Education and Opportunity

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Laura Kyrke-Smith

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to address the House, and I congratulate you on your election to the Chair. I am sure that the House will want to join me in extending our deepest sympathies to my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden). I am very sorry and sad to learn of the death of his mother. I congratulate him on a wonderful maiden speech, and on speaking with such passion about our children and the potential of the next generation.

I want to pay tribute to my predecessor, Rob Butler, who I know has great affection for Aylesbury, and who served the constituency with great loyalty and good will. It is a true honour to be here as the new Member of Parliament for Aylesbury. Given that my constituency houses the county town of Buckinghamshire and has returned a long line of Conservative Members to Parliament, as might be expected from that county, I am particularly proud to be here as Aylesbury’s first ever Labour MP, and its first female MP.

My constituency is very diverse geographically; it covers the rapidly growing town of Aylesbury, many lovely villages, such as Whitchurch, Wing, Cheddington and Edlesborough, historic woodlands and farmlands, and the Chiltern hills. It also has very diverse communities, with people of Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other faiths, and people of Asian, African and Eastern European heritage, living alongside elderly residents and young people whose families have called my constituency home for many generations. We are a historic constituency, too. Britain’s oldest road, the Ridgeway, crosses through to Ivinghoe Beacon; the remains of an iron-age hill fort lie beneath Aylesbury town; and an Aylesbury constituency has existed in some form since 1554. It was from Aylesbury that John Hampden defended Parliament against Charles I in 1642, and his statue overlooking Market Square in the town centre still celebrates the parliamentary freedom that he championed. Perhaps I will not dwell for too long on our Conservative-leaning political history from then onwards, but I want to highlight three other ways in which history shapes my brilliant constituency today.

First, there is our vibrant culture. Roald Dahl made Buckinghamshire his home, and today we host the Roald Dahl children’s gallery at Discover Bucks museum. We are the birthplace of the Paralympic movement, and hosted the first competition for people with spinal injuries in Stoke Mandeville back in 1948. For decades, Aylesbury was home to the iconic Friars nightclub, where acts like Queen and U2 performed. David Bowie’s first performance of “Ziggy Stardust” there is now marked in the town by a bronze sculpture, which bursts into song, catching visitors by surprise.

Secondly, my constituency has a history of offering a friendly welcome, including to many evacuees from London in world war two and the exiled Czech Government, who operated out of Old Manor House, between Wingrave and Aston Abbotts. You can still see the bus shelter that the Czech President instructed to be built on that road, having taken pity on the local schoolchildren waiting in the rain. We have seen the same welcome to many people who have moved into the constituency in recent decades, and particularly into the many new housing developments in the area.

Thirdly, I want to highlight the inequalities in income and wealth that exist in the constituency. Members of this House may be surprised to hear that Aylesbury has high levels of deprivation. In fact, one in eight children in the town live in poverty, and we have always had a history of people struggling to get by on a low wage in the print and car factories, or as agricultural labourers. I pay tribute to the local food banks and to fantastic charities like Youth Concern and Aylesbury Homeless Action Group, which make life more manageable for those who are struggling most today, but they should not have to exist.

That takes me to the four points that I will prioritise as the Member for Aylesbury, and to the reason why I wanted to speak in today’s debate on education and opportunity. Above all, I want my constituents to feel a sense of opportunity and optimism again. First, I will focus on the desperate need to improve healthcare. We are home to Stoke Mandeville hospital, where my son was born, and its internationally renowned spinal injuries unit. I have the deepest respect for everyone who works in the healthcare sector across the constituency, but we have to make it possible for people to get basic healthcare and to see their GP again, and we have to tackle the awful and pervasive mental health crisis in my constituency and across the country. One of my most brilliant and best friends, Sophie Middlemiss, is not here to witness this moment of great change and opportunity for our country, because she took her own life when her little girl was 10 weeks old. I do not want anyone to suffer from post-natal depression and anxiety in the way that she did, and I will fight to get better help for people in her situation.

Secondly, I will focus on education for our children, and I will fight to ensure that all children, whatever their background and circumstances, get the opportunities that they deserve in life. I am particularly concerned about SEND children—I am pleased to have heard a lot about that in the House today—and their parents, families, carers and teachers, who are not getting anything like the support they deserve. That has to change.

Thirdly, I will help our businesses to thrive. I will support the small businesses that I hope will be part of a revival of Aylesbury town centre. We have to make it a safe and attractive place to spend time again, and we have to make it possible to get in, across and out of town without spending hours in traffic. I will also support the farming businesses in the rural parts of our constituency, within a wider, careful approach to protecting and managing our nature-rich and agricultural lands.

Finally, I come to this job conscious not just of the challenges and the opportunities for my constituency and my country, but of the very challenging moment that we are in globally. Before coming to Parliament I was leading a humanitarian aid agency, and I will continue to be a voice for, and do right by, the most vulnerable people around the world. There are record numbers of people caught up in conflict and crisis, at a time when geopolitical rivalry is on the rise and the global institutions set up after world war two no longer offer the protections that they used to. A strong and principled Britain can make a real difference in the world, and I know this matters to my constituents, most pressingly in their concerns about the awful suffering in Gaza and the suffering of the Israeli hostages and their families.

Let me conclude with one final point. I mentioned that Aylesbury is home to the Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery, so I will end with some inspiration from Matilda, perhaps Roald Dahl’s finest character—certainly that is my daughter’s view. Matilda said:

“Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.”

Every day, in this place of power, we all make choices. I will know if I have made the right choices if people in crisis around the world and, most importantly, people struggling in my constituency tell me that I have played my part in making a positive difference to their lives.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Emily Darlington to make her maiden speech.