Public Services

Debate between Angela Rayner and Ranil Jayawardena

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The reason for the tone of my speech and for my upset is the Prime Minister describing my constituents as “letterboxes”, and then my constituents suffer racism on our streets. That is why I get passionate about what is happening on our streets and why I will not defend the cuts to our police services, when police officers in my constituency have faced attacks and cuts, and the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary come here saying that we are getting more police when they have cut the police in the first place. That makes me pretty passionate about what is happening in our northern working-class areas. We will not be hoodwinked by people who believe that they know better for our constituents, who I came here to represent, and that somehow I have lost my way and that I do not care about the people in the north any more. The truth is that the Prime Minister has never cared about the people in the north.

Take the Home Secretary’s Department: the Conservatives were once the party of law and order. Even her hero, Thatcher, did not cut the police, yet they have suffered the worst cuts in their history under her party. She claims that she is recruiting 20,000 new police. The truth is that she has not even restored what her Government have cut. That is the reality of a Tory Government—more crime and less police—and those who have suffered the most from the cuts are those who are already worse off.

[Mr Jayawardena]

If the hon. Lady is so passionate about increasing police numbers, why did Labour vote against making another £970 million available for extra police?

[Angela Rayner]

The Conservative party is very good at trying to do spin, but everybody knows that a Labour Government will invest in our public services and our police. They also know that you cannot trust a Tory with public services.

Take the victims of the Windrush scandal: people who have spent their lives as citizens, working and paying their taxes, only for the Home Secretary’s Government to ruin those lives with their incompetence and contempt. This week’s Windrush Bill is yet another insult: a tortuous process to get adequate compensation, with elderly victims literally dying while the Government drag their feet. We know what she thinks of the working people in Britain from her book, “Britannia Unchained”:

“the worst idlers in the world”,

she called us. This Government have cut every bit of support for ordinary working people, while shovelling endless sums to big business, the banks and the billionaires. The simple truth is that they are the party for the tax dodgers, not the taxpayers. They are not standing up to the elite; they are the elite, and their shameful gesture politics will—