the opportunity to succeed, whatever their background and circumstances. I am so very proud to be part of a Government who will bring down the barriers to opportunity and tackle child poverty, working across Departments to ensure that all kids get the best start in life.

Having been a teacher for 24 years, I know that not everyone has the start in life that I feel privileged to have had. Being allowed to try things and fail was a great lesson. My working-class background means that I sometimes seem a bit impatient. This is because I know that people from my background must fight harder, and do not often get a second chance, so they have to seize every opportunity as it arises. As an MP, I want to champion children and young people from all backgrounds across my city, so that they are given every chance to succeed and fulfil their potential, whatever that may be and wherever that may take them. The children and young people in Portsmouth deserve nothing less.

Portsmouth, as I have said, is a city of firsts. The first dry dock in the world was built there in 1495. The first ragged school was established there in the name of John Pounds in 1818. We were the first to have a steam railway in 1837, and the first co-operative society in Britain was set up there in 1796 by dockyard workers fed up with being ripped off by local tradesmen. The first oil-fired HMS Queen Elizabeth was built there in 1913; the second ship is very close to my heart. In 1956, the first football league game played under floodlights took place there; it was Portsmouth versus Newcastle. In 2024, the Portsmouth women’s football club turned professional for the first time. Another first is the nursery on Whale Island’s naval base; it is pioneering a brilliant programme to help children deal with separation and the unique challenges of having a parent in the military who is serving away.

Portsmouth also produced the first female Secretary of State for Defence, and as I raise this first, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor. Penny Mordaunt’s service to our city, and particularly her role in the coronation of our King, is to be celebrated. In this House she had many roles in Government. She has always championed the Royal Navy, and from what I hear, she loved her time in the parliamentary hairdressers’. However, the sword now passes to me, and I will continue her lead as I champion our Royal Navy and our great city, both here and at home.

Now for my final first for our great city. For the first time in our city’s history, both Portsmouth MPs are Labour MPs. We build on the work of our predecessors: Lord Frank Judd; Sarah McCarthy-Fry; and my very dear friend, mentor and freeman of our city, Syd Rapson. Together, my good friend the new Minister with responsibility for early education, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), and I will work night and day to be champions of change for the city we call home, Portsmouth.

I am so very proud of the positive campaign we ran in Portsmouth North. We unashamedly focused on the need for opportunity and for real change. I want to put on record my thanks to the many people who helped me get here, including the Pompey Belles, my amazing family of 17, friends and the dozens of volunteers from Portsmouth Labour and beyond.

As I begin my journey in this House, I know that the need for change has never been so great. As this debate highlights, after 14 years of Tory rule, there are so many uncertainties for the people in my city. People are struggling; the money just does not go far enough. Schools are underfunded and understaffed. Appointments in primary care, the NHS and dentistry are, in some areas, almost impossible to get. Youth services outside the voluntary sector stretch only to offering support with probation. Our high streets are a mess, and housing is in complete chaos.

However, not everything is about money and pay. This is about pride. Pompey people are proud people. They do not shout about successes, unless they are in football. They rarely grumble—equally, unless it is about football. Many of them just get their heads down, roll up their sleeves and get on with it, and many feel betrayed and let down by those who should have been there for them. For some, trust in politicians has disappeared, and I can understand why. People on the doorstep and in the street are wary and fed up with broken promises. Many feel alone, isolated and betrayed. Coming from one of the most trusted professions in the country to one of the least, I get it. I know that, as the MP for Portsmouth North, the chance for opportunity and real change lies with me—real change, that people can see, feel and be part of; positive change that they can proudly shout about. As Alan Ball said,

“This is Portsmouth, people went to war from this city”.

It is a city that deserves the very best, and I aim to give my very best in representing and serving it.

What of the city of Portsmouth? We officially turn 100 years old in 2026, and a raft of famous figures have helped shape our city, including Charles Dickens, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and James Callaghan, a Labour Prime Minister in whose honour I hope next year to secure a blue plaque. As rich in culture as our city is, it is also full of unsung people who should be right up there with the famous people I listed. These include—this is in no way an exhaustive list—Shamila from Portsmouth City of Sanctuary, Roni at Pamodzi, Isabelle from Loaves of Love, Laura at STEMunity and Mandy, an award-winning community volunteer. They are just a few of the people in my city making it great.

I feel extremely privileged to have seven magnificent wards in my constituency, and to have lived, worked or had family and friends in every single one of them. They are all special and unique in their own right, from Paulsgrove, Drayton and Farlington to Cosham, Hilsea and Nelson, and Copnor and Baffins. They are also all very much Pompey, and when you walk down the street it would not be uncommon to hear, “Oi, mush, don’t be a squinny”, or “Oi, you loon”, or “din”.

As a whole, Portsmouth North is made up of those magnificent seven wards, with 70,000 constituents, 35 schools, our brilliant Queen Alexandra hospital, 11 GP practices, hundreds of charities, small, family-run, large, regional and national businesses, a municipal and thriving international ferry port, seven allotments, 27 pubs, one mobile and four static libraries, a shoreline, the best view in the world to watch the sun rise or set at Portsdown hill with a cracking burger van, a pond, a marshland, a forest—albeit a mini one—and the training ground for the football club who are simply the best. As a season ticket holder and a trust board member, it is sad to say that Fratton Park resides in the south of my city, but I get the brilliantly named John Jenkins training ground.