Summer Adjournment

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and add my congratulations to you. At this juncture, I would normally be sitting at home or in the Chamber watching and hoping that someone would thank the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating the debate, but for me to do that seems hardly appropriate.

Dunston coal staiths in my Gateshead constituency are, at over 600 metres long, a huge timber construction dating from 1893. They were significantly renovated for the Gateshead garden festival in 1990, when they were on show for all to see and really looked splendid. Sadly, in recent years, this significant monument to Tyneside and the coal industry’s industrial heritage has been subjected to several arson attacks. From the structure, as much as 140,000 tonnes of coal per week were shipped to places further afield, along with coke from the coking works at Norwood in Team Valley and the Redheugh gas works nearby. So, when someone says, “That would be like taking coals to Newcastle,” they probably mean Gateshead.

The Dunston staiths, at almost 130 years old, are a spectacular part of our industrial heritage and need to be rebuilt and refurbished, but heroic local fundraising efforts are hardly scratching the surface to repair the damage. The staiths should be rebuilt and maintained properly, but it will take Government support to do that properly. I really look forward to the day when I can meet the Minister from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to discuss how we will do that for this important industrial structure.

Earlier this week, my attention was drawn to a letter to the Chancellor, written with extreme concern, about the proposal to withdraw the £20 per week uplift to universal credit. That will impact disastrously on 34% of all working-age households across the north-east of England, where households already languish well below the national averages for individual and household income. The letter was signed by, among others, nine chief executive officers of citizens advice bureaux in the north-east region, the director of the North East Child Poverty Commission, the Bishop of Durham, the regional secretary of the TUC and the chief executive of the North East England chamber of commerce. Their appeal should be heeded, or the slogan of levelling up will start to ring very hollow indeed among the poorer people of the north-east of England.

It was hoped that last year’s stalled takeover of Newcastle United would rescue the club from the clutches of the current owner, Mike Ashley. The issue has been referred to arbitration. Many of my Newcastle-supporting constituents have contacted me and colleagues, desperate for a positive outcome. Sadly, with the proposed takeover having already gone on for 15 or 16 months, we heard earlier this week that the arbitration hearing has been adjourned until early 2022. Meanwhile, it seems that Richard Masters, the chief executive officer of the Premier League, has point blank refused to answer questions, severely calling into question the Premier League’s transparency, integrity and capacity to act honestly on behalf of its main customers, the fans of clubs across the country.

The fact that the Premier League’s administrators took in the disgraceful “project big picture” and the proposal supported by six clubs to help form a European super league raises questions about who the administrators are working for in reality. Again, it is clearly not football fans—the paying customers. The fan-led review of football governance is under way, and it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so let us not spurn it.

I am afraid to say that, particularly here in the north-east of England, the pandemic has not gone away. In my constituency’s hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, we currently have more than 50 covid-positive patients and, sadly, in the seven days to 15 July, four died. Between 600 and 1,000 people per 100,000 population are testing positive in every part of the LA7 area—Northumberland, Durham, and Tyne and Wear—so I urge my constituents and the people of the north-east to do not what they can or are told to do, but what they should do and help keep themselves, their families and their communities safe.

I urge all Members and all staff across the House to stay safe and have a good summer—they all deserve it.