Strengthening the Union

Debate between Jo Platt and Stewart Malcolm McDonald

Monday 23rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jo Platt]

I will carry on, thank you.

No longer can Whitehall hold the purse strings, dictating from London investment decisions in our towns and villages. No one is better placed to assess the needs of a community than those living within it. Labour recognises this and would remedy it. Eight years of Tory rule have left our United Kingdom less united than ever before, and to understand this Government’s motives we need only look back at the last few weeks of mayhem. A crisis among the Conservatives has led to a divided party. They are warring among themselves at the expense of the country, but divide and rule is all they know; it has been typical of the last eight years. Week after week we are treated to the sight of self-serving politicians putting individual and party ambition before the needs of the country, and everyone has had enough.

In the midst of the most turbulent political time any of us can remember, it is now that the communities we serve need the leadership, the stability and the investment to reunite the United Kingdom. Labour has that plan—a plan to give power back to the many, to strengthen those powers with adequate resourcing and, most importantly, to be unafraid to entrust our local authorities, Mayors and devolved Assemblies with crucial decisions.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Platt]

I am just about to finish.

We will transform the outdated political structures of this country, ensuring that they are fit to deliver Labour’s ambition to reverse decades of growing inequality and to achieve social justice. That plan is called “For the many, not the few”, and the next Labour Government will deliver it, finally bringing power back to where it belongs—in our communities.