Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

This Queen’s Speech was an opportunity to meet the profound challenges we face after the pain and turmoil of the last year, to address the deep-seated inequalities embedded in our communities throughout a decade of Conservative rule, and to create a plan to rebuild our country, secure the economy and create jobs for today and tomorrow across all parts of our country.

But this Government’s plan was a lost opportunity—a lost opportunity to take steps to invest in and create the secure, green, well-paid jobs of the future and the here and now; a lost opportunity to deliver for families and boost communities such as those in my constituency, from Pontprennau to Tongwynlais; and a lost opportunity to put a plan in place to enable young people across the country to thrive and build the skills they need. That is what my constituents in Cardiff North wanted to see. There was nothing on welfare security beyond this autumn, when business support and the uplift in universal credit will come to an end, and nothing for the excluded 3 million, who have been continuously let down by this Government.

The Government’s plan offers nothing to end scandalous fire and rehire tactics. The Prime Minister told me in November that these were, in his own words, “unacceptable” and that his Government would seek “redress”. That sums up this Prime Minister and his Government’s proposals for the country—always hoping, never delivering, and never addressing the many systemic issues raised in this House, from jobs to health, levelling up and climate action. Always heavy on the spin but light on action.

Rhetoric does not put food on the table for my constituents. It does not create secure jobs that allow people to raise a family without having to take on a second or third job. This Tory Government’s plan neither relieves nor frees people from indignity or inequality. It does not speak, either, to people’s hopes and aspirations to thrive and succeed on their own terms, or to the country and the conditions they want for themselves, their children and the future of their communities. What a wasted opportunity.

Instead, I look closer to home, back in Wales, at the fantastic job that the Welsh Labour Government are doing, with 150,000 jobs protected over the past year, 100,000 proper apprenticeships created, rail back in public ownership, and the public investment of Dŵr Cymru in customers, not profit. I look at a Welsh Labour Government who are delivering free school meals during the holidays, no questions asked; the abolition of prescription charges; the most generous childcare offer across the UK, and the promise of more. What we needed in this plan was real, transformative change that challenged the baked-in inequalities and provided a real way forward.