Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are looking exactly at how local communities can benefit when new infrastructure is in their vicinity, as part of our new plan for increased energy security. May I commend my hon. Friend’s local area for the contribution it is making to our clean energy transition? It is a great example of this country’s fantastic track record in delivering net zero and decarbonising faster than any other major economy, not something we will hear from the Labour party, but something that those of us on the Government Benches are very proud of.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Q7. The Government failed in their legal duty to publish a report on spiking by April, stating that they were reconsidering whether their rationale for not introducing a specific offence for spiking was sound. Will the Prime Minister clarify when and if the spiking report will ever be published? Does he agree with me and colleagues right across the House that the only sound approach to this issue is to create a specific criminal offence for spiking?

[The Prime Minister]

This issue has been reviewed by legal police colleagues. My latest understanding is that existing laws did cover the offence of spiking, but I am happy, of course, to ensure that the hon. Lady gets a letter that explains the position.

Security Update

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for recognising the evolution and strengthening of our approach to China—I will not add to what I have said on that. We continue to enhance our capability in relation to China. I have outlined a number of the measures that we take; we continue to keep all those things under review. I want to reassure him and other Members on both sides of the House that we are absolutely clear about the threat that China represents, but at the same time, it is right that we engage with China, and that is the approach that we are taking, alongside working closely with our allies. I think that is a sensible and balanced approach that in no way underestimates the scale of the challenge in respect of China, as has been set out in numerous documents.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

An attack on this place, including on Members, by any hostile Government intent on interfering with our democracy and its structures is a direct affront to British democracy itself. Given that several Members of this place have been sanctioned by China, can the Deputy Prime Minister give the House assurances that steps are in place to support and protect Members from hostile Governments, and will he make it clear that there are consequences, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) outlined?

Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. friend is absolutely right. We should forever be grateful to all those service personnel who participated in the British nuclear testing programme. I can reassure him that we have asked officials to look again at recognition with medals. Any recommendations will be announced in the usual way.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Q12. Seven years ago, in my first PMQs, a Conservative Prime Minister told me to stop “griping” and “get behind” his rail investment plans. A few weeks ago, the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said that there “wasn’t really much point” in going ahead with Northern Powerhouse Rail. Time and again, Tory Prime Ministers have promised NPR only to break their promises. Will the Deputy Prime Minister now put on the record whether he supports Transport for the North’s preferred option for NPR, with a stop in Bradford?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I can tell the hon. Lady that our £96 billion integrated rail plan will make Northern Powerhouse Rail a reality. We are committed to the project; the precise details will be set out in due course.

Health and Social Care Update

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is right to appreciate those hubs. It is fair to say that we have not responded to that bid, but my Ministers will address it very soon.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her new role. With nine out of 10 dental practices in England not accepting new NHS patients and over 2,000 dentists having left the NHS in the past year alone, NHS dentistry is in crisis. While today’s small changes are welcome, as were the minor tweaks announced back in July, they are underwhelming given the scale of the crisis. When will the Secretary of State complete a full reform of the contract, with prevention at its heart, so that my constituents can access an NHS dentist when they need one?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I completely agree with her: it is a real problem. We have started making some changes already, but we need to do so in more detail right across the country. My hon. Friend the Minister responsible for dentistry will be looking into that more intensively.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty The Queen

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I rise to speak with great sadness to pay tribute on behalf of myself and my constituents to Her late Majesty the Queen, as our Head of State for 70 years, our longest-serving monarch, with an unrivalled sense of duty in serving her people. It is that great sense of dedication and devoted duty to her people for which she is loved, cherished and remembered.

Her late Majesty had a role in so many events that defined our lives, both as Head of State and as a symbol of the values that we hold so dear as a nation. Her late Majesty was more than our Queen; she was part of our everyday lives, visiting cities and towns across Britain, the Commonwealth and the world, including her five visits to Bradford. She was woven into the very fabric of our society.

In my constituency, the Queen will be remembered for representing the very best of Britain. She provided the glue that held the nation together through these difficult times, providing continuity and certainty to the nation, often through turbulent and changing times. A Queen for all people, regardless of faith or culture; the grandmother of a nation; a loving mother, grandmother and great-grandmother—a family and a nation mourn the passing of a much loved, admired and dedicated public servant who was our Queen. May she rest in peace. God save the King.

Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This Government are building a record number of hospitals—a total of 48—across the country. I am forbidden, unfortunately, from pre-empting the application process that I know my hon. Friend’s wonderful hospital is going through, but I wish him every possible success.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Q2. The situation in Ukraine continues to appal most of the world and shame the rest—and, importantly, highlights the need to break our economic dependency both on Russia and on China. Does the Prime Minister agree that our national security must be protected, and our food, energy, fibre and national infrastructure must be secure, both now and in the future, from hostile Governments? Specifically, will he commit to the real hydrogen strategy that both industry and trade unions such as the GMB are calling for by doubling the hydrogen production target for 2030?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her very far-sighted question. That is exactly what we should be doing. We are moving to much more energy resilience and self-reliance. It was a shame that Labour cancelled so much of our nuclear power while it was in government—or failed to develop it. The agenda that she is setting is absolutely right, including on hydrogen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Some of the sectors most impacted by covid, such as the arts and hospitality, include a high proportion of women-led businesses. She will be aware of the targeted measures to help these sectors that were announced just last month by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, including one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises for the hospitality sector and £30 million through the culture recovery fund. That support will help female entrepreneurs to keep trading through the current difficulties and make the most of future opportunities as they look forward to the end of the pandemic.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

7. What progress the Government have made on their response to young women being spiked by injection in nightclubs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

The abhorrent crimes of spiking also speak to broader issues of violence against women and girls, which is taken extremely seriously by this Government. The Home Secretary has already asked the National Police Chiefs’ Council to urgently review the extent and scale of the issue, and she is receiving regular updates from the police. The hon. Lady will know that we are delivering a pilot £5 million safety of women at night fund, which focuses on preventing violence against women and girls in the night-time economy, keeping them safe in public spaces at night.

[Judith Cummins]

Many girls and women are afraid of enjoying a night out or going to a music festival for fear of being spiked, raped and assaulted. What work is the Minister doing with venues such as bars, nightclubs and music festivals to prevent that from happening and to ensure that appropriate safeguarding measures are in place, and what is the assessment of the scale of the problem at those venues?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady raises a really good point. Those in the night-time economy play a key role and are taking their responsibilities seriously. The Government work very closely with them, and we are providing funding and helping them provide training to their staff so that women can feel safe at night. It is vital that the funding we are providing is being used by local authorities to provide, for example, testing kits and taxi marshals to get women home safely at night. Police are also ramping up their forensic capabilities. There is a lot of work going on.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is welcome that the Chancellor has committed to keeping key elements of the support packages in place until September, but businesses and families in my constituency need certainty that they will not once again be placed into local restrictions that hurt our local economy, because last week the Prime Minister left open the possibility of returning to local restrictions in order to contain new variants. I urge the Government to deal with this national crisis with national measures.

During the local lockdown in Bradford, we had the perverse situation of people being able to travel to nearby areas to shop, have beauty treatments and go to the gym, all while our local businesses were forced to close. Closing local economies in this way causes permanent economic damage, and many of our businesses may never recover. This unfairness must not be allowed to happen again. Instead, we need a plan for unlocking and recovery; a plan that closes rather than widens the growing gaps in our economy. That is not what this Budget delivers.

On the issue of rebalancing our economy, I was disappointed to see no commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail in this Budget. Nothing is more critical to Bradford’s long-term economic success than securing the Northern Powerhouse Rail line with a city centre stop in Bradford. In recent years, I have asked Ministers 11 times to confirm that this transformational project will go ahead and, crucially, that it would include Bradford. Time and again Ministers have responded with warm words but no action, and now I worry that we are seeing emerging evidence of this Government backing away from their previous commitments to invest in my region and my city. First, the Government asked Transport for the North not to submit its outline strategic business case, as was planned. Then there are suggestions in the media that the Government are considering a cheaper route that bypasses Bradford, does not include a city centre stop and does not even involve a new line at all. Let me be very clear: upgrading existing lines will not fulfil the manifesto promise that the Government made, nor will it provide the infrastructure improvements that the great cities of the north need. A route that misses out Bradford would be a huge mistake. That matters for opening up our economy, for rebalancing our economy and for the job prospects and opportunities for the people in my constituency. It is time for the Government to deliver.

Covid-19 Update

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab) [V]]

Office for National Statistics data shows that key workers and those in manual and public-facing jobs are at the highest risk of dying from coronavirus. Bradford is a key worker city, and tragically, more than 1,000 Bradfordians have now died from the virus. When the most vulnerable groups have been vaccinated, will the Prime Minister ensure that priority is given to frontline workers who have played such a key role in keeping the country going during the pandemic, often with a high risk to their personal safety, including police officers, teachers, shop workers, bus and taxi drivers and many others who are unable to work from home? When will he publish his plan for the next stage of the vaccine roll-out?

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on being so much more sensible than her party leader, who is saying that he wants to interrupt the vaccine roll-out for the vulnerable groups and decide politically who should get the vaccine. I think we should leave it to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to decide the most vulnerable groups. That is what we are going to do. That is the fastest way to deal with those who are most likely to die. I saw that she was shaking her head; she perhaps disagrees with the suggestion that she has just made, but I think that it is an excellent suggestion, and she should stick to it.

Public Health

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Given the near crisis point in the capacity and the ability of the NHS to cope with rising cases and hospital admissions across the country, I believe that action is necessary. I am, however, at a loss as to why the Government have acted so late. This has led to more cases and ultimately more deaths, and means that we now need a longer lock- down that will have a huge human and economic cost.

For weeks we have seen the evidence pointing to a growing second wave of the virus, not just in areas like Bradford, which has been subject to restrictions for months, but right across the country. I know these are difficult decisions for the Government to make. However, weeks ago the Leader of the Opposition called for a circuit-breaker lockdown, in line with SAGE advice. The Government chose not just to ignore that but to ridicule it. Had it been enacted then, that short lockdown coinciding with half-term could have put a brake on the virus at a critical moment. We would have been spared some of the pain and hardship we are now facing. Now we are facing a potentially open-ended lockdown, with Ministers unable to confirm when it will end. Businesses will be shut for longer, families will be separated, and mental and physical health will suffer. The economic and social cost of lockdown has been made worse by the Government’s failure to act earlier.

In West Yorkshire, things have been even more chaotic. The Government announced last Thursday that our region would go into tier 3 from the following Monday. At that point, Ministers repeatedly denied that the country was facing a national lockdown. Businesses and families across the region began to prepare for the new restrictions. Yet the very next day—the very next day—the national lockdown was leaked to the press and it was announced that West Yorkshire would stay in tier 2 until the lockdown. Over recent weeks, the Government have treated the people of the north with utter contempt, and this is just the latest example in a long and sorry saga. The Government must commit to honouring the financial commitment they made to the people and businesses of West Yorkshire when the tier 3 agreement was made.

I turn to a couple of specific points. The Government need to plan and to deal with social isolation and loneliness, particularly among older people and those with caring responsibilities. Many of my constituents across many faiths have asked me to tell the Government and the Prime Minister that collective acts of worship are essential and should not be made illegal by any Government: they are an essential part of their faith and an essential part of their lives. I ask the Government to reconsider the ban on collective worship. The Government should also look at how gyms and other sports facilities can be reopened safely. Again, this is essential for maintaining mental and physical health through these long and difficult winter months.

Finally, the Government need to plan for getting out of this lockdown and dealing with the economic consequences. The lack of an impact assessment of these regulations, and the subsequent cost to jobs and businesses, is simply neglectful, because areas like Bradford will suffer most if, at the end of the lockdown, we return to a new set of local restrictions when many businesses will simply not survive. There needs to be an absolute focus in Government on saving and creating jobs, because without this, the consequences for my constituents will be devastating. So I say to the Government: do not waste this time; use it to get a grip on the virus and begin planning for our economic recovery. A failure to do so will lead to a prolonging of the lockdown and all the human, social and economic harm that that brings.